Ashish A. Adhikari
SP Jain School of Global Management, India
Title: A Study to Investigate the Influential Factors to the Adoption of Pharma 4.0 within the Pharmaceutical Supply chain
Biography
Biography: Ashish A. Adhikari
Abstract
The world is moving towards digitization and pharmaceutical companies are actively preparing for this change transition. Some pharma organizations have managed this change well, however most others have been left out. Implementation of digitization is a complex process involving multiple factors, stakeholders and constraints. Digitization or Industry 4.0 as it is popularly called, promises many benefits to the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain. Industry 4.0 within the Pharma context is called as P4.0. However, the nature of the Pharma industry and its impact on patient safety provides unique challenges to Digital implementations. Most Pharmaceutical companies rush into P4.0 considering it as the “Flavor of the season”. This can result into failures and stalling of the change process. A deeper understanding of the drivers and influencers to digitization is needed before proceeding for any such implementations. This paper presents a study on the various independent variables that influence and impact the successful adoption of digitization in pharmaceutical companies, within the supply chain. A gap analysis from literature survey of more than 250 articles from 2013 – 2021 has helped to identify six independent variables that may influence the adoption of P4.0 within the supply chain. These six independent variables are Leadership drive, Organizational culture, Digital capability, Data availability, Data security and Regulatory acceptance. The impact of these independent variables on adoption is measured in the form of research outcomes identified within the literature survey. These outcomes are Reduced costs, Higher efficiencies, Reduced lead times, Reduced breakdowns, Higher quality and Improved human capability.