There is a growing need for healthcare products and medicines in South Africa’s urban areas as well as in rural areas. The use of prescription drugs and the demand for other pharmaceutical services has been growing over the years and will likely continue to grow. Medications offer an effective means to treat and cure or control many acute and chronic medical conditions, plus they offer life-saving therapies for a large number of South Africans. Pharmacies provide a wide range of pharmaceutical care services that are critical to high quality health care and medication use. They have a key role in assuring the safety of medication use and reduction of medication error. This article will outline how to start a pharmacy business in South Africa, and a pharmacy business plan – PDF, Word and Excel.
A pharmacy business is a lucrative business, providing income for many entrepreneurs, but there are some essential factors you need to consider before you venture into such a business. You have to decide on the size of your business, the location of your pharmacy, the kind of products and services you will provide as well as your target market. These choices will be affected by the amount of capital you have, and the market you will target. You should carry out a feasibility study, market research and have a good pharmacy business plan before you venture into this type of business.
LOCATION & PREMISES
The location of your pharmacy is an important decision to make before you open your business. It’s important that you locate your operations close to your target market. Consider your customers and find an easily accessible location where people can travel to and quickly get service. Proper site selection and location with relation to markets, labour, utilities, and future expansion make a difference in how profitable your business will be. Also consider the land, and labour supply when setting up your pharmacy.
EQUIPMENT FOR A PHARMACY BUSINESS
You need various equipment for your pharmacy business. The equipment you need will depend on the size of your business, and the kind of other services you will provide. Some of the important equipment includes compounding equipment, dispensing equipment and pharmaceutical refrigerators to name a few. You may need to purchase a delivery vehicle and other office equipment for your business. Your pharmacy business plan should cater for the costs of purchasing all the relevant equipment that are required for your pharmacy business.
PRODUCTS
The products you can offer in your pharmacy can vary, you can provide prescription drugs, over the counter drugs beauty products and other health products. The complimentary products you sell will depend on your target niche. South Africa remains the largest pharmaceutical market in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its prescription drug market is very large. Also, there are many people both young and old who require health products such as supplements, and as well as beauty products such as make up, lotions as well as personal hygiene products. It is important to do market research before you can decide the products and services to provide. Therefore, ensure that you select a reputable supplier who can provide affordable and quality inputs as well as other medication consistently. Your business plan should clearly outline these important factors.
STAFF & MANAGEMENT
In order to become a customer-centric pharmacy business, it’s important that you hire employees that are friendly and efficient. Your employees should be passionate about healthcare in general. If you want to hit the ground running it’s better to hire a team of people who have experience in this kind of business. Your staff members should be able to attend to customer and patient needs on a consistent basis. Inexperienced staff members need to get extensive training before they can be given intricate tasks. Compounding and processing medication can be harmful and risky to both staff and patients if not done well. Therefore, you must hire qualified personnel. Depending on the size of your business, the number of your staff may vary. Some of the required staff members include pharmacists, store assistants and management. Your pharmacy business plan should cater for the salaries and requirements of your employees as well as every other cost associated with pharmacy personnel.
Some of the day-to-day operations of a pharmacy involve:
- Attending to patient and customer needs
- Preparing and processing medication
- Managing Staff
- Serving customers
When you are handling medicines or any other pharmaceutical products you should always remain aware and alert by paying attention to what touches your products. Using a wrong formulae can cause serious health issues to your patients and staff. It’s also very important to ensure that you stick to all industry related safety measures and regulations in place. Safety measures also involve having to check if your staff members are dressed appropriately especially when involved in the use of poisonous chemicals.
MARKET
Overall, the pharmaceutical sector in South Africa is important to national wellbeing, employing a significant number of the working population in the country. The health and pharmaceutical sector in South Africa is vitally important to national wellbeing. The overall pharmacy retail market is expected to offer attractive growth due to a general affordability trend towards self-medication and generic medicines as well as an increased focus of the middle income consumer on health and wellness. In addition, South Africa is saddled with a high disease burden – (HIV/AIDS), TB and rising non-communicable disease like diabetes. As such there will always be a need for pharmacies in both urban and rural areas.
IS A PHARMACY BUSINESS A GOOD INVESTMENT?
