Management:1444790

INTRODUCTION
Management refers to the process of coordination and cooperation of all the processes and resources of an organisation such as planning, organising, directing and controlling in order to maintain the goals and objectives of the organisation (HART-JOHNSON, 2018). It is important for companies to have effective management of all the processes in their organisation so that it could become possible for them to make achievement of their goals and objectives in an effective way which increase chances of future growth and development of the organisation.
The following assignment is related to a real time scenario which focuses on the issues and problems which have been faced by an organisation which created a situation of crisis for them. The assignment will start by making its focus on the problem statement which will tell about actually what happened and how this become an incident and why it was important to solve and the negative impact which it has created on the brand image of the organisation.
In addition to this, the assignment will make its focus upon different aspects of the issues along with conducting situation analysis, assessing the current which the company is facing. The impact of the incident on the brand image of the organisation will be presented in the assignment along with the positioning strategy of the organisation before and after the incident and how the incident has impacted upon the positioning of brand in the minds of customers.
Further, the information about the public relation steps and approaches regarding the incident will be discussed in the assignment along with importance of ethics and its impact on the business and advertising on the working of an organisation in relation to the current situation faced by the organisation. Lastly, the description will be provided about the revised marketing strategy of the organisation which helped the company in overcoming the issues and problems faced during the incident.
The company chosen for the completion of this assignment is Johnson & Johnson which was founded in the year 1886 and is headquartered in One Johnson & Johnson Plaza, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and U.S. The company provides their customers with different types of products and services such as pharmaceutical products, medical devices, consumer health and many more products which assist in improving the health and well being of an individual.
MAIN BODY
Problem Statement
The issues occurred during the normal days of working of the company when it was considered as one of the most trusted medical care services in the country. The company at that time was producing different medical care products but discussing about the main product, it was Tylenol which was one of the most sold out product in the United States with consumers over a hundred million users in the country (Pesonen and et. al., 2020). During the period of fall of 1982, a single individual or group of individual replaced the Tylenol Extra Strength Capsules with Cyanide Laced Capsules with proper resealing and packaging completed and immediately deposited them into the shelves of at least half a dozen or some more which are unknown to the current period of times as well.
As there was no doubt and information regarding these type of activities going on in the process of production of the organisation, the products which were changed went into the market for sale and they were also being purchased by the customers like usual. After taking those capsules, it caused seven unsuspicious deaths in the region without any reason and the deaths were also horrible.
At that period of time, Robert Andrews was the Assistant Director of Public Relations in the organisation and suddenly received a call from the new reporter about the incident which occurred in Chicago about the news of deaths of people by making use of products of Johnson & Johnson Company (Kavanagh, Kraman and Kavanagh, 2018). As it was also shocking for the company as like it was for the customers, there was no response or explanation from the company about how this incident happened, how the medical products which were earlier used to take care of individuals in order to improve their health issues? The company came to know about the poisoned Tylenol which was considered as the main reason of death of individuals in the region.
The problem in front of the company was this incident which has impacted upon the organisation and the future impacts which the following incident will create on the working and existence of the organisation. The problem was also to know how the products were changed, with what intention and may more questions but among all, there was also another important question in front of the company which was that how to deal with this situation?
Situation Analysis
Situation Analysis refers to the process which is used by the companies or their managers in order to analyse a particular situation and the impact on the basis of both the internal and external environment of the organisation to understand its capabilities, customers and business environment as well (Tison and et. al., 2018). There is not only a single problem which is been faced by the company but there are a numerous issues which are faced by Johnson & Johnson because of this incident. The description of the current situation which has been faced by the company is provided as under:
Crisis communication is one of the most important and critical situation in which the Public Relation Manager will deal with one time at another. The same situation was also faced by the Assistant PR Director of Johnson & Johnson in which the PR does not know about how to reach to the situation. They do not have any explanation regarding the situation which they faced at that period of time and in case of any other company in this situation will do not know how to react at it. However, there were only seven packaging which were changed and which was also come to know about later on when all the products were called back by the company otherwise no one knew about the amount of changes which were made in the products.
