Internationalization of a health market research company to the United Kingdom

Abstract

This dissertation has as objective the development of an internationalization strategy for hmR – Health Market Research, a company that dedicates itself to the elaboration of data-based market analyses, as well as specialized consulting services to the pharmaceutical industry. The company also treats and sells sell-out, sell-in and stock data. The company has already entered in Spain and Ireland, being currently in process to internationalize to Germany. It is now
intention of hmR to enter other markets, in order to reach the top 5 European pharmaceutical markets. Thus, the author was asked to develop a market analysis and a suggestion of an internationalization strategy to enter the United Kingdom. After presenting the most relevant literature about this topic and the methodology that was used, the data analysis has been divided into two main parts: market analysis and definition of an internationalization strategy. The former includes some analysis tools, such as PESTEL, SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, Porter’s Diamond and CAGE Framework. There was also made an analysis of the pharmaceutical market, as well as a study of the pharmaceutical market
intelligence sector (in which hmR fits), including a competition analysis. Concerning the definition of an internationalization strategy, there were used the OLI Framework, the AAA Triangle Framework and the Verbeke’s Unifying Framework to reach a reliable conclusion. Since it is, in fact, advantageous to internationalize to the UK, recommendations and a roadmap were suggested.

Date of Award	23 Feb 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rute Xavier (Supervisor)