By Professor Katharina LangeKatharina Lange, Professor Tawfik JelassiTawfik Jelassi and Pallivathukkal Cherian Abraham
Case (B) is set in January 2020 when CEO John Davison decided to step down as CEO by end of June 2020. It describes the specific actions of Zuellig Pharma’s transformation and how they resulted in more than doubling the company’s net profit between 2015 and 2019.
These actions included: (1) driving operational excellence by successfully completing the ERP implementation and taking other steps to fix operational problems; (2) fostering the leadership team through selective changes and aligning it around an integrated regional strategy; (3) increasing head office control while ensuring that country operations had the autonomy needed to operate effectively; (4) resetting the relationship between the management and the board to create more alignment and trust; (5) strengthening relationships with key distribution clients; and (6) growing the solutions businesses which accounted by 2019 for over 20% of GOR and net profit.
The case also describes the situation facing Zuellig Pharma as the Covid-19 pandemic began to unfold, and John Davison’s initial thoughts on related key issues facing the company.
Learning Objective
- Crisis management in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Resilience: Individual resilience as a leader as well as organizational and IT system resilience.
- Succession planning
