CVS vs. Walgreens | A New Prescription | 3

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s 2009 and Walgreens is in crisis. It’s just lost its CEO and surrendered its top-dog status to CVS.

But it’s about to fightback. It’s got a plan to launch itself onto the world stage and sock it to the pharmacy benefit managers that are eroding its profit margins.

But when its comeback plan hits trouble, it’ll be CVS that benefits.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In Deerfield, Illinois, Greg Wasson enters the Walgreens conference room and smiles at
0:13.8	the company's senior executive team.
0:16.2	The executives are already in the seats, armed with legal pads, laptops, and blackberries.
0:21.8	The executives smile back, but no one's actually feeling upbeat.
0:27.0	Since February 2009, and Wasson's just become Walgreens CEO, he's 50 with a gray
0:33.6	crew cut and small rectangular glasses.
0:36.7	He's eager to push the company out of its comfort zone.
0:40.0	He sits down at the head of the table.
0:41.8	Well, the past few months, years really, have been hard, but today I want us to step back
0:48.1	and plan for tomorrow.
0:52.2	The executives murmur in agreement.
0:54.6	They know Walgreens needs a jumpstart.
0:57.9	Last October, Walgreens fumbled its chance to buy California drugstore chain longs.
1:02.9	Soon after, the company's previous CEO left abruptly.
1:06.8	Now, the great recessions laying waste to its sales and stock price.
1:11.6	But Wasson knows there are deeper problems, too.
1:15.2	For 20 years, we've tried to grab the best street corners in America.
1:19.2	It's been effective, taking us from 1,500 stores to 7,000 stores today.
1:24.2	The team waits for the, but, Watson doesn't disappoint.
1:29.4	But we're near a saturation point where opening new stores often hurts existing ones.
1:36.0	What we need to do is draft a new plan for growth.
1:39.7	The executives go all in, excitedly lobbing ideas back and forth.
	...

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