Innovation & Growth - A case study of Pfizer

Pfizer Inc. is taken as case study for an innovative company in the pharmaceutical sector. Firstly, the author will look at its mission statement in relation to its key stakeholders. Secondly, the company's overall strategy will be outlined regarding its positioning on the market as well the linkage to key theories which will be discussed and applied. The third part focuses on Pfizer's operational issues. Finally a comparison of the strategic performance and application of theories between Microsoft and Pfizer, both, two highly innovative companies, will be made. Pfizer, as the main case study, was chosen, because it can be defined as a highly innovative company, ranking globally the second by R&D expenditure on the DTI R&D scoreboard (see Appendix 1). However, according to the Business Week' the company ranks only on place 55 in the world's most innovative companies, with a margin growth of 1.8% and stock returns of 9.9% between 1995 till 2005. (Business Week, 2006) This provides the evidence that Pfizer is an innovative company.