Strategic Management of the Sanofi Project

About the two partners

European leader in the pharmaceutical market, Sanofi is a wealthy firm with a 4.7 growth in 2012 and a turnover of EUR34,9billion. Sanofi is one of the most powerful European companies with:

- A commercial presence in 100 countries

- 170 countries where their products are available

- A powerful R&D team with huge investments in this field (EUR5 billion in 2012)

We could think that Sanofi has a sound and very positive situation. However, in 2008, due to bad figures and financial expectations, Sanofi underwent a shift of management with the appointment of a new leader: Chris Vierhbacher. His vision was to change Sanofi’s structure and widen Sanofi’s impact directly to the consumer level. We will see that Vierhbacher’s vision will be transposed in the Beautific Project.

Concerning Coca-Cola, it is obviously one of the most well known firms in the world and leader in the soft drinks market. The company started in the early 2000s to diversify its portfolio thanks to alliances and brand expansion in order to tackle directly the competition of PepsiCo in all the segments of the soft drinks market but also the snacks market.

However, in 2012, Coca-Cola is facing a slowdown in revenue growth pushing the company to change its strategy.

Therefore, both partners faced with a slowdown in activities have reasons to seek for a new project that could boost their growth.

Organizational Culture and Project Management

The Conceptual Development of Beautific

The Joint-Venture (50-50 partnership) between Sanofi and Coca-Cola has two strategic objectives for both firms:

1) Take profit of the emerging of a new emerging market. The global market for beauty drinks is expected to reach EUR3,2million by 2017 getting its momentum from the evolution of society. Indeed, people are more and more investing in healthy and beauty treatments.

2) This strategic alliance should open a whole new universe to Sanofi. The functional foods are a way to...