The second critical situation arises about facing the media and customers who had shown too much loyalty, dedication and faith in the products of the company. Yes, the market of the company was totally destroyed because of the this incident as the brand images and goodwill which the company established in the minds of customers was totally destroyed with this incident and the outcomes resulted in degradation of demand of the products and services of the organisation (Fitzmaurice and et. al., 2018).
The third critical situation existing in front of the company was related to preventing other individual from taking Tylenol as there are possibilities that this could impact negatively on the health and well being of these individuals as well and may harm them as well. So in order to prevent the lives of other people, it was important to communicate the information about stopping the use of Tylenol to the customers. It was also crucial tasks to inform a big share of market about stopping the use of products and services of the organisation which was as important as crucial task to do. After stopping the use, it was also important to collect back all the products and check them about the changes and contaminations done in the products impacting negatively on the health and well being of individuals.
The forth critical situation was how to make possible the survival of the organisation in the marketplace. After this incidence, there were certain things which were important for the company to consider upon such as bringing backs the products of the organisation, testing them, making payments to the customers, providing financial support to the families in which people dies are some of the important duties of the company. After this much, the costs of the company increased to certain extent and covering the costs was also important in order to stand in the market for getting back to the normal situation after overcoming the complete situation (Lassale and et. al., 2018).
In the fifth critical situation which has been identified in the following situation is related to getting back the market share, trust of customers in the products and services of the company. As the current situation of death of people does not make it possible for the customers to trust upon the products and services of the organisation. Along with this, the company itself was not sure about the use of their products and services so it was important for the company to be first sure about their products and services and then it should make its focus on gaining the trust of customers back in the products and services of the company.
The sixth critical situation in front of Johnson & Johnson was related to the making communication effective in relation to customers, media and other stakeholders of the organisation. The situation presented by the media which is an important stakeholder for every organisation was not proved to be a good stakeholder in case of Johnson & Johnson which made it important for the company to analyse the situation in an effective way so that it could become possible for the company to have the support and faith of each and every stakeholder of the organisation in the critical situations as well. The faith and cooperation of different stakeholders of the organisation was important in order to successful get back to the earlier situation by the organisation in which the company was earlier.
Seventh critical situation which is considered as important is analysing the situation and current working processes, policies and strategies of the organisation which it has adopted and the changes which are required in order to deal better with the these type of situation which might be possible for the company to face again. The following situation needs to be analysed only after completing and achieving positive outcomes from all the earlier completed activities which will make it possible for the company to develop future strategies of growth and development of the organisation in the marketplace (Chaudhary and et. al., 2019). Regular evaluation of the working processes of the organisation is also considered as important in order to eliminate the negativities in the business processes of an organisation.
On the basis of above situation, it can be said that Johnson & Johnson is facing a very serious and critical situation which has not impacted upon the brand image of the company but has impacted negatively upon the faith and trust which has been shown by the customers to the products and services of the company. Overall the situation is very critical which needs to be assessed and managed in a proper manner.
Impact of the Incident on the Brand
Discussion about the impact which has been created by the brand on the working of the company and brand, it can be said that the impact was severe and negative which almost totally destroyed the brand image and recognition, good will of the company in the marketplace (Wooddell and et. al., 2017). Medical services are considered as one of the most important services across the world where people show their believe and comes up with hope that this will help in preventing their lives and when these medicines impacts negatively and becomes the reason of death of an individual than this will impact negatively on the faith and trust of customers who are making use of products and services of the organisation.
