The role of Project managers in navigating digitalization in a supply chain for resilience

ABSTRACT

This study talks about the challenges faced by the project manager to implement a digitized supply chain quickly and ways to overcome them in the healthcare industry. A combination of the Best-Worst Method and fuzzy DEMATEL is used to study the factors that would pose a challenge to a Project Manager. The output from the Best-Worst Method is fed as the input to the fuzzy DEMATEL method. The study showed that Presenteeism is one of the most influential factors in the system. It also shows that a Project Manager must be someone with a good knowledge of the business and its working. The findings indicate that for a project to become successful during novel working conditions, the Project Manager and the project team as a whole are responsible and need to come together.

KEYWORDS:

• Industry 4.0
• Project Management
• healthcare Industry
• Best-Worst Method
• fuzzy DEMATEL

1. Introduction

A supply chain (SC) may be defined as a network ‘of all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in fulfilling a customer request’, and it may extend beyond the horizon of the organization to include suppliers, transporters, warehouses, and customers (Chopra & Meindl, 2013). This SC has been identified by various business leaders as a backbone of their business, and an ‘enabler for their business strategy’ (Deloitte Consulting, 2014). Proper management of a business's SC would yield an increased value to the firm through the proper and appropriate deployment of organizational resources (Sukati et al., 2012). Good SC management practices have also proven to improve the competitiveness of an organization, improving customer service, and reducing uncertainty (Chandra & Kumar, 2000). Firms have now started collaborating with the other firms in their supply chain, instead of working autonomously, to gain maximum value (Lardo et al., 2020).

There have been numerous studies that suggest that the digitization of SCs and the subsequent application of Industry 4.0 technologies can help increase SC resilience (KPMG, 2020). SC digitization has been proven to have a positive effect on SC resilience (Zouari et al., 2020). Digitization of SCs has helped respond to real-time SC disruptions (Katsaliaki et al., 2021). Digital technologies incorporated in SCs have been shown to improve demand forecasting accuracy through data analytics, and also increase SC visibility by using digital twins (Ivanov, 2020). Digital SCs would also reduce SC costs, thus creating more value for the organizations (Ageron et al., 2020).SC mapping, when driven through Industry 4.0, can improve SC visibility and resilience (Mubarik et al., 2021). In an example of the automobile industry, it was found that there was a perception in the industry that the application of advanced Industry 4.0 technologies, such as big data analytics, could mitigate the pandemic risks (Mubarik et al., 2021). Time savings and risk reduction in SC, which further has a positive effect on SC resilience, is possible through the application of smart contracts, which are primarily driven through blockchain technology (Lohmer et al., 2020). Firms do have a perception that Industry 4.0 technologies would create a competitive SC for them, and would increase SC resilience due to ‘capability enhancement and new skill development’ (Ralston & Blackhurst, 2020). Together with Industry 4.0 and a digital SC, a complex environment can be maintained where there can be ‘mass customisation with greater speed, efficiency and productivity’ (Gupta et al., 2020). A study by Capgemini Research Institute predicted, through a survey of 1000 organizations, that at least 60% of organizations are looking to invest in Industry 4.0 in the wake of the pandemic (Capgemini Research Institute, 2020), thus highlighting the significance of such transformations in the real world.

Thus, it can be seen that when it comes to managing supply chain resilience, technologies revolving around SC digitization and Industry 4.0 have the potential to impact SCs positively, thereby offsetting the effect of global disruption (Banna et al., 2023). This gives rise to the research objective (RO), which is given below:

RO:

Transformation of a conventional SCto a digitized SC by a Project Manager (PM),through the successful implementation of novel technologies to increase the level of resilience in the SC, to offset the negative effects of global crises.

For an organization to accept the implementation of technology, there first needs to be a clear comprehension of the benefits that the technology would bring in. Thus, there needs to be a clear understanding of the various benefits and shortcomings that would be brought in when new technologies are implemented in the existing process of an organization. This gives rise to the first research question (RQ1), which is given below:

RQ1:

How can a digitized SC, which has been enabled with Industry 4.0 technologies, offer resilience during times of global crises for a firm belonging to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry?

