Situational Analysis – SWOT
Strengths
According to the letter of Johnson & Johnson’s CEO to the company’s shareholders, the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the company in a positive way (Gorsky, 2021). The company was able to develop a COVID-19 vaccine in 12 months which indicates employees’ high level of morale and motivation. The company was able to train more than 6 million healthcare professionals through the use of virtual platforms to cover emerging issues. The company is able to adjust quickly to the conditions and develop solutions that prioritize patients, customers, and their needs.
Weaknesses (internal)
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company invested a significant amount of capital into innovations, and the need for further investments would stop only when the pandemic was over. Additionally to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, the company supplied financial help and essential products for the families that were left in need because of the pandemic. The company provided $50 million in PPE to help the front line of pandemic staff and $100 million to Race to Health Equity and is now improving the ethnic diversity of the company’s staff (Gorsky, 2021).
Opportunities (external)
The COVID-19 pandemic offered more opportunities to the company with increased demand in the consumer health business. The company was able to reaffirm its’ commercial capabilities by developing a virtual environment for product launches and remote training for healthcare professionals.
Threats (external)
Although the company was able to work successfully, the pandemic highlighted the company’s dependence on the Supply Chain. The BLM movement emphasized the higher mortality rate in communities of color, which led to the company’s need to achieve diversity and be more inclusive. Due to the company’s scale, Johnson & Johnson must focus on climate change and water security.
Strategic Agenda Quadrants – MOVE
Missed Opportunity: Weakness & Opportunity combination
The significant amount of profit that occurred from the increased demand for consumer health was directed in innovation investments. Instead of donations, the company could have invested more into the development of the virtual environment as it expanded the company’s commercial capabilities.
Ominous Threat: Weakness & Threat combination
The company was able to successfully balance investments in innovation and manage the environmental consequences of the company’s activities. Prioritization of one of the issues could potentially result in either reduced efficiency of the company or disapproval from ecological society.
Vital Opportunity: Strength & Opportunity combination
The company could utilize the ability to quickly adapt to the conditions and use the growth in the consumer health department more effectively. The company has already used this ability to provide remote services and training for healthcare professionals.
Enervated Threat: Strength & Threat combination
It is not typical for a company that can promptly adjust to the conditions to state that the changes in the ethnic diversity of the staff would take a long time.
Strategic Alternatives
COMPETES Johnson & Johnson could improve by focusing more on aspects of customer support. As there have been reports on blood clots confirmed in six individuals vaccinated with the J&J COVID-19 vaccine, the company should improve patient support (Rao, 2021). Although, according to Rao, blood clotting from the vaccine is a rare form that counts stroke outcomes in less than 1% of the cases, the patients must be notified about the issue (2021).
SING
In the conditions of a pandemic could be helpful to separate the consumer health market and the healthcare market and prioritize healthcare. Moreover, even though the pandemic significantly influenced the economy and the population’s purchasing level, the company launched new products without updating the customer groups.
GUUDS
As the pandemic affected the consumer purchasing level in a negative way, the utility and usage aspects changed and need to be revised. Although profits from the consumer health market increased, the increased demand for TYLENOL® and LISTERINE® shows that there was a switch in the products’ level of utility and usage (Gorsky, 2021).
Recommendations
The Healthcare department of the company should be prioritized over the consumer health market. The company could postpone further launches of new products to ensure proper investments in innovations for the healthcare department. A further strategy for the consumer health department should imply the strategy of dimensions of segmentation and address the Utility and Usage aspects in the GUUDS model.
References
Gorsky, A. (2021). To Our Shareholders. Johnson & Johnson. Web.
Rao, S. (2021). Is the public outcry for Johnson & Johnson Jansen’s COVID-19 vaccine causing blood clots justified? DHR Proceedings, 1, 1-2. Web.