UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ LA THI HONG LOAN FACTORS INFLUENCING BRAND LOYALTY IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (BY HONOUR) Ho Chi Minh City-Year 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ LA THI HONG LOAN FACTORS INFLUENCING BRAND LOYALTY IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM STUDENT ID: 22120129 MASTER OF BUSINESS BY HONOUR SUPERVISOR: DR. TRẦN HÀ MINH QUÂN Ho Chi Minh City-Year 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr.Tran Ha Minh Quân who has supported me a lot with the thesis preparation and motivated me throughout the journey of the thesis. I strongly believe that I could have not completed this thesis without the assistance from all of my friends who helped me to guide the customers to do the survey and chased for data submission. And finally my special thanks to my family who was always with me to show their empathy and encourages me to complete this thesis.
December 8, 2014 Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Abstract The pharmaceutical industry is more different than others, because product is the more specific and varies than products in other market. Most of the pharma companies pay attention to research and development in order to launch a new drug which can compete with the rivals. In addition, almost pharma companies are successful due to they have a powerful sales to marketing their medication to the doctor. By this mean, they will spend time and money to create these factors mentioned above.
Therefore, Pharmaceutical branding is an important way to create awareness among potential benefits of drugs and medicines. In the fact that, they neglected to establishing brand and specially building brand loyalty, because the benefit of customer loyalty bring to pharma companies is very much, for example it can help pharma companies reduce six times costs to find a new customers, this research aimed to explore elements influencing brand loyalty and examining the effect of country of origin on those factors. This study is a quantities research, 349 questionnaires were delivered to respondents who were going to hospital for treatment. Collecting Data are used to assess the scale and test hypotheses.
Through Cronbach Alpha coefficients analysis to test reliability of scale, explore factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to test validity of scale and finally, SEM was used to test hypothesis. The result showed that marketing managers should be pay attention perceived quality, brand awareness if they would like to establish customer loyalty toward pharmaceutical TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ii brand. Besides, the country of origin has no impact to brand loyalty because they don’t a habit about self-medication, they strongly respect and believed that doctors will treat them better. Keywords: Brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, country of origin, pharmaceutical companies.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iii Tables of content CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. Background to the study:. The statement of problem:. The research objective:.
The significant of research:. The scope of the study:. Structure of the study:. 5 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORICAL MODEL.
Definition of brand:. Definition of brand equity:. Customer based perspective of brand equity (CBBE):. Country of origin:.
The relationship between brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty. The relationship between country of origin and customers base brand equity:. The relationship between COO and brand loyalty:. The conceptual research model:.
15 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY. Procedure of research:. 21 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Country of origin:.
Data analysis method:.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): .3 Confirm factor Analysis (CFA):. 24 CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS. Descriptive data analysis:. Measure scale assessment:.
Cronbach alpha reliability analysis:. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA):. Confirm factor analysis (CFA):. Test hypothesis with SEM analysis:.
33 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION. Key findings and contribution of study:. Contribution of study:. 50 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com v Lists of table Table 2.1 List of hypothesis .1 procedure of research .2 Reliability analysis results .3 The Result of EFA:.4 Show the result CR and AVE after CFA analysis:.4: Regression weight and standardize regression weight: .5: Standardized Regression Weights .5 Summary hypothesis and results:.
32 Lists of figure Figure 1. 53 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter introduces the background to the study, problem statement of research, the objective research, the scope research purpose of this study and the other contents such as the rationale of the research, structure of the study. Background to the study: According to Ministry of Health, pharmaceutical sales in 2013 is approximately 2.775 million USD, domestic medicine occupied 1.300 million USD, with the growth CAGR in 10 years later will be 16%. Although international economy industries were impacted by international crisis but pharmaceutical industry still gradually increase with impressive number 18.8% per year from 2009-2013.
There are many reasons which lead to upward trend but it couldn’t be denied is product of pharmaceutical is a special drug, not instead the others, adjacent to being awareness of people about health care is more and more improvement and last reason is the Vietnamese viewpoint about using domestic or imported medicine significantly change. Firstly, the development of education which leads to perceive high about health care of Vietnamese. Therefore, when people have a chance which approaches international drug and pharmaceutical market, their needs will be increase entailing pharmaceutical industry will be develop. According to World Bank, take into account to 2012, Health expenditure per capita of Vietnamese is 95 USD , is compared with region is still quite low for example Singapore $2.286 , Malaysia is $346 , this organization hope the numbers will be go up in the future.