Tylenol along was responsible for 19 percent of Johnson & Johnson’s profits during the first three quarters in the year 1982. In relation to the sales of the company, the contribution of Tylenol was around 13 percent in the sales growth year by year and 33 percent to the year to year profit growth of the company. But the following event made sensational headlines in the newspapers. The role of media in spreading the rumours about degrading the image of company more in the market was also very much (Aleke, Ibuot and Obiora, 2018).
As they ran around more than 1, 25,000 distinct news stories about the products and services of the organisation during the period of crisis which was also another serious main issue for the company because the media pulled over the issue more and more and presented in front of the customers in different ways which also become a reason of de-motivation of customers towards the products and services of the organisation.
After this incident, the prices and demands of products fall off as people stopped purchasing products and services of Johnson & Johnson which impacted negatively on the growth and survival prospects of the organisation in the marketplace. The role of media in damaging the name and brand of the company played an essential role with their catchy lines such as in the initial report of the newspaper provided about the death of customers from the most trusted brand of American citizens. So overall it can be said that there was a negative impact on brand image of the organisation because of the following incident in which the role of media was of much contribution in forming negative image of the organisation.
Johnson & Johnson’s Positioning Strategy Before and After the Incident
The Before the Incident Positioning Strategy of Johnson & Johnson was related to the sales maximisation and profit maximisation aspects of the company (Falkheimer and et. al., 2017). Looking onto the current situation of the company, it can be said that before the incident, the company does not give due care and importance to the strategy formulation, public relations, market analysis, brand image and awareness aspects and many more aspects with the help of which improvement in the working performance and creation of positive brand image of the working processes of the organisation along with creating good relationship with different stakeholders of the organisation as well.
Before the occurrence of the incident, the company focused on the quality of their products and services and maintained it properly in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the organisation. There were no improvements that have been seen in the working of the organisation and the seriousness in relation to the working processes of Johnson & Johnson (Lakkireddy and et. al., 2018).
After the occurrence of the incident, Johnson & Johnson become aware about the importance of concerns and perspectives of stakeholders which plays important roles in the success and failure of an organisation in the marketplace. After the incident, the main key focus areas of the company were “how the people will be protected” and “how do we save this product?” These two questions strike in the minds of the company in order to position out the brand in front of the customers.
In the first preference of the company, it was the safety and security of their customers instead of worrying about the costs which the company will incur when calling back the products of the company from customers to the organisation for checking about the qualities and services of the organisation.
In addition to this, the changes were made in the packaging processes of the organisation as earlier the company provided only a single seal on the products and after this incident, Johnson & Johnson attached two more seals, a total of three seals are now labelled on the products to make sure about the safety and security concerns of their customers in relation to their health safety and well being (Hagen and et. al., 2018). The following aspects are also a way in order to protect the customers and protecting the product as well. It helped a lot in positioning out the product in the market after the occurrence of the incident.
It also started making improvements in their relationships with media as a stakeholder of the company which helped a lot in making people aware about the information which the company was conveying to their customers such as pulling off products of the organisation back to the company and providing helpline and updates regarding the frequent changes in their processes with the passing of time as well (Matsumura and et. al., 2017).
Johnson and Johnson effectively utilized the media, both PR and paid promoting, to impart data about its reaction just as its developing methodology through the length of the emergency. For the most part, before the emergency, Johnson and Johnson didn’t effectively look for press inclusion, yet notwithstanding this naiveté, it perceived the significance of open correspondence during an emergency, particularly if Tylenol somehow happened to be “spared.”
To start with, as noted above, it gave a public alarm to advise the public not to utilize the Tylenol item. It additionally settled a complementary hotline to react to requests from clients concerning the wellbeing of Tylenol. Second, it likewise settled a complementary line for news associations to call and get pre-recorded day by day messages with refreshed articulations about the emergency. Next, a few significant public interviews were held at corporate base camp. Inside hours of the main reports, an inward video staff group set up a live TV feed by means of satellite to the New York metro territory. This permitted all public conferences to go national.
