Question:
Anyone know where I can get information on doing a business plan more specifically for a retail pharmacy?  This one is tricky cause the company has a wide range of products and has been in business for thirty years.     However, their competitor is bigger than them.  You can say I have run out of ideas.

Answer:
Anyone know where I can get information on doing a business - plan more specifically for a retail pharmacy?

 This one is tricky - cause the company has a wide range of products and has been in - business for thirty years. -     However, their competitor is bigger than them.  You can say - I have run out of ideas.

- Will be grateful for any input? There are lots of formats and even some software to aid in putting the business plan together. I don't have at my finger tips the specific references, but I'm sure you can find them with a search engine.

The most important thing that strikes me about your situation is the need to identify a competitive strategy for competing. Your pharmacy is clearly the David in the match with Goliath, but like that story you are not necessarily doomed.

Some ideas off the top of my head (which you may have already considered) would be to focus on a higher degree of customer service, availability of harder to find specialty items, sponsoring free (or very low cost) short seminars on things like weight reduction, stress reduction, etc. other health related issues. There may be specialized markets that can be cultivated, perhaps relationships might be established with Visiting Nurses Association or other home health care providers. One key to the whole idea is to find the extra value that can be added. I'm assuming that the bigger competitor can probably sell for less. But as we have seen in many other industries, that is not the only basis for customer's choices. They will pay a little more as long as they believe that they are getting something extra for it.

My wife changed the pharmacy she went to simply because they kept losing the call in for refills or making her come back because it wasn't ready when they promised. Some of the things she gets aren't covered by insurance, and price never once entered into her thinking. The repeated flubs of the customer service undermined her confidence in their whole operation. Not a good thing for a pharmacy.

I consult with small businesses on pay issues; better links of pay to performance, guidelines for raises, designing bonus plans etc. Since this part (more than overall competitive strategy) is my area, let me just add that you would be well served to ensure that your pay strategy supports your competitive strategy. All too often they don't.