The answer to the above research question would help understand the importance of the application of technology in healthcare and pharmaceutical SCs. However, the actual process of digitizing an SC and incorporating novel technologies is easier said than done. There are a plethora of studies that discuss the various barriersthat an organization would face when it comes to the implementation of innovative and disruptive technologies (Ali & Aboelmaged, 2021; Chauhan et al., 2021; Kumar et al., 2021; Ramírez-Durán et al., 2021; Sharma et al., 2021). Most of the challenges identified in the current literature, such as lack of management support, lack of training, lack of resources, and high investments, are on an organization level and need to be addressed with the presence of the top management on the driver’s seat (Zekhnini et al., 2020). These barriers are usually addressed through the strategy and culture of the organization. However, once these barriers are considered and suitable measures are put in place to address them, the onus then shifts to the Project Manager (PM) to implement the technological initiatives. The challenges faced by the PM would differ from the ones faced by the senior management; the PM would face issues that are more on an operational level. A previous study has shown that the support and participation of senior management in the activities of a PM has a positive effect on the outcome of the project (Young & Jordan, 2008). However, constant support from the top management is not always present, especially in critical and difficult undertakings (Zwikael, 2008). Hence, there is an inherent need for the PM to drive complex SC digitization projects alone to success by navigating through the operational challenges that would be present in the project. This gives rise to the second research question (RQ2), which is given below:

RQ2:

What are the critical and non-critical factors that would impact, either positively or negatively, a PM who is involved in SC transformation projects in the face of uncertainty?

The answer to the second research question would help the PM identify various factors and prioritize them during implementation. However, if we consider the entire SC transformation project as a single system, there would always exist relationships between the factors considered. This relationship that exists between the factors would give rise to a structure, and this structure would greatly help in better decision-making within the system (Sushil, 2012). This would help aid in increasing the ease through which solutions can be framed for simple problems (Mardani et al., 2015). Causal relationships that stem out of the structure can help the decision-maker understand the complex system better and make operational decisions with ease (Yadav et al., 2020). This knowledge is extremely vital considering that a PM working during uncertain time needs to be creative and flexible and get adapted to rapidly changing project management scenarios (Awe & Church, 2020). This gives rise to the third research question (RQ3), which is given below:

RQ3:

How are the factors that influence the PM, either positively or negatively, related to each other through the presence of causal relationships, and how can they be leveraged upon or navigated through in the best way?

The answer to the third and final research question would help in achieving the research objective (RO) of this study, and help the PM drive the digital transformation project effectively and efficiently, thereby increasing the overall value of the organization.

The answers to the above questions start with an extant review of literature and case studies that have been published in recent times concerning how digitization and Industry 4.0 can offset the negative effects on the pandemic. This has been outlined in Section 2 and can be used to answer RQ1. While Section 2 does provide a base for answering RQ2 and RQ3, the Research Methodology part of this study, which is illustrated in Sections 3 and 4, will help in answering these questions completely through the application of Best Worst Method (BWM) and fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) techniques. Section 5 would discuss the results obtained through the application of the said techniques, and Section 6 would provide a conclusion to the study in the form of theoretical contributions and managerial implications. It would also speak about the limitations and the future scope of this study.

