Johnson & Johnson’s historical structure has benefitted the company in various ways. The company has a long-standing history that has made it a leading multinational business over the years. It has been in business for over 130years, and this has helped the company to build their image and reputation (Jones, 2108). Moreover, innovation has helped Johnson & Johnson to change their ways of product management to include sustainability in the whole process of product life cycle from design, manufacturing, and product use. They continue to come up with new products and ideas that have helped to transform the well-being of their customers and human health. This has benefited the company by encouraging them to coming up with novel products for the consumers. Additionally, the company is already developing products by considering other sustainable aspects like energy and water used in manufacturing of the products to make an environmental impact.
About 15% of Johnson & Johnson profit is because of their medication in the US market. However, there was a crisis where a person laced their drug with cyanide, resulting to several deaths and widespread panic on the contamination of this medication. Clemons (2018) notes this incident led to loss in the company. Later, another incident happened but this time the company had learnt their lesson. Therefore, it responded swiftly by recalling the medicine from all outlets. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson assured customers that the product would only be re-established after offering better product protection. Consequently, to avoid such crisis in the future, Johnson & Johnson had to develop and innovate a tamperproof package, which would make it more difficult for similar incidence to take place. Such acts have enabled the company to benefit from their history and structure.
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Quality issues are rare in the company since the management understands that such problems can lead to its downfall. A reputable organization such as Johnson & Johnson need to protect its image and brand. By learning from the experiences, the company can develop a strategy to make them overcome the prevailing situation. As such, there is need for creative and innovative ways that can help them maintain their status in the competitive market. Bauman (2018) states that recovery and returning to the market are key elements that can set the company apart from their own. Through its brand name and products that it sells, the company has been able to continue doing business over the years. Consequently, Johnson & Johnson has attracted more people to invest in shares, making it a stable and globally recognized.
By putting consumers first, Johnson & Johnson can recover from the crisis faster as compared to their competitors. Offering alternative solutions and solving customers’ issues places the company at a better position to recover. The recent crisis was not due to negligence or misadventure of the company. However, there are situations that can arise, and the company should not be blames. Nonetheless, no matter the situation, the company must take the blame for the crisis. Jones (2108) acknowledges that overcoming the crisis is a major factor in maintaining the business of the company and Johnson & Johnson is an example of a business that has faced a crisis and managed to overcome it.
Johnson & Johnson continues to champion for environmentally friendly business practices within the industry. The company continues to model their business along sustainable goals through the reduction of negative impact on the environment. As such, the company sets aside funds geared towards implementing sustainable solutions in the healthcare industry. Particularly, this is to help in improving the company’s environment objectives and helping to expand their customers’ sustainability practices. Such work involves efforts of reducing carbon emissions, promotion of recyclable packaging, and source for renewable energy, among other best practices that go a long way in protecting and sustaining the environment. These acts make the company to be recognized and to maintain their historical standing in the industry.
Overcoming Quality Issues
By use of innovations, Johnson & Johnson can improve its business. Furthermore, Gorsky can encourage innovation within the workplace to help the company overcome the recent quality crisis. The company can also overcome the crisis by emphasizing on ethics amongst its employees. Although, the cost of innovation is high, the benefits are huge, thus the company’s reputation during the crisis is at risk. Since Johnson & Johnson used appropriate strategies to manage the situation, it achieved consumer champion status, where others have failed. About five months after the crisis, the company was able to recover over 70% of their market share (Jones, 2108). Notably, this helped in improving the company’s performance and making it develop a long-term strategy for their brand. Their competitors like Perrier received a backlash on their reluctance to handle such crisis and their reputation was damaged beyond repair. Johnson & Johnson, consumers were happy that reports indicate that there are consumers who ended up rewarding the company and decided to use the drug.
Offering leadership in such crucial moments is significant for a company to recover. William Weldon’s, former Johnson & Johnson chairman, exemplary leadership enabled him to manage the negative publicity from the media in a forthright way. Moreover, his decision to recall all drugs off market was an ideal solution to help restore the company reputation. Although, the move was costly, it saved the company at the end of the whole saga. Shareholders were hurt, and the company stock was affected; however, this changed after a few months. Gorsky can act quickly to overcome the recent quality issues that has affected the company. The company can decide to be open about the quality issue, and immediately seek to resolve the issue, instead of waiting for more investigations and evidence to prove that the quality issue is real. Harrigan (2017) opines that this will help in preventing the spread of the problem to other places. Additionally, swift and quick action can help to put measures to prevent future occurrence of such quality issues. The company can cater for all the damages in the short-term period for the sake of customers’ safety. Notably, this will help maintain the trust that consumers have with the company.
Such actions can instil investor confidence, thus many will continue receiving their dividends. The way Weldon as well as the management handled the crisis was commendable, indicating how the management plays a crucial role in the stability of a company. Through this, the company has been able to make great steps in diversifying their products. Presently, the company is one of the largest pharmaceutical across the world (Jones, 2108). It trades in prescription drugs and medical devices and already testing the novel drug coated arterial stent, which indicates that the company’s strength and uniqueness is in pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
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