Complexity is generally considered to be a good thing. In business, companies that grow tend to become more complex; the former doesn't seem to be possible without the latter.
But there's such a thing as too much complexity, and a couple of business process experts say pharma is suffering from it. The pharma business is a complicated thing--regulations, reimbursements, global operations and so on--but some companies have simply grown too complicated for their own good, say Melvin Jay and Simon Collinson, co-authors of the Global Simplicity Index.
Care to hazard a guess at which drugmakers are burdened most by complicated operations and processes? One hint: Size and complexity aren't as tightly linked as one might expect. Yes, Pfizer suffers from high levels of "bad" complexity, but it's Bayer that struggles most with it. And Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, both among the biggest in Big Pharma, sport the least.
- read the post at PharmExec