Secondly, doctors and pharmacists who have a favorite prescribe import medicine because they supposed that the import ones is better than others, statistic data show that only 20-30% doctor prescribe domestic drug per total for patients. However, Vietnamese perception about using domestic and imported drugs have been exchanged dramatic, according to Ministry Of Industry And Trade statistic data, it show that consumer ratio who TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 using domestic is up to 70%, thus, it could be said that pharmaceutical industry is expected substantial growth. The statement of problem: The pharmaceutical industry is more different than others, because product is a specific and varies product in other market. According to Rafiq and Saxon’s research (2000), a pharmaceutical drug before launching the market, pharmaceutical companies have to spend nearly 12 years for research and development process as well as applying for commercial licenses and certifications.
Unfortunately, the drug can only have 8 year time in order to sell on the market before patent expires and initiate price competition. Therefore, it can be said that the success of the industry relied on three factors: strong research and development (R&D), aggressive defense of patents and use of the dominant promotional tool - powerful sales forces (Veloutsou & Panigyrakis, 2001; Moss & Schuiling, 2004; Moss, 2007). In other hand, the industry has been concentrated on R&D and product factors and not market drive. In addition, introducing a new blockbuster drug to the market is becoming even more expensive as the costs of R&D increase (Veloutsou & Panigyrakis, 2001; Moss & Schuiling, 2004; Moss, 2007; Rod et al,).
Besides, there is an existence of generic drug has also been developing rapidly and constitutes an increasingly real threat for the industry. Generic companies benefit, not only from patent expiration, but also from the cost reduction pressures evident in every healthcare system around the world. However, the picture has changed, industry growth has been slowing down and firms have been searching for ways to maintain it. To acquire new competitive advantage, Moss and Schuiling (2004) suggest that pharmaceutical companies should start paying more attention to building brands than simply products, therefore transferring from research-oriented, product-centric strategy to brand and consumer centricity.
Simultaneously, Moss and Schuiling (2004) as well as Griffiths (2007) clearly state that pharmaceutical companies ought not to solely rely on their sales force and R&D anymore – the emphasis needs to be put on marketing and branding, in particular, it is need to establish brand loyalty in pharmaceutical. According to Aaker (2007), the benefits of brand TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3 loyalty for the companies could be great. For example: Levins (2009) says that companies which with a high rate of loyal consumers reduce the marketing costs of the firm instead of the cost of appealing a new customer. Indeed, according to Sanz (2009), he supposes that the cost of seeking new customers is about six times higher than the cost of retaining an old one.
Besides that, since 1960s, there has been an extensive literature on country-of-origin and how that influenced consumer attitudes (Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Khachaturian and Morganosky, 1990; Ahmed and d’Astous, 1993; d’Astous and Ahmed, 1999) and purchasing intentions (Morello, 1984; Han, 1990; Lawrence et al., 1992; Lin and Sternquist, 1994; Ahmed and d’Astous, 1995) towards foreign products and services. However, there is a little research about the effect of country of origin on brand loyalty and components of brand equity. Therefore, this study attempt to examine the effect of COO on three items of brand equity and brand loyalty in pharmaceutical industry. The research objective: This study attempts: + To explore elements influencing brand loyalty in pharmaceutical industry in Ho Chi Minh City + To investigate the effect of country of origin on brand loyalty in pharmaceutical industry in Ho Chi Minh City.
+ To examining the effect of country of origin on brand Awareness, brand Image and perceived quality in pharmaceutical in Ho Chi Minh City. The significant of research: The research provides valuable insights to managers of pharmaceutical companies can use factors impacting brand loyalty such as Country of origin to direct advertise consumers and retain consumer brand loyalty. Moreover, marketing managers can use strategic relate to brand attributes in order to create and maintain customer’s loyalty and increase profitable and reduce costs which will be useful for companies? TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The scope of the study: Firstly, this study is only conducted by selecting convenience sample for researcher and the purpose research in order to define factors affecting brand loyalty depend on customers based brand equity ‘s view, therefore, the respondents is consumers who used to go hospital for treatment.
Hence, consumers of the district eleventh, Tan Phu district, district fifth hospital in Ho Chi Minh City were choose random for this study. Secondly, this study is only focus on over the counter market in which is also in short OTC, because of a couple of additional concerns: Adapted from DeLorme et. (2010), OTC medication can be defined as medication that does not require a prescription from a medical practitioner; it can be purchased freely and it is regulated by health authorities through OTC monographs which contain the approved ingredients, dosage, instructions, formulation and labelling of medication. Griffiths (2008) defines that for many companies, focusing on OTC products is an approach of building sales and developing new business value, which has resulted in some companies to switch from POM to OTC brands In addition, OTC medication can be used by consumers to treat certain conditions that do not require the approval or regulation by a medical practitioner (DeLorme et al.
By this mean, consumers are looking for easing their pains and other symptoms by using OTC products for self-diagnosed diseases (Ashman et al., 2007), after searching on the Internet a cause for their symptoms. In fact, Blackett and Harrison (2001) claim that over 90 percent of consumers in the US are in favor of switching more brands to OTC.