Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 Response and Digital Transformation

This assignment delves into Johnson & Johnson's efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the company's vaccine development, including their collaborations with governments and partnerships with other companies. Additionally, it explores how Johnson & Johnson has accelerated its digital transformation during this time. The assignment also discusses leadership strategies, such as resilient leadership, transformational leadership, and managing organizational change. It references various sources, including news articles, official websites, and academic publications.

Change Leadership
Coursework
Leadership in
Pharmaceutical Industry
and Covid-19
By: Israa Tatari
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Table of Content
INTRODUCION 3
PART ONE: PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSRY ANALYSIS 3
PART TWO: JOHNSON & JOHNSON CASE STUDY 4
JOHNSON & JOHNSON CHANGE MANAGEMNT ANALYSIS 5
JOHNSON & JOHNSON LEADERSHIP EVALUATION 5
J&J: REMAINING PROFITABLE DURING THE CURRENT GLOBAL
CONDITONS 6
CONCLUSION 6
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Introduction:
Covid-19 is a global pandemic that requires all types of industries in different areas around
the world to make changes and shift to survive the crisis and thrive. The pharmaceutical
industry in Morocco, that is the second largest industry in the African continent
(mcinet.gov.ma, 2020), was one of the industries that proved competence in this regard. This
paper will analyse the business methods that are applied in this industry to handle
relationships with stakeholders including customers and employees during the crisis. It will
also discuss the communication tools and strategies adopted in light of the increasing
dependency on digitized communication style. Furthermore, this report will analyse and
evaluate Johnson & Johnson change management and leadership and recommend how it can
act to remain profitable during Covid-19 global crisis.
PART ONE: Pharmaceutical Industry Analysis:
Due to the global pandemic of Covid-19 and the active supply distribution in the global
pharmaceutical market, a major health concern manifested in global drugs shortage was
declared by several governments around the world and the WHO. Leaders in this regard had
to face a major paradox that can be manifested in the balance between helping their
communities and ecosystems while remaining profitable.
However, Moroccan leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, that employees 50000 people
with more than 9000 direct and indirect jobs besides about DH 400 million of annual
investments, under the umbrella of the Moroccan Ministry of Health in corporation with
several professional associations including the Moroccan Association or Federation of
Pharmaceutical Industry (AMIP/ FMIP), the Moroccan Association of Generic Medicines
(AMMG), Les Enterprises du Médicament au Maroc (LEMM), the Moroccan Foundation for
Advanced Science Research and Development (MAScIR), the Council of Pharmaceutical
Industry and Distribution (COPID) and the Council of Pharmacists working in
Pharmaceutical Industry and Distribution (COPFR), have reflected an integrated sense of
resilient servant leadership and change management (Miglierini. G, 2018, Lamrini. R, 2020).
Resilient servant leadership is an approach in which leaders tend to lead by serving the needs
of their stakeholders including employees, customers and the community as a whole while
having the capability to adapt, sustain their energy under pressure and go beyond recovering
from adversaries and setbacks by exploiting them to achieve growth (Gavin. M, 2020/
Kohlrieser. G, 2020/ indeed.com, 2020/Bhaskaran. S, 2020). Whereas change management
can be defined as a systematic approach used to create strategies, structures, processes and
technologies to face and adapt major changes (Shrm.org,2020).
Morocco was the first African country to declare a health emergency state. Based on the
concepts defined above, many integrated efforts by the mentioned parties were made to avoid
drugs’ supply conflict and mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on the employees, customers and
the Moroccan community.
Starting from those parties’ efforts to forecast, monitor, and strategically plan to adopt
changes; they were able to anticipate the crisis and mobilize the industry according to it to
cover more than 80% of medications’ increasing demand based on strong shortage and quotas
management plans, that sought to maintain the industry’s activities in the best circumstances
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possible besides ensuring the supply of raw materials and final products by prioritizing the
Moroccan market, restrict exports, monitor safety stock and guarantee equal distribution
across all the Moroccan regions with predetermined affordable prices (Hamann. J, 2020/
EuropeanBusinessMagazine.com, 2020).