Public Relation Crisis Management
Crisis Management refers to the process with the help of which it is possible for an organisation to deal with major issues which are being faced by the company in the business environment impacting negatively on the organisation, stakeholders and the general public as well.
Johnson & Johnson has applied Crisis Management in an effective way and the depiction of great leadership efforts has been shown by the company in the following situation where people and companies are not able to think off that what they are supposed to do but in the following case, the main focus of the company was to save the lives of people and customers who are making use of products and services of the company.
Proper engagement with media, PR and paid advertising was done by Johnson & Johnson in order to spread information about the incident and the actions which the individuals are supposed to take after the occurrence of this incident.
With the help proper support and use of media for national support, it has become possible for the company to issue the national alerts for everybody to not to use the Tylenol product. The establishment of separate help lines were also made in order to save the lives of people. In this way, the proper management of crisis and implementation of proper crisis communication strategies has been shown by the company in relation to save the lives of their customers and work in an ethical environment (Fitzmaurice and et. al., 2017).
The Importance of Ethics and its Impact on Business and Advertising
It is important for an organisation to have ethics in their work as ethics provides the company or the individual with different types of norms, procedures and things which helps in identifying the difference in between the right and wrong situation. It provides an organisation with the ways in which they should move or they should not move. Along with this, it laid down different types of rules and procedures which an organisation needs to follow while completing a task keeping in the mind the interest level of other stakeholders as well.
The above term is relatable with the current situations which have been faced by Johnson & Johnson who had incurred a huge loss because of the bad intentions of some other individuals. It is not only related to the physical or financial loss but this incident has impacted upon the relationship in between the company and their customers as the medical services provides life to other people from their work because of which the loss was of brand image, loss of customers, loss of trust and many more factors but the company does not care about what they are going to return back from the efforts made, they also do not care about the costs which they had to incur.
The only thing for which they were making their efforts was to save the lives of people which will be affected in case they consume the Cyanide Laced Capsules which was the main reason of death of customers.
Ethics in advertising is an important aspect because with the help of acting ethically and making advertisements in an ethical way, the company is made responsible towards the needs of the customers. It is important for the companies to show their moral values while making use of advertisement so that trust of customers could be gained and the health and well being of customers could be kept at the first preference. As it is also important for the companies to work with the community in a sustainable way and keep all the stakeholders of the organisation to be happy (Tran and et. al., 2019).
Commenting on How Johnson & Johnson Handled the Crisis and Recommendations to Provide Improved Customer Confidence
Johnson & Johnson have handled this situation very effectively as the depiction of great leadership has been provided by the company in the managing the crisis situation in the organisation. Johnson & Johnson has made use of different strategies and crisis communication strategies in order to get connected with their customers and ask them to return the products in case they have any. In addition to this, the negative media coverage was also not sufficient to create negative impact on the mindset of the organisation. The changes in different strategies of Johnson & Johnson could be seen during the complete course of dealing with this situation which set out an example for other companies about how to deal with a major disaster situation. Certain recommendations have been provided as under to improve the customer confidence:
To build confidence, it is recommended to Johnson & Johnson to take ownership of customers’ issues and questions so that it could create connection in between the company and their customers as now the customers know that the company is concerned about their needs and demands as well.
Asking for feedback is also important in order to build confidence in customers about the products and services of the organisation.
Companies should focus on giving preference to customers during the complete period of time so as to know about the potential changes in needs and demands of customers.
Revised Marketing Strategy for Going Forward for Johnson & Johnson
In the revised marketing strategy of the Johnson & Johnson, instead of avoiding media, Jim Burke defied the issue by going on an hour (a famous, longstanding news show) and the Donahue Show (a mainstream syndicated program) and illuminating people in general regarding his organization’s drives.
What’s more, secondly, the organization coordinated completely with the legislature. Tyrone Fahner, the Illinois Attorney General accountable for the examination, was dazzled that in addition to the fact that he got whatever he mentioned from Johnson and Johnson, however the organization was additionally proactive in proposing an enormous award of US$100,000 for getting the culprit (Wang and et. al., 2018).
