Introduction
Express Scripts, Inc. is a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company which offers drug plan management services mainly to government agencies, unions and corporations. Around April, 2010, Express Scripts was for the first time ranked by both Forbes magazine and Fortune, among the top five hundred companies in the United States. Moreover, the company also managed to be featured in the Forbes Platinum List where it was among twenty five companies which have, “Platinum Profiles” a great fete for a company that has been slowly, but surely growing to become a force to reckon with. We aim to find out how it incorporated its information systems and internet technology into its business processes so as to make these great achievements.
The important business processes of Express Scripts, Inc
Like most companies, Express Scripts has management, operational and supporting processes as its core business processes. All are important, but with respect to information systems, its supporting processes are the most important because they provide essential backing for the other core processes. Express Scripts have an advanced technical support team and have even gone to great lengths to offer resources such as PDFs on “Tips for Using the Express Scripts Call Center and website” to clients and customers. Given the dynamic nature of technology, this has been very instrumental in the company’s operations and ultimately has a positive impact on its output.
Express Scripts’ business strategies
This company has used various business strategies that have seen its profitability rise almost exponentially. For instance, its acquisition strategy, which was founded on cross-selling whereby companies’ own contracts with drug stores were converted to contracts that those drug stores now have with Express Scripts. This ultimately brought down the clients’ cost of pharmaceutical programs thus giving the clients additional value. Further, their internet strategy entails marketing their services and delivering core services to their clients via the internet thus enhancing convenience.
Information systems that give Express Scripts competitive advantage
The actions that are taken to create an information system that solves an organizational problem are called system development (Laudon & Laudon, 2009). Express Scripts has heavily invested in information technology aimed at supporting its future profitability and growth. This resourcefulness is accounted for as capitalized software ranging from data warehouses (which enable effective communication with all parties involved in the prescription process), to e-Business initiatives which saw instantaneous benefits by virtue of increasing their connectivity to their clients, prescribing physicians and also their members. Express Script also enjoys competitive advantage by being among the first to introduce a mobile application which conveniently facilitates order refills, finding a pharmacy, etc. Electronic communication is the modern way of communication that includes electronics and latest technology for communicating such as teleconferencing e-mail, etc. (Bovee & Thill, 2009).
References
- Bovee, C. L., & Thill, J. V. (2009). Business Communication Today. Ontario, ON: Pearson Education Canada.
- Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2009). Essentials of management information systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.