Corporate Website and Portal as Source of Competitive Intelligence : Roche

[2010]

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Introduction According to Scott Beagrie, 2004, corporate website can be regarded as one of the sources of competitive intelligence that can be considered by the competitive intelligence analyst. This has been supported by David Campbell, 2004, who proclaimed that corporate website is one of the greatly reliable sources of information that keeps abreast with the companys products and services as well as approach to brands and marketing. This will enables the information to be analysed and translated into desirable and applicable competitive intelligence which can be utilized for the competitive advantage of the company. Thus, the competitive intelligence has been generated based on the available information that can be inspected as the Roches strength which acquired in the corporate website. The generation of that competitive intelligence will covers the intelligence of Roches strength relating to market, partner, competitor, technical, and customer/prospect in which it represents the competitive intelligence categories proposed by David Campbell.

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Market Intelligence Essentially, it is clearly stated in the company portrait that Roche is going for the personalized healthcare industry. In fact, it is also clearly exemplified that Roche is a driving force behind this trend and has already produced several personalised healthcare products on the market. This is because the global pharmaceutical market is visibly shifting away from one size fits all products to products of personalized healthcare which concerned with the differences in biological results of treatments towards different patients. Therefore, the idea of personalized healthcare to satisfy these differences at the molecular level has been served by the development and diagnosis of the tailored treatments on the needs of specific patients by Roche. As the result, Roches market intelligence maps out the intelligence regarding to Roches industry level information on the trends of personalized healthcare to the business strategies, which can be outlined as the strength of this company. As the prime objective of Roche is to provide personalized healthcare solutions which deliver superior options for diagnosis and treatment to clinicians and patients, it can be observed how much effort being done by Roche to conquer the market of personalized
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Corporate Website and Portal as Source of Competitive Intelligence : Roche

[2010]

healthcare. While the full potential of personalized healthcare will only be realized in a stepwise fashion, Roche has already developed a number of successful products in the market such as breast cancer drug Herceptin in Oncology which has been on the market for ten years as well as Pegasys and Copegus combination therapy for chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection in Virology.

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Partner Intelligence Particularly, Roches partner intelligence maps out the intelligence relating to the strategic information on Roches high-potential partners and allies, which can be sketched as the Roches strength. This will refer to 80 independent partners that augment Roches strong R&D capabilities throughout the pharmaceutical industry. In the process of nurturing and fostering these high-potential partnerships, Roche has tailoring deals for each partners, aligning goals and expectations for both partners, creating governance structures, ensuring adequate provision for financial and operational resources, as well as allocating fair compensation for respective risks and contributions. In fact, Roche has emphasizing partnership as the way to find the best alliances based on strategic and cultural fits as well as product opportunities in five major areas which are Oncology, Virology, CNS, metabolism, and inflammation. Thus, it is revealed that one of the Roches high-potential partners which provide product opportunities in Oncology is Plexxikon Company in which one of the successful Oncology-related-project concentrates on RG 72049 diagnostics. At the first stage, Roche Molecular Diagnostics has developed BRAF V600 Assay. In parallel, the development of BRAF V600 Assay has enabled the investigators to identify melanoma patients that will benefit from RG 72049 which is a candidate drug and diagnostic test in co-development for metastatic melanoma that being developed by Roche and Plexxikon for promising pipeline project collaboration. In addition, it is also revealed that Roche has strategic partnership with Intermune for the commitment to HCV in which Intermune's HCV protease inhibitor programme complements Roche's pipeline and expertise in Virology. Moreover, it is also revealed that Roche has strategic partnership with Synosia for the commitment to innovative asset management in which both of the companies are corresponding providing CNS compounds and indications. All in all, it can be outlined that all of these companies contributes to the areas of
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Corporate Website and Portal as Source of Competitive Intelligence : Roche

[2010]

Oncology, Virology, and CNS which encompass three from five major areas that Roche trying to conquer. Therefore, it can be outlined that Roche has successfully benefited from these partnerships since they are able to satisfy each others needs. Thus, the commitment of Roche to collaborate with 80 partners in five major areas have showed the strength of Roche since they are capable of identifying global best companies to fill the gaps in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics.

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Competitor Intelligence Essentially, pharmaceutical industry lies in specific drug markets. For example, no matter how successful new diabetes drug is, it will not affect cholesterol drug in fairs. As the result, the financial data will not tell the whole picture since it is the accumulation of drug sales. Alternatively, it may appropriate to analyse Roches competitors by specific drug markets. Therefore, it is represented that Roches drug of MabThera competes with GlaxoSmithKlines drug of Pexxar. In contrary, Roches Avastin competes in a number of different therapeutic markets with ImClones and Bristol-Myers Squibbs Erbitux, Bayers and Onyxs Nexayar, Pfitzers Sutent, Novartis Gleevec, as well as Amgens Vectibix. In contrast, Roches Herceptin in the breast cancer therapeutic market competes with GlaxoSmithKlines Tykerb. Overall, Roche's key competitors include Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis AG, Eli Lilly and Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company,Sanofi-Aventis SA, and Gilead Sciences. This showed that Roches market intelligence maps out the intelligence regarding to Roches competitors, which can be outlined as the strength of this company since Roche obtain solid overall sales performance over the competitors.

