ABCD's Profile

That’s exactly right- employers are paying for the service for their employees in order to reduce time lost at work. The pricing structure involves a per-member per-month fee (over 80% of revenues come from this fee) and a per-visit fee (1). The exact amounts vary based on insurance plan. Unfortunately, with the subscription fees, Teladoc ends up being in total more expensive than a typical urgent care visit ($145 per visit on average) (1). This may improve when utilization rates improve, which has occurred quite slowly (2.1% to 3.7% from 2013 to 2014) (1). This is particularly worrisome because more competitors are entering the arena, and some (for example, Doctor on Demand), do not require a per month fee.

(1) https://rockhealth.com/deconstructing-teladoc-ipo-s-1/

This is very interesting! I would add another to your list of four assets: HBS’ vast alumni network, which in my opinion is key to HBS’ competitive advantage over key institutions. Many HBS alumni donate their time for free to current students, helping us find jobs; charging a continuous “tuition fee” following graduation might make this donation less likely. Because students are both recipients and stewards of HBS’ value proposition, I would argue that HBS does not need to dedicate additional assets to long-term value creation: alumni in the HBS network already take care of each other, building off of bonding at HBS. These two years are only the beginning…

This is a very interesting post. I have some questions about the overarching strategy. How is GSK dealing with the lack of IP protection that may be present in some emerging markets? The Doha Declaration of 2001 left an opening for nations to deal with public health crises at the expense of intellectual property rights; has this affected which markets GSK has entered? Additionally, this strategy seems like it might run into roadblocks downstream, with distribution problems in emerging markets. This would be especially relevant for vaccines requiring a cold chain. Its adoption of this strategy implies that GSK believes distribution will not be an issue; as such, why doesn’t it lower the prices of its “low volume, high price” products in order to increase volume, instead of eliminating these products from their portfolio entirely? Finally, given how expensive pharmaceutical research has become, do you anticipate additional companies’ following GSK’s R&D in sharing intellectual property, and might we eventually see a transition to complete transparency among disease-specific researchers?

Thank you for this post! Adding to the conversation above, I’d be curious to learn how the Obama campaign tech strategy evolved from 2008 to 2012, and to what extent Romney 2012 was able to co-opt Obama’s 2008 tech infrastructure with a very different target audience. It seems as if Obama’s campaign operations were uniquely suited to his target demographics (specifically, skewing young); older voters were probably less accessible through Facebook-based programs like the Dashboard.

I was also wondering about how this tech strategy originated. Was Obama’s campaign more open to innovative ways to get out the vote because he was an unexpected contender for the presidency? Maybe other campaigns can learn from the organizational structure that permitted a brand new idea to become the centerpiece- and driving force- behind a winning campaign.