2. Review of literature

During COVID-19 pandemic, however, has negatively impacted supply chain enormously through disruptions across local and global SCs, thereby affecting global trade, disrupting the supply of essential and non-essential goods, and crippling the global economy (Mahmoudi et al., 2021; Wen & Liao, 2021; Yu et al., 2021). Strict lockdowns and restrictions have caused manufacturing and logistics activities to come to a standstill and have also caused a great change in the demand and supply of various products (Singh et al., 2021). With the movement of raw materials coming to a standstill, the production activities in manufacturing firms have been occasionally forced to come to a halt (Jerome et al., 2021). The pandemic has subject SCs to severe uncertainty, thus imposing a great challenge concerning their viability and adaption (Ivanov, 2021). The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, in particular, have been struggling to cope with the increased demand for their products, constrained resources, increasing customer expectations, and the fear of other outbreaks (Williams & Radnor, 2021). Vulnerabilities in the SC, which can be seen through examples of shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and medically critical items, has made the public put pressure on businesses to rethink their SC and ensure resilience (Sodhi et al., 2021). In India, an acute shortage of N-95 masks, PPE and COVID-19 testing kits have been driven majorly due to panic buying, hoarding and the inability of the manufacturers to increase production to meet the increased demands (Sharma et al., 2020). There is also a shortage of antiviral medicines due to limited inventories and SC optimization challenges (Khalili et al., 2020). Such shortages would lead to an increase in the number of people infected, thus leading to a potential catastrophe (Govindan et al., 2020). There were bottlenecks in increasing a country’s testing capacity due to the non-availability of testing reagents, further aggravated by unevenly spread demand between more affected and less affected regions (Santini, 2021). Thus, it can be seen that SC resilience, which can be defined as the ability of an SC to minimize the impact on itself and come back to its original state quickly, has taken a hit (Day, 2013).

2.1. Resilience in healthcare and pharmaceutical SC enabled with industry 4.0

Resilience can be defined as ‘a stable trajectory of healthy functioning after a highly adverse event’ and a ‘conscious effort to move forward in an insightful and integrated positive manner as a result of lessons learned from an adverse experience’ (Southwick et al., 2014). It can be understood as ‘positive adaptation despite adversity’ (Fleming & Ledogar, 2008). When it comes to an organization, resilience enables ‘firms to withstand stresses, continuously innovate, and quickly adapt to changes’, thus helping the organization gain a competitive advantage (Duchek, 2020). Organizational resilience can be enabled and determined through three factors: resilient behaviour, resilient resources and resilience capabilities, and this, in turn, would lead to organizational growth (Hillmann & Guenther, 2021).

Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, was brought in by the German government in 2011, to incorporate a high level of automation of the existing process to achieve a higher level of productivity and efficiency (Alcácer & Cruz-Machado, 2019). Fuelled by recent technological leaps in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Industry 4.0 has proven to have a long-term strategic impact on global industrial development by achieving ‘greater efficiency, competency, and competitiveness’ (Schmidt et al., 2023; Xu et al., 2018). Industry 4.0 brings in technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics (BDA), cloud computing, autonomous robots, and many more (Javaid et al., 2020; Kumar et al., 2020; Silva et al., 2022). Infusion of Cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning, which in an important component in Industry 4.0, can help reach ‘higher levels of sustainable performance’ (Gupta et al., 2020). Also, when the procurement function of an organization is digitalized, there is an improved productivity observed in remanufacturing operations (Bag et al., 2020). Thus, technological capabilities of an organization, who are competing through their supply chains, are instrumental in the development of competence over the competitors (Gupta et al., 2019).

Although Industry 4.0 provides a plethora of benefits such as strategic competitive advantage, improved organizational efficiency and effectiveness, agility, manufacturing innovation and enhanced profitability, it comes with cons such as cybersecurity, high initial costs, employment disruptions and negative impact of data sharing in a competitive environment (Sony, 2020). Hurdles such as difficulty in changing the organizational culture, resistance to change and people training make the task of acceptance of Industry 4.0 difficult (Contador et al., 2020). However, even in the presence of the said challenges, acceptance of Industry 4.0, in reality, has been excellent. In a major survey conducted by PwC in the year 2016, it was estimated that the level of digitization would double by the year 2020 and that the first movers would have a significant advantage over their competitors (PwC, 2016). In another study that was conducted for Italian manufacturing firms, it was seen that the majority of the responding firms considered the adoption of new technologies, with many of them already undergoing digitization (Sony, 2020). In a study for firms in New Zealand, it was found that 86% of the firms studied has plans to incorporate advanced technologies in their processes within two years of the study (Hamzeh et al., 2018). A survey report published by Deloitte states that organizations who possess and work with comprehensive Industry 4.0 strategies are performing better than their competitors financially (Renjen, 2020). An empirical study conducted in South Africa concerning automobile and their allied industries indicated that environmental forces such as coercive and mimetic pressures positively influence tangible resources and workforce skills, and these two in turn influence the adoption of novel technologies positively (Bag et al., 2021).

