2. What global strategies best suit Moderna or Pfizer to market its Covit-19 vaccine?

Identify its
best entry mode for international business.

According to my Moderna / Pfizer should follow both global standardization strategy and international
strategy. In the case of a global standardization strategy, it would allow the vaccine manufacturer to
increase profit by reaping the cost reductions that come from economies of scale and location economies.
The main objective is to pursue a low-cost strategy on a global basis. Due to the universal pandemic
problem, the pressure for cost reduction is high. The demand for local responsiveness is minimum here.
Vaccine Manufacturer using this strategy can concentrate their marketing, R&D activities of companies
in a few favorable positions. This type of company doesn’t need to customize product offerings a lot. It
will market a standardized product worldwide so that it can reap maximum benefit from economies of
scale.

In the case of international strategy, there is low-cost pressure and low pressure in local responsiveness.
Covid 19 vaccine is a universal need and the pharmaceutical industry has fewer competitors So they are
not confronted to reduce the cost structure. The vaccine manufacturer can centralize product
manufacturing (R&D) at the home country or can also establish manufacturing and marketing functions
in the major host country where it will do business.

Moderna or Pfizer can market its covid-19 vaccine using three entry modes to international business.
These are explained below –

1)Exporting -By exporting means manufacturing the product in a centralized location and then exporting
it to other national markets. In this method, the vaccine manufacturer can avoid the cost of establishing
operations in the host country. It can manufacture the product in a centralized location and then export it
to other national markets. It would allow the vaccine companies to get economies of scale from their
global sales volume.

2)Franchising – the vaccine producer can use franchising to enter into the international business.
Franchising is a specialized form of licensing where the franchiser sells the intangible property to the
franchisee. Franchisee needs to be abided by some strict rules governing how it does business. The
vaccine manufacture can assist the Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies in running the business on an
ongoing Thbasis. The main problem with franchising is that it is hard to maintain quality. Since the
coronavirus is a global issue right now the vaccine manufacture can open up a subsidiary in many regions
where it wants to expand. It would reduce the problem to some extent. The company can place its
managers in the subsidiary to ensure the level of quality monitoring it demands.
3)Licensing -Pfizer and Moderna can licensee purchase the rights to produce a company’s product in their
country for a negotiated fee. This entry method is suitable because it would save the company from
unknown political risks. In this method, the licensee needs to provide capital to open the overseas
operation. Here the company doesn’t need to bear the development costs and risks associated with
opening up a foreign market. The problem with this method it does not give tight control over
manufacturing process. In that case the vaccine manufacturer can enter into cross licensing agreement. It
would reduce the risk associated with licensing technological knowhow.
4. What is the role of organizational design to achieve superior functional level strategies? Take an
MNC and identify its best organizational structure.

By organizational design, it means how a company should create, use, combine organizational structure,
control system, and culture. The organizational structure means through which a company assigns
employees to specific tasks and roles that are to be linked together to increase efficiency, quality, and
innovation, and also responsiveness to customers. Organizational culture means the specific collection of
values, norms, beliefs, and attitudes which are shared by people and groups in an organization. It is
mainly used to control the way people interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the
organization.

Fig: implementing strategy through organizational design

This figure shows that organizational design which consists of organizational structure, strategic control
systems, and organizational culture together forms coordination and motivation of employees. All these
later help to achieve functional level strategies(efficiency, quality, innovation, and responsiveness to
customers).

Let’s consider a company, Phillips. It is a multinational company. And its best possible organizational
structure should be matrix structure. Because to achieve tight coordination between functions like R
&Productions and marketing. Tight coordination is required so that R&D can design products efficiently
and are designed keeping customers' needs in mind. Both of these increase the probability of successful
product commercialization. Besides the tight coordination between R&D, manufacturing and marketing
can enable the firm to gain an advantage over its rivals. In this structure system, an employee may belong
to two subunits within the firm. For example, a manager might be a member of the manufacturing
functional and a product development team. This organizational structure is hard to manage. Because lots
of meetings are required to come up with a decision. Those are all critical decisions that need to go
through different hierarchies. So, it is time-consuming. If anything goes wrong there is also a possibility
of blaming one another hierarchy. But still, it is the best organizational structure for a company like
Phillips because there is evidence that a matrix structure can work if everyone maintains clear lines of
responsibility.