John Lidstone is an internationally recognised leader in management and marketing consultancy. He retired as Deputy Chairman of Marketing Improvements Group Plc in 1993, after spending nearly thirty years helping to build it into one of the foremost firms in marketing consultancy, research and training operating throughout the world, following eleven years with the Shell Group and teaching at Repton School. He created and built the group's healthcare division and directed marketing consultancy assignments for 45 multinational pharmaceutical companies working for them in over 42 countries. This included developing, testing and installing marketing planning systems from which the material in this book is derived. He is also the author of 15 other books. In 1993 he returned to the academic world to write the distance-learning marketing modules for the MBA programme of the University of Surrey's School of European Management and as Marketing Adviser to the School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi. He also lectures on modules for the MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine and the new MSc in Management Consultancy at Surrey. Janice MacLennan, Managing Director of St Clair Consulting, combines a degree in Pharmacy with extensive in-depth marketing experience in Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare and related disciplines. From Senior Brand Manager at Beecham Pharmaceuticals, she became a Managing Consultant at a major London-based marketing consultancy, where she met and worked closely with John Lidstone. Janice then went on to found St Clair Consulting, enabling her to capitalise on her extensive pharmaceutical and healthcare experience working with multinational companies throughout the world. Janice has rapidly built an enviable reputation with major blue-chip clients and is widely regarded as being an authority on strategic, marketing and business planning for all aspects of healthcare and is also actively involved in the development of process and people in the marketing

Foreword; Introduction; The external analysis; The internal analysis; The SWOT analysis; Product strategy; Sales forecasting and strategy; Strategy implementation; Communications and its role in strategy implementation; Marketing research; Implementation and control; Writing the plan; Glossary of marketing terms; Index.

Marketing in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector requires a particular set of skills; its intricacies mean planning is an essential prerequisite. The marketing planning system described in this book has been designed to enable marketing and product executives to produce a plan which serves as a dynamic management tool which will help them to get from where they are now to where they want to be next year and thereafter. Now in its second edition, this bestselling book has become the standard text for all product managers, marketing managers and directors working in this demanding industry.