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Technical Intelligence Essentially, it is demonstrated in that Roche is continuously assessing the emerging technologies and quickly adopting the appropriate technologies that capable of enhancing the ability to select the right compounds for future development strategies or improving the ability to create new and better test of diagnostic. For that reason, the
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Corporate Website and Portal as Source of Competitive Intelligence : Roche

[2010]

strength of Roche is the application of new technologies in the innovation for R&D especially in Genetics and Genomics, Biotechnology, and Molecular Biology. Hence, Roches technical intelligence maps out the intelligence regarding to the advancements of technologies that advance the innovation processes and activities, which can be outlined as the strength of this company. Thus, it is delineated that the most advanced technologies in the innovation of Genetics and Genomics are Chip technology, next-generation sequencing from Roche/454 LifeSciences, and high-density tiling/capture arrays from Roche/NimbleGen. Firstly, the new technology of Chip makes it possible to simultaneously examine thousands of genetic sequences on DNA chip in the size of one square centimetre and to analyse the results in the matter of seconds. Thus, researchers will be able to find the causes of disease and target for the new form of treatment. Secondly, the new technology of next-generation sequencing from Roche/454 LifeSciences and high-density tiling/capture arrays from Roche/NimbleGen can reveal how genomes of patients differ from reference human genome and how these differences impact the disease risk and drug response. These two new technologies are the spur of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique which has long been known for easy replication of DNA. In addition, it is also delineated that the most advanced technology in the innovation of Biotechnology is RNA interference (RNAi). Predominantly, RNAi based medicines could prove a ground breaking new approach for fighting disease and helping patients by offering a way to target and turn off specific genes. Besides, it is also delineated that there are numbers of advanced technology in the innovation of Molecular Biology. This will includes the technology of Biomaker which is a measurable biological indicator that can be used to evaluate processes or response to drug or treatment By taking everything into account, it is scrutinized that all of the advanced technologies to advance the innovation processes and activities have put Roche to stay at the leading edge of innovation since Roche believes that it is essential to invest early in promising new technologies and applications. This statement has been supported by the action of Roche to invest in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology when it was still in its infancy in view of the fact that the decision has helped Roche to become the global market leader in molecular diagnostics.

MKM 810: Competitive Intelligence

Corporate Website and Portal as Source of Competitive Intelligence : Roche

[2010]

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Customer/Prospect Intelligence The customer/prospect intelligence of Roche maps out the intelligence regarding to Roches strategic key internal influences, which can be sketched as the Roches strength. According to Cara Traig, 2008, there are four main internal influences on business which are core strategy of business, quality of expertise, quality of project management, and quality of leadership. Prior to the context of Roche, this paper highlighted core strategy of business and quality of expertise to define Roches strategic key internal influences since they are evidently represented. Therefore, it is exemplified that the focus on leveraging external innovation and fostering strategic collaboration with leading academic centres in different parts of the world is at the core component of Roches global R&D strategy to translate cutting edge sciences into clinically differentiated medications. This has been demonstrated by the collaboration of Roche with Aspreva in which Aspreva work for legal acceptance on CellCept in autoimmune diseases and Roche work for core market, transplantation, and potential benefits of CellCept to a broader patient population. Therefore, CellCept has achieved sales for more than CHF 5 billion due to Roches existing capabilities and Asprevas core competencies. However, there are many other examples of successful collaboration that offers better pharmaceutical and diagnostic in five major areas trough innovation for longer intensive sales cycle. On the other hand, it is also exemplified that the quality of expertise in Roche can be considered as superlative. This has been sustained by millions Francs of investment in skills, training and education for 80000 employees over 130 different nationalities.

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Conclusion Overall, it can be concluded that the generation of market intelligence, partner intelligence, competitor intelligence, technical intelligence, and customer/prospect intelligence were based on the information in the corporate website which can be sketched as the Roches strength.

MKM 810: Competitive Intelligence

Corporate Website and Portal as Source of Competitive Intelligence : Roche

[2010]

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References Beagrie, S. (2004, May). Gather competitive intelligence. Personnel Today. pp. 33. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/229898669? accountid=42518

Campbell, D. (2004). A primer on competitive intelligence. In Vibert, C, Competitive intelligence : a framework for web-based analysis and decision making (pp. 1336). Retrieved from http://www.swlearning.com/pdfs/chapter/032420325X_2.PDF

Traig, C. (2008). Workplace issues and advice. Personnel Today. Retrieved from http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2008/05/28/46054/internal-influencesneed-to-know.html

MKM 810: Competitive Intelligence