OWP liVe REPORT

11

Learn to play the ‘Digital Business Transformation Piano’, one chord at a time

L E A D E R S H I P

Follow the example of Asian pharmaceutical distributor Zuellig Pharma to re-tune your organization and build greater resilience to face potential new crises, say IMD Professor of Leadership Katharina Lange and IMD Professor of Strategy and Technology Management Tawfik Jelassi. If your organization suffered during 2020, you are not alone. Many organizations across the world have faced an onslaught of both internal and external challenges – from philharmonics to pharmaceutical companies. Asian pharmaceutical distributor Zuellig Pharma, however, made it through the pandemic on a high note thanks to its earlier strategic transformation. In their OWP liVe session, the experts shared a new, three-part case study on Zuellig Pharma’s evolution into a data-driven pharmaceutical distribution company, and were joined by John Davison, the organization’s former CEO.

From 2014-2019, Zuellig Pharma tackled its many operational, strategic and cultural challenges head-on under Davison. These dissonances included all four categories of the “Digital Transformation Piano”, among them fragmented management, a troubled ERP-software implementation and, as a result, major operational issues and mounting client dissatisfaction, on top of economic pressure from the outside environment. “Two things require particular attention – responding to competitive threats and anticipating emerging digital disruption,” said Professor Jelassi. The DBT Piano illustrates the company’s transformation in four sections: Go-to Market, Engagement, Operations and Organization. Each section is then made up of individual “keys”, which, when played together in various combinations, provide the “chords” – resulting in the rich tonality Zuellig Pharma needed to succeed.

Go-to Market

Made up of channels and offerings, this includes the route to market (retail, wholesale or e-commerce) and product or service transformation. New data analytics at Zuellig Pharma developed insights and valuable services based on the data generated from its core distribution business. The new data-driven offerings were highly valued by pharmaceutical clients, hospitals and pharmacies. As Davison put it, “We switched the lights on in a very dark space where there is little to no accurate supply chain data”. The value of these solutions has created a much greater degree of “stickiness” with Zuellig Pharma`s client ecosystem. This section includes workforce, customers and partners. With Zuellig’s expertise in high-end business-to- business logistics, operating in a finely balanced supply chain ecosystem, engaging with a larger part of the ecosystem, such as insurance companies, Engagement

KATHARINA LANGE IMD Professor of Leadership

TAWFIK JELASSI IMD Professor of Strategy and Technology Management