ABSTRACT

Background

A firm must identify its key competitors (those that belong to the same competitive group), especially when operating in highly competitive industries, such as drug products. Experts who prescribe products to the final consumer play a crucial role in identifying the key competitors of a firm. In this context, the present paper aimed to determine if significant differences exist between two groups of prescribers (commercial and social) regarding the competitive structure that both groups identify using subjective information obtained through (i) categorization methods and (ii) evaluation methods.

Method

A sample of 104 prescribers related to the sale of cosmetic pharmaceuticals was interviewed (53 commercials and 51 social prescribers). Multidimensional scaling was used to obtained perceptual maps that visually represented the competitive space for each group of prescribers. Cluster analysis was employed to identify the competitive structure (competitive clusters) for each group of prescribers. Bilateral Pearson correlations and Mobility Rates were applied to compare the perceptual maps and the identified clusters, respectively.

Result

Competitive spaces and structures from both groups of prescribers were partially convergent, regardless the information was collected with categorization methods or evaluation ones. The competitive perceptual map identified by the commercial prescribers converges, to a certain extent, with the competitive perceptual map identified by the social prescribers when categorization data is used (correlation between maps = 0.322; p < 0.01). The same occurs when both targets (commercial prescribers and social prescribers) are compared using evaluation data (correlation between maps = 0.69; p < 0.01). In addition, the mobility rate (MR) shows 31.25% of convergence between the clusters identified on these maps using categorization methods; and 6.25% of convergence when evaluation data are used.

Conclusions

There are certain perceptual differences depending on prescribers’ occupation, although these differences are not significant. On the contrary, some differences due to the information collecting method (categorization versus evaluation) have been identified.

中文翻译：

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处方者识别竞争群体的意见：制药行业的比较分析

摘要

背景

公司必须确定其主要竞争对手（属于同一竞争群体的那些），尤其是在竞争激烈的行业（如药品）中运营时。为最终消费者开具产品处方的专家在确定公司的主要竞争对手方面发挥着至关重要的作用。在这种情况下，本文旨在确定两组处方者（商业和社会）之间是否存在显着差异，这两个群体使用通过（i）分类方法和（ii）评估方法获得的主观信息识别的竞争结构。

方法

采访了与销售化妆品相关的 104 名处方者样本（53 名广告和 51 名社会处方者）。多维缩放用于获得直观地表示每组处方者的竞争空间的感知图。聚类分析用于确定每组处方者的竞争结构（竞争聚类）。双边皮尔逊相关性和移动率分别用于比较感知图和识别的集群。

结果

无论信息是通过分类方法还是评估方法收集的，两组处方者的竞争空间和结构都是部分收敛的。当使用分类数据时，商业处方者识别的竞争感知图在一定程度上与社会处方者识别的竞争感知图收敛（图之间的相关性= 0.322; p <0.01）。当使用评估数据比较两个目标（商业处方者和社会处方者）时，也会发生同样的情况（地图之间的相关性 = 0.69；p < 0.01）。此外，移动率 (MR) 显示使用分类方法在这些地图上识别的集群之间的收敛率为 31.25%；使用评估数据时的收敛率为 6.25%。

结论

取决于处方者的职业，存在一定的感知差异，尽管这些差异并不显着。相反，已经确定了由于信息收集方法（分类与评估）造成的一些差异。