Title: report on how to develop a business plan for a pharmacy.

In the mutable health care industry, there are lots of chances arise for the development of new services or programs. This is definitely true especially concerning pharmacy practice where it demands the involvement of pharmacy in the management of the patients. This is basically due to the high cost of pharmaceuticals available as well as the uncertainty of the drug safety. There is plenty of evidence show the importance of pharmacy services. This may include the benefits of it on economic, clinical, and humanistic outcomes of the patient care. Although the pharmacy managers and the general practitioner play an important role in developing the proposal for new pharmacy services, they also need to organize it in the form of business plan. Business plan, defined as a set of common types of assessments and projections, is important to indicate the extent to which the proposal is well thought-out and presented. The purpose of this report is to give guidance and assist the pharmacist to explore research, propose and implement new services. Besides, this report may help to enhance the existing services by offering an efficient approach to the business development process. In addition, this report may assist individuals in evaluating and designing pharmacy service proposals by stimulating critical thinking in key areas through the use of selected thought-provoking questions. This report also includes some specific recommendations for writing and presenting the business plan. In order to have more ideas and better overall design, it is advisable to form a team of people instead of a single person to develop the business proposal. The most important part in designing any business plan is understands the business environment. In order to have a better business planning, gathering facts as well as seek views from others especially people that will have influence on the acceptance, implementation, and the success of the idea may be helpful. Couching the proposal in terms of the outcomes that the financial decision-makers are interested in rather than focusing on the professional or pharmacy-related benefits may also assist in designing a business plan. A pilot project may be conducted in order to reduce the initial investment where this will reduce the risk of the program and highlighting the potential profits. Besides, this will make the business proposal more desirable.

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Reviewing the literature In order to start the investigation process, reviewing published literature of previous studies that describes similar programs may be important. However, this may be difficult if the ideas are different from the existing one. There is plenty of pharmacy literature that describes the pharmacy services, evaluations of the outcomes of pharmacy services and guidelines for specific types of pharmacy services. The services have been described in hospitals, home care, and other settings. Thus with this ample resources, identifying the relevant primary literature may be the first step of performing the literature search. There are lots of online databases that can be used to obtain the primary literature for example PubMed, Science direct, and Cochrane. Through all the studies indexes, it is easier for the searcher to determine whether the study do relates the subject concern or not. In order to get the most accurate studies, a good search word is important. This will influence the number of hits that the searcher will get. Another good source that the searcher can examine is review articles. Review articles are articles that summarized the current state of understanding of the topic of interest and they are usually referred as secondary literature. From the review articles, searchers are able to distinguish the studies that are appropriate for the business proposal. After identifying relevant primary and secondary literature, it is important to interpret the literatures and generalize them into the local setting. The most essential part is the result which is usually consist of cost the service and its outcome. Outcomes of the service may be determined by some parameters and it can be divided into three parts which are clinically, economically and humanistic. Original articles may use many kinds of methods in delivering the service, thus, it is possible to examine the outcomes of different methods and decide the one with the greatest outcomes. The drawbacks of making literature generalization are the outcomes may be different from the primary literature. This may due to different environment and population involved. The quality of the primary literature may be another hindrance for literature generalization. This may due to the high risk of bias.

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Exploring the business concept This part is very important where it is use as a tool to understand and explore the critical factors that may affect the feasibility of the proposed service. Through this topic, the success rate of the idea can be determined so this will allow the decision maker to decide whether to proceed with the plan or discontinue it. Besides, this topic will assist in exploring the needs of the services as well as definition of customers. Customers may consist of patients, physicians, other health care professionals such as veterinarian, and payers of health care.

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Evaluating the market From this topic, the market of the pharmaceutical services that were proposed can be evaluated. This may assist in assessing the size of the market for the services as well as the sources of customers and the chance of survival of the pharmacy in the future.

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Evaluating competitors This topic is important to evaluate the competitive forces of works in the market. Besides that, it also identifies the potency and difficulty of the proposed program compared to the competition. Through this, the efforts on the factors that may influence the program strength, counteract the advantages of the competitors, and overcome or counterbalance for program weaknesses.

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Assessing clinical and quality requirements As the topic above, this chapter will be needed to assist the evaluation of the clinical and quality requirements that exist for the establishment of the proposed service or program. From the analysis, the compliance with regulatory requirements will be assisted as well as the understanding of the standards of care for this service will be ensured. Besides, the information regarding the assessment of the clinical and quality requirements is important for the management to do any decision-making as the economic viability of the program dependent on the extent which the organization can reach such requirements within existing sources.

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Assessing the proposed processes and operation. Throughout this part, the proposed organism as well as the daily process and procedures of the program can be evaluated. Usually, this element has not been thought thoroughly in business proposals making. However, the better understanding regarding on how the actual business, service or even program is done, the higher the potential of the program to be successful. What is more important for a business is the long-term success of it. So, a business that is operated to provide a first-class service yet managed in a cost efficient manner will have more probability to succeed.

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Developing a marketing strategy This part of the report will evaluate the service or program from the perspective of its proposed plan for attracting customers, obtaining market share, as well as expending the program. Marketing strategy can be considered as one of the most important part of a business as it may define the customer goals and target those who may be involved in supporting and influencing the program or service. Unfortunately, since health care is sometimes thought of as a closed market, this element is frequently overlooked.

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Assessing critical risks and opportunities By assessing the risks and opportunities of the service or program, the internal strength and weakness of it as well as the external chances and threats of the program or service may be defined clearly. As previously mention in section 4, the strengths and weakness of the program or service are compared to the competition and sometimes, the positive qualities of the idea are easier to be focused to. It is, however, crucial to evaluate the potential risks and main hindrance of the proposed program or service. In order to maintain the existence of new business or program, it is important to develop strategies to overcome the predicted threats and barrier.