Thus, from the above,although Industry 4.0 has many challenges for adoption, its acceptance is possible becausetheplethora of benefit it offers outweighs the costs associated.

With the concept of Resilience and Industry 4.0 understood through literature, the focus now shifts to combining both concepts, that is, to achieve Resilience in the SC through Industry 4.0. This area of research has garnered profound interest amongst practitioners and academicians in recent times (Spieske et al., 2023). Researchers have expressed their confidence in how an SC can be more resilient using advanced technologies.A study by Marcucci et al. (2021) has shown that the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies has a positive impact on organizational resilience. A study by Belhadi et al. (2021) has shown that a combination of human and digital capabilities to evaluate the existing SC resilience and detect potential challenges in the SC is the first step to ensuring resilience. The same study has also said that the automobile and the airline industry perceived BDA as the technology to overcome the pandemic challenges. A study by Munien and Telukdarie (2021) conducted in the dairy sector has shown that digitization would reduce the total costs associated with the system due to continuous improvement that would arise from increased innovation. Another interesting study by Lohmer et al. (2020) shows how significant improvement in SC resilience can be seen through the proper implementation of Blockchain Technology (BCT) and SC collaboration. This stems from the understanding that BCT would reduce the number of stakeholders who get affected due to the disruption, thus reducing the disruption cost and the recovery time. However, this study also mentioned that a poor implementation coupled with poor collaboration would be detrimental, and harm SC resilience (Lohmer et al., 2020). Another study has shown how resilience could be enhanced through the application of smart systems to reduce risks through dynamic inventory management and quality assurance. The same study has stated that smart warehousing has been used by an organization to become more nimble, adapt easily and respond quickly. Another organization had used a real-time transportation management system to respond to changing customer demands (Ralston & Blackhurst, 2020).Dolgui et al. (2020) have introduced the notion of a Reconfigurable SC, which is a network designed cost-effective and resilient through reallocation and rearrangement of the components in the network to quickly adjust supply and production capacities. This ability, as stated by the authors, can be achieved through the use of technologies such as digital SC twins, BDA, AI, etc (Dolgui et al., 2020). Simulation through Industry 4.0 has proven to be greatly beneficial to the food and beverage industry, due to the potential that simulation brings in the field of genome editing, thereby leading to higher yields, better economic stability and sustainability (Bai et al., 2020). Finally, a study in the shipbuilding industry has shown how technology implementation can be carried out in two phases; the first phase to improve sustainability, and the second phase to improve agility and resilience. Through the application of technologies such as additive manufacturing, cloud computing, autonomous robots and AR in the first phase, and technologies such as BDA, BCT, IoT and AI in the second phase, the shipbuilding SC can be made more visible, resilient and sustainable (Ramirez-Peña et al., 2020).

From the above studies, it can be seen that Industry 4.0 as a whole can help drive resilience across varied industries. A report by Deloitte Insights offers interesting real-life examples of how pharmaceutical companies have leveraged novel technologies to gain benefits (Taylor et al., 2020). The reports demonstrate how a leading German multination pharmaceutical, chemical and life sciences company headquartered in Darmstadt has used ‘Aera Technology’, which is a machine learning and cloud-based software to improve the firm’s forecast accuracy by 90%. The same report also shows how a clinical stage biotechnology company based in Massachusetts has used smart interconnected devices to gain real-time guidance with respect to compliance and traceability in their supply chain. Thus, with Industry 4.0 bringing in many benefits for the healthcare and pharmaceutical firms’ supply chains; it becomes imperative to understand how individual Industry 4.0 technologies contribute to SC resilience.