There is no denying that there is a reasonable number of pharmacies with a large market share in South Africa. However, you can still set up your own pharmacy business and be successful. There is no better time to enter into this type of business. You can also consider setting up a franchise and benefit from the expertise and knowledge of already established brands. Many new pharmacists can find this route beneficial especially if you are just starting out in business. If you prefer having complete control over your business operations you can develop your own brand from scratch. Investing in a pharmacy can be a profitable venture, but obviously, this will depend on many factors such as your target market, the input costs of setting up such an operation as well as the equipment, and labour are all important considerations. However, the set up costs of a pharmacy can be relatively low if you start small and choose affordable products and offer specific services in order for you to make reasonable profit margins. Apart from the obvious advantages of becoming financially independent and becoming your own boss, running a pharmacy can be a rewarding way of uplifting your community.
Given that the South African market is one of the leading emerging economies on the African continent there is potential for high growth. The pharmacy sector has been growing steadily for the past 10 years, thus setting up such a business can be a good investment. In addition, the move towards living a healthy lifestyle may increase the demand for pharmaceutical products and services in the country. Whether you are a young pharmacist, a professional seeking to start your own business or someone who needs a retirement plan, investing in a pharmacy business is something worth considering. One thing that can set you apart before investing in any business venture is developing a business plan. A well thought out business plan will help you in both the short term and long term for your investment. There are so many risks that are associated with running a business, like any other venture, your business plan should clearly outline these risks and the various ways to minimise them.
PRE-WRITTEN PHARMACY BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL): COMPREHENSIVE VERSION, SHORT FUNDING/BANK LOAN VERSION AND AUTOMATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
For an in-depth analysis of the pharmacy business in South Africa, purchase our retail pharmacy business plan. We decided to introduce the business plans after noting that many South Africans were venturing into the pharmacy business without a full understanding of the industry, market, how to run the business, the risks involved, profitability of the business and the costs involved, leading to a high failure rate of their businesses.
Our business plan will make it easier for you to launch and run a medical pharmacy store business successfully, fully knowing what you are going into, and what’s needed to succeed in the business. It will be easier to plan and budget as the pharmacy business plan will lay out all the costs involved in setting up and running the pharmacy business. The business plan is designed specifically for the South African market.
USES OF THE RETAIL PHARMACY BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL)
The pharmacy business plan can be used for many purposes including:
- Raising capital from investors/friends/relatives
- Applying for a bank loan
- Start-up guide to launch your retail pharmacy business
- As a pharmacy project proposal
- Assessing profitability of the pharmacy business
- Finding a business partner
- Assessing the initial start-up costs so that you know how much to save
- Manual for current business owners to help in business and strategy formulation
CONTENTS OF THE PHARMACY BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL)
The business plan includes, but not limited to:
- Market Analysis
- Industry Analysis
- 5 Year Automated Financial Statements [ Income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, monthly cash flow projections (3 years monthly cash flow projections, the remaining two years annually),break even analysis, payback period analysis, start-up costs, financial graphs, revenue and expenses, Bank Loan Amortisation]
- Marketing Strategy
- Risk Analysis
- SWOT & PEST Analysis
- Operational Requirements
- Operational Strategy
- Why some South Africans in the pharmacy business fail, so that you can avoid their mistakes
- Ways to raise capital to start your pharmacy business in South Africa
The Pharmacy Business Plan package consist of 4 files
- Pharmacy Business Plan – PDF file (Comprehensive – 105 pages)
- Pharmacy Business Plan – Editable Word File (Comprehensive – 105 pages)
- Pharmacy Business Plan Funding Version – Editable Word File (Short version for applying for a loan – 44 pages)
- Pharmacy Business Plan Automated Financial Statements – (Editable Excel file)
The financial statements are automated. This implies that you can change eg the markup, salaries etc, and all the other financial statements will automatically adjust to reflect the change.
GET THE PHARMACY BUSINESS PLAN (PDF, WORD AND EXCEL) - R500 Only.
We decided to make the business plan affordable to anyone who would want to start the business, and the price for the pre-written business plan is only 500 Rand.
We have several payment methods which you can use.
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If you want to purchase multiple business plans at once using Visa Card/MasterCard then click here: Business Plans Store
The business plan package is a zipped compressed file containing the PDF, Word and Excel documents. To open the package after downloading it, just right click, and select Extract All. If you have any problems in downloading and opening the files, email us on sales@bizbolts.co.za and we will assist you.
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Click Buy Now below to purchase. After you have purchased, you will instantly see the download link for the business plan package on the screen. We will also email you the download link. Get instant access to the business plan now!
If you want to purchase multiple business plans at once using Instant EFT then click here: Business Plans Store
The business plan package is a zipped compressed file containing the PDF, Word and Excel documents. To open the package after downloading it, just right click, and select Extract All. If you have any problems in downloading and opening the files, email us on sales@bizbolts.co.za and we will assist you.
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