As to Johnson and Johnson’s PR procedure, Dieudonnee Ten Berge had the accompanying remark: “The Tylenol emergency is in actuality the most model case ever known throughout the entire existence of emergency interchanges. Any business chief, who has ever unearthed an advertising trap, should value the way Johnson and Johnson reacted to the Tylenol poisonings. They have viably shown how significant business needs to deal with a debacle.”
Johnson & Johnson additionally furnished the casualties’ families with guiding and budgetary help despite the fact that it was not answerable for the item altering. It further built up a carefully designed triple seal bundling (a stuck box, a plastic seal over the neck of the container, and a foil seal over the mouth of the jug)— a first for the business—inside a half year of the emergency to forestall any comparative future occurrences.
It additionally grew new arbitrary assessment strategies before shipments of Tylenol to retailers. To support buys temporarily, clients were given US$2.50 off for buying the re-dispatched Tylenol (or, truth be told, any Johnson and Johnson item).
A significant number of Johnson & Johnson’s activities got broad inclusion in the media, which guaranteed that individuals were very much educated about the solid advances the organization was taking; the steady media inclusion likewise gained compassion toward the organization as a casualty of a criminal altering. Inside a year, Tylenol’s offer had move back to 29 percent (Tkáč and Raz, 2017).
Numerous investigators credited Johnson and Johnson’s fast reaction to the way that it had a philosophy that was all around conveyed and shared among organization workers. David R. Clare, leader of Johnson and Johnson at that point, recognized this when he stated, “It was the philosophy that incited the choices that empowered us to settle on the privilege early choices that in the long run prompted the rebound stage.”
In the philosophy, Robert Wood Johnson had expressed that the organization’s duties were to the shoppers and clinical experts utilizing its items, to its representatives, to the networks where it’s kin work and live, and to its investors. Because of the philosophy, in the hour of emergency there was little uncertainty among either the administration or the workers that public/client wellbeing ought to be central paying little heed to transient expenses to the organization.
This dedication was reflected in its activities and end up being a compelling advertising instrument also the key factor behind the resurgence of the Tylenol brand which had been discounted by numerous investigators and spectators. Johnson & Johnson with the help of their improved level of services and also by making improvements in their current working processes and the earlier working processes, become successful in achieving the trust of customers again in the market. Talking about the current situation of the company, it not only has recovered it from the situation but has also explored new markets where the operations of businesses are going on for the growth and development of the organisation (Mba-Jonas and et. al., 2018).
The Revised Marketing Strategy of Johnson & Johnson was to make their services effective and reliable for the people in relation to the efforts that have been made by the company in order to provide their customers with the best possible services such as increasing interaction with customers, more focused internal processes of the organisation, triple safety seal packaging seal over the neck of the bottle, tamper resistant packaging provided to the customers in the product (Tylenol).
The strategies for remediation and rectification which have been applied by Johnson & Johnson in the working processes of their organisation are related to Forgiveness and Sympathy which have been adopted by the company. Compensation was provided to the families of effected people. Lastly, the role of media in improving the image of company was also essential as the media covered its negative terms so along with this, the media also provided people with the positive efforts made by them as well.
CONCLUSION
With the help of above data, it has been concluded that crisis management is a very critical situation which is not possible for every organisation to overcome in an effective way. In addition to this, the conclusion has been drawn about the importance of key considerations to business processes, customer confidence, overlooking the processes of business at the workplace, communication strategies and many more concepts which are important to be acknowledged in order to avoid the upcoming of these types of situations in front of the organisation. Further ethics are considered as an important aspect for the company which will help in building a positive relationship of the company with the customers. Lastly, the conclusion has been drawn about the overlooking of different processes and working of the organisation on timely basis so that possible changes could be made in them while being in time.

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