Further procedures took place in terms of drugs and medications production that can be
manifested in a protocol to divide them into first- and second-lines treatments for Covid-19
with ensuring enough supply of both lines’ products, besides ensuring that all the medications
are manufactured under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) quality standards for WHO and
EDQM (European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare). (Lamrini. R,
2020/ Miglierini.G, 2018)
In addition to the development of the first Moroccan Covid-19 diagnostic kit conforming to
the international standards, by the MAScIR Foundation (Atalayar.com, 2020).
As mentioned before, the Moroccan pharmaceutical industry employees about 50000 people
who can be mentally and physically impacted with Covid-19. However, those people are
supported, trained and empowered by the COPFR based on different training plans and
seminars (Miglierini. G, 2018).
As a result of Covid-19, new digital culture among the Moroccan community has emerged,
due to the increasing pace of digitalization, accelerated by the Moroccan Agency of Digital
Development (ADD), that aimed to position Morocco as a digital hub in the region and
enhance the digital literacy there.
Under the leadership of the Moroccan government, this agency has created several digital
platforms to facilitate and expedite the communication between citizens, agencies,
institutions, ministries and businesses, such as the ones for health professionals, the digital
mailing management office (to improve workflow by enabling public bodies to manage mails
digitally instead of using physical documents), and the Chikaya platform (that involves 119
different bodies to receive and respond citizens’ complaints(add.gov, 2020)).
In addition to the platforms provided by ADD, employees in Morocco became more familiar
with Cloud-based tools such as Slack, Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams due to the
adoption of a remote working model. Employees’ supportive associations and institutions in
this regard are shifting to provide digital training relying on Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) and cloud-based training platforms. In addition to using Big Data to monitor
employee’s performance, forecasting their turnover, and adopting new selection criteria for
future recruitments.
And lastly, for the governmental bodies to enhance their communication with the Moroccan
community and fully engage them, especially for the Ministry of Health during Covid-19
crises, they use different social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter besides relying
on daily press reviews to publish the latest updates and notes about the current situation
(Rhanem. K, 2020).
PART TWO: Johnson & Johnson Case Study:
Johnson and Johnson are the largest health care company in the world that was founded by
Robert, James and Edward Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1886. This company is
in one of the most powerful corporations on the Big Pharma list, it has about 250 subsidiaries,
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with 132000 employees across 60 countries around the world to produce 3 main products
categories that are consumer healthcare products, medical devices and pharmaceutical drugs.
Under its pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen, this company is considered as the world’s 3rd
largest Pharmaceutical producer, with maintaining the position of leader number one in the
US (Miller. E, 2020/ jnj.com, 2019)
In 2019, this company has achieved a 0.6% sales growth due to its superior performance in
the pharmaceutical industry (Fortune.com, 2020). However, similarly to all businesses from
all sectors, Johnson & Johnson has been affected by Covid-19 crisis, which put it in a need to
adapt its change management and leadership to the new status quo.
Johnson & Johnson Change Management Analysis:
Change management can be analysed and achieved based on different models and theories.
This report will rely on Kotter’s 8 Steps Change Framework to analyse Johnson & Johnson’s
change management.
This framework was developed in 1955, by the Harvard Business School’s professor John
Kotter, who introduced in his book “Leading Change” 8 essential steps for a change process,
that can be manifested in creating urgency, building strong guiding teams, developing vision,
strategy and communicating them, overcoming obstacles, creating short-term wins,
consolidating improvements and integrating the change into the organization’s culture
(Shrm.org,2020).
Johnson & Johnson in this regard is currently operating based on the Enterprise Risk
Management framework that is outlined by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the
Treadway Commission (COSO). This company’s main urgency in light of global pandemic is
to be one of the leaders in developing a vaccine for Covid-19. As initial short-term wins It has
signed contracts with both EU and US’s governments to provide up to 500 million doses of
the potential vaccine, based on a sense of commitment, the company’s core values and a
vision of making this vaccine accessible globally by 2021, making all of its stakeholders
involved in this process (Erman. M, 2020/ voanews.com, 2020/ jnj.com, 2020).
