Global operation and competition study of GlaxoSmithKline plc 181 Essay

Global operation and competition study of GlaxoSmithKline plc 181 - Essay Example Having over 99,000 employees, one unique feature of GSK is that fact that it came into existence only in 2000 through the measure of Glaxo Wellcome, SmithKline Beecham plc and SmithKline Beckman Corporation (quote). The table below outlines GSK’s key financials since 2009. There are a number of reasons that the pharmaceutical industry and GlaxoSmithKline were selected very specifically. In the first place, the selection of the pharmaceutical is based on the very favourable growth projections that have been made for the industry from now till 2018. MarketLine (2013) forecasted that by 2018, the industry will have a value of  £646.8699 billion, which is an increase of 26.8% since 2013 (see the figure below). This is an important projection that means that the pharmaceutical industry will be a major drive in global economic expansion. The rationale for selection is therefore based on the global economic hope that this unique industry gives. GlaxoSmithKline plc was on the other hand selected as a leader in the UK pharmaceutical industry to know how prepared the UK industry is to compete to be part of the global growth. Compared to its major competitors, GlaxoSmithKline has not been able to command a leading market capital for the past five years. This is regardless of the fact that compared to key competitors GlaxoSmithKline has a very large employee size. As showed in the table below also, GlaxoSmithKline has a very good gross margin but with the lowest revenue quarterly growth (quote). All these information shows that there are some fundamental causes to the company’s competitive position other than most of the internal factor that come from the everyday management of the organization. The aim of the research is therefore to understand how the external environment of the company impacts on its global operation and competition. The project shall be approached as a qualitative correlational study where GSK shall be compared to its major competitors to find