CVS doesn't care if you buy Tylenol or Advil or which one works better, and makes no additional money depending on your choice of product. In fact, the brands pay CVS for the privilege of being featured on an eye-level shelf vs at the bottom.

I think it was a great article. Like it said: To succeed, an offering must create value for all entities involved in the exchange—target customers, the company, and its collaborators. And value is literally measured in dollars, so you're either saving or making money for someone, otherwise it's just a fun project.

I would absolutely choose one store over another if they had a proprietary tool to tell me which medicine is scientifically most likely to work for my ailment. I cannot stand the massive wall of choices at pharmacies.

This is a pretty short-sighted way of thinking of it.

A tool like this could easily be marketed as a USP for a pharmacy:

"Only CVS has MedFinder: a proprietary system to find you the medication that's most likely to help cure YOUR SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS. No more standing in front of the racks of too-similar sounding medications. Enter your symptoms, get a recommendation backed with data!"

The product here is a kiosk backed with some real data that you can build a marketing effort around as yet another way to try to differentiate yourself in a heavily commoditized business. Pharmacies fight tooth and nail to get people in their door, and especially, to transfer prescriptions to them. One more small detail that you can convince people might help them, that actually gets them through the door? You could build an entire campaign around it.

(Think Dr. Scholls placing those foot-pressure-sensor systems in pharmacies. They drive, pun intended, foot traffic.)

Interesting, could be a differentiator from other pharmacies.