Since it has been a significant producer of different vaccines, Johnson & Johnson is
continuously scaling up its production capacity in alignment to its values to meet its vision.
However, it is facing several risks and obstacles that include but are not limited to
uncertainties concerned with R&D, such as the clinical success of the vaccine, production
challenges, changes in all of the health care products’ consumer behaviour, trends in the
global market, laws, regulations and standards (jnj.com, 2020). This company is trying to
mitigate those risks and overcome obstacles through its ERM framework, that is concerned
with monitoring and improving its culture, capabilities, strategy-setting, practices, and
performance.
Johnson & Johnson Leadership Evaluation:
There are different styles of leadership that businesses can adopt based on several factors such
as their organizational structure, the nature of their work and environments in which they
operate. All styles of leadership have a certain situation to fit. However, the leadership style
that is adopted by Johnson and Johnson is transformational leadership, especially during
Covid-19 global crisis.
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Transformational leadership is a leadership style that was introduced and developed in the
latest 70s and 80s of the 20th centuries, by James McGregor Burns and Bernard M. Bass, in
their books “Leadership" and "Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations", in which
they defined it as a style of leadership that enables leaders and their followers to support each
other with a high level of integrity, morality, and motivation (mindtools.com, 2020).
Johnson & Johnson in this regard has pivoted its transformational leadership into
transformational crisis leadership mode relying on technology as a cornerstone for it survive
and thrive. This company has developed a new purpose statement to engage and inspire its
stakeholders to make positive changes for the future of healthcare, preparing them for a
digital one.
In this company, technology is involved in all the activities across all functions from R&D,
finance and supply chains to HRM to create higher value for stakeholders through better
decision making and higher productivity. It is involved externally to globally support
customer and their families, and internally to support employees (Swanson. J, 2020).
This happens through relying on data science, by working cross-functionally to collect high-
quality data that is efficient in serving its stakeholders needs and thus efficient for decisions
making.
Furthermore, it happens through relying on intelligent automation that helps employees to
focus on value-added activities including improving quality, speed, and decisions, while
decreasing routine in the work process and becoming more agile in connecting, collaborating
and inventing, especially under the conditions remote working (deloitte.wsj.com, 2020/
Swanson. J, 2020)
Johnson & Johnson: Remaining Profitable Under the Current Global Conditions:
Based on the analysis and evaluation above, Johnson & Johnson is making and integration
between the concepts of change management and change leadership in order to make many
small controlled changes that lead to the big puzzle of large-scale changes, by relying on a
transformational crisis leadership mode based on Enterprise Risk Management framework.
However, despite this integration, this company is still threatened by several risks that may
affect its profitability as this report showed. So, in order to remain profitable under those
conditions it is recommended for it to create an R&D contingency plan concerned with worse
case scenarios for the clinical results of the vaccine, so it can be able to pivot using other
solutions in case of any disruption. In addition to continuously enhance its relationships and
transparent empathetic communication with stakeholders to remind them that the company is
here to serve them, so it can be supported by them to survive and prosper.
Furthermore, it needs to determine where production challenges are manifested creating plans
and strategies to overcome them and guarantee smooth production processes. Besides, making
continuous observation for each and every change in its external environment and making
anticipation of what can come next to be ready to face any major changes without affecting its
profitability.
Conclusion:
Major changes are taking place in the world, especially during the time of crisis, in which
businesses from all industries are significantly threatened by its negative impact and have
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unlimited opportunities to benefit from its positive one. In order for them to do so, businesses
have to continuously improve to shift their management and leadership to be ready to survive
and thrive.
The crisis of Covid-19 did not end yet, it is still present leading the global uncertainty to
increase more and more, businesses should not stop acting to lead and manage changes in
order to survive the present and thrive the future.
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