Report on Amazon hot topic

                Since its inception in 1994, Amazon has disrupted the world with creativity and innovation. As Amazon continues its trend of pioneering, its latest service could be argued as one of the most beneficial hot topics of the new millennium, positively impacting communities on local, regional and global levels. In June, Amazon announced that the company was entering the pharmaceutical market with its acquisition of PillPack (La Monica 2018). One of the offerings that Amazon will offer is the option for customers to share feedback on the effectiveness and usage of prescriptions (Flam 2018). The offering is groundbreaking, because if consumers are able to comment on how prescriptions make them feel, why they stopped, etc., they are able to provide a level of transparency that has never been seen before with medications. People have always trusted what their doctor says, but they do not know what others experience is other than the package details. Amazon’s pharmaceutical offerings will force healthcare providers and drug makers to be honest.

Amazon entering into the Pharmacy Business

        It is a well-known fact that Amazon is great, when it comes to show mastery of innovative techniques as well as technology. This has been their most effective tool to deliver great products to its customers, and retain their success with sustainable performance. Moreover, Amazon has always made some great moves to penetrate into other industries like they acquired Whole Foods in $14 billion. It shows that Amazon goes for big steps to keep throwing intense competition to its competitors. That’s why the latest move by Amazon is signaling the entry into the pharmacy business, which is not good news for many drugstores and pharmacy businesses. It has been expected that latest move by Amazon will have huge impact on pharmacy industry. Amazon has revolutionized industries like cloud services, consumer electronics, and publishing, and it is expected that it can achieve the same in pharmacy industry (Court 2017)

The Companies to be affected by Amazon Pharmacy Business

        It is important for the industry to see that which companies will be affected mostly by Amazon entry into pharmacy business. It is expected that three companies should be aware of Amazon entry into pharmacy industry, and these three companies are CVS, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. These organizations have enjoyed good success in the pharmacy industry, and entry of a giant like Amazon into this business, would certainly be ringing alarm bells for these organizations. The competition is going to be more intense as companies will have to come up with diversified offers so that they can tackle with competition thrown to them by Amazon. Once the news of Amazon entry into pharmaceutical industry has flashed, various companies have felt pressure and their shares fell in recent times (Court 2017)

Opportunities & Challenges for Amazon

            Earlier, this was just news that Amazon would enter into pharmacy business, but after acquiring PillPack, an online pharmacy, it is now obvious that Amazon has made the big step forward. Now, it is critical to review that what opportunities Amazon have in this industry by solving various problems, and what are the challenges that they won’t be able to meet. The facts have shown that 125,000 Americans each year are killed just because of failure of the prescription drugs. Such issues incur extra cost for the health care system of United States. So, Amazon has a great opportunity to deal with this problem. The company can bring different changes, which can be beneficial for whole health care sector including doctors and patients. They can deliver prescription drugs straight to the homes of patients, who need it (Flam 2018)

            However, it is also important to note down some issues and challenges that Amazon faces while making inroads into pharmacy business. Earlier, the pharmacy license was a big challenge, but it has been resolved by taking acquisition of PillPack, which has pharmacy license in majority of the states. But the other challenge is the expertise level, which they currently do not posses like other major pharmacy companies. Moreover, the company is facing issues in getting bulk orders from large hospitals. The medical and pharmacy business supply chain is not an easy thing even for Amazon to handle. The business realties in this industry are far more complex than it looks. They have to convince big hospitals to change old buying processes, and make collaborations with Amazon. Moreover, it is also a challenge for them to sell ‘Class III” medical products like the device named pacemaker. Some of the biggest hospitals may never move to Amazon for delivery of medicines as they lack these kinds of products, which are considered life saving ones (Kim and Farr 2018).

Some Charts and Facts

Here are some of the charts related to Amazon, CVS, Wal-Mart Inc, Walgreens Boots Alliance, United Health Group etc to show their overall progress.

Amazon.com Inc.

References on Amazon hot topic

Court, Emma. 2017. Is Amazon getting into the pharmacy business? This is what you need to know. Accessed October 15, 2018. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-amazon-getting-into-the-pharmacy-business-this-is-what-you-need-to-know-2017-10-09.

Flam, Faye. 2018. What an Amazon Pharmacy Could Solve, and What It Won’t. Accessed October 15, 2018. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-29/an-amazon-pharmacy-could-save-lives-and-eliminate-a-lot-of-waste.

Kim, Eugene, and Christina Farr. 2018. Amazon has shelved a plan to sell drugs to hospitals, and insiders say there are two reasons why. Accessed October 15, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/amazon-business-not-selling-drugs-but-other-amazon-groups-might.html.

La Monica, Paul R. 2018. Amazon buys online pharmacy PillPack. Accessed October 15, 2018. https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/28/news/companies/amazon-pillpack-pharmacy-drugstore/index.html.