Pfizer Inc.: Strategizing for an Encore

Raymond Paquin, Ramasastry Chandrasekhar

Product #:W39054

Supplier:Ivey/Concordia

Discipline:Strategy

Setting:United States, 2

Details:Case (PDF) • 11 pages • 2025-03-06

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In mid-January 2022, the members of the executive committee of Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer), a global pharmaceutical enterprise headquartered in New York, were facing a strategic dilemma. Having just received the company’s full financial results for the year ending December 2021, they were preparing for an upcoming conference call with analysts where, in addition to making these results public, they had to also provide revenue guidance for the year ending December 2022. Revenue guidance, normally a standard announcement in the normal course of business, created an issue given Pfizer’s unusual performance in 2021. The multi-billion-dollar-sales pharmaceutical company had doubled its revenues from 2020 to 2021 and faced rising expectations of an encore performance in 2022. The executive committee needed to answer two main questions: What kind of growth could investors expect in the coming year? Where would Pfizer focus its energy and activities to support the firm’s growth?

Learning Objectives

This case study is suitable for strategy courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It can be used early in the course to explore different facets of strategic analysis, toward the end of the course, or as an exam case, where students would be expected to develop a more integrative analysis and provide recommendations for moving forward from this unique position—that of a market leader that has almost doubled in size within one year due to a single new product. The case can be used to illustrate key strategic management concepts such as dynamic capabilities and organizational agility; stakeholder theory and expectation management; core competency development and leveraging; and strategic pivoting in response to market shifts. After working through the case, students will be able to do the following:

Analyze how unexpected external events can impact a company’s strategic direction, and create both opportunities and challenges.
Evaluate the sustainability of rapid growth driven by a single product or event, and discuss strategies for managing this growth.
Assess the challenges of stakeholder management and communication during periods of extraordinary performance and uncertain future prospects.
Examine the strategic considerations involved in pivoting a large, established company toward a new core competency.

Pfizer Inc.: Strategizing for an Encore

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Learning Objectives