2.1.1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI has been finding widespread application in the case of healthcare and pharmaceutical SC. During the corona virus pandemic, AI has been used to predict regions of sudden epidemic outbreaks and also design personal health monitors, thus enabling the SC and its stakeholders to be prepared accordingly (Bishnoi et al., 2023; Nguyen et al., 2020). AI can be used to enhance productivity gains in complex hospital operations, thus improving resource usage and freeing up excess resources for other activities (Dwivedi et al., 2021). It has been said that the current pandemic could be a turning point for digital transformation in critical care units, with AI offering solutions such as remote monitoring and smart monitoring to monitor the vitals of a human body remotely, and warn and suggest measures in case of any deviations from the normal (Arabi et al., 2021). This would help the parties be informed and offer more time to react to a situation, thus enabling a better response. Although the use of AI in this industry in infancy, AI can be used to track and predict how diseases in any pandemic would spread over time and space, and also make the process of identification of treatments faster, thus improving planning, decision-making and reducing the overall disruption recovery time (Naudé, 2020).

2.1.2. Internet of Things (IoT)

With the demand for medicines at an all-time high due to the pandemic, there have been reports of shortages of drugs in many regions (Alexander & Qato, 2020; Badreldin & Atallah, 2021; Lucero-Prisno et al., 2020; Vaduganathan et al., 2020). To overcome these shortages and meet the demand, manufacturing plans manufacturing these drugs must operate to their maximum capacity. Together with production at maximum capacity, the manufacturers must ensure that the production does not stop due to repairs. This can be done with the help of IoT technology, which with the help of sensors, collects all required data regarding the performance of the manufacturing line and performs certain algorithms to determine when a breakdown can occur (Ayvaz & Alpay, 2021). This predictive maintenance would help develop better maintenance plans following the operations schedule and also reduce the cost of corrective maintenance in the long run (Zancul et al., 2016). This would mean that critical drugs are manufactured without any manufacturing interruptions, canbridge the gap between demand and supply to a certain extent, and ultimately result in lesser SC disruption.

2.1.3. Big Data Analytics (BDA)

Big data coupled with machine learning techniques can help in the SC and logistics problems of a company, an example of which is the reduction of risk of freight damage caused due to varied factors such as mode of transportation, freight type, loading location, type of packaging, etc (Hosseini & Ivanov, 2020). In the case of the pharmaceutical industry, this same concept can be applied. Raw materials and finished goods which enter and leave the facility, respectively, need to be monitored to improve the service. This would ensure an adequate supply of products that would be able to cater to more consumers and better decision-making, thus reducing the disruption. BDA coupled with other Industry 4.0 technologies can digitize the entire production planning and control (PPC) process, thus creating big-data-driven PPC and smart PPC (Bueno et al., 2020). Smart PPC driven through BDA can reduce the wastages of resources that occur in the production process (Oluyisola et al., 2020), and this would subsequently address the issue of resilience that occurs due to scarcity of resources which has been evident during the pandemic (Ball & MacBryde, 2020). BDA coupled with AI creates autonomous machines which bring more speed and flexibility to the manufacturing process, and hence there is a lower possibility of SC disruption and an ‘enhanced collaboration and agility in the supply chain’ (Bag et al., 2021).

2.1.4. Additive Manufacturing (AM)

From the perspective of a global supply chain, AM can help aim at more decentralized and distributed manufacturing, thus making the supply chain more lean, flexible and agile due to shorter lead time (Fawcett & Waller, 2014; Kothman & Faber, 2016; Kurpjuweit et al., 2021; Wagner & Walton, 2016). It is this flexibility and agility that makes an SC that incorporates AM resilient to disruptions and offers increased responsiveness (Ghadge et al., 2018). In the healthcare industry, every patient tended to is unique, and hence personalized and custom solutions can be driven with the help of AM (Salmi, 2021). AM can be used to catalyse the speed with which testing of various COVID-19 related healthcare devices are done since AM helps create new or modify existing prototypes with ease (Aimar et al., 2019). AM in drug manufacturing can help synthesize polypills containing multiple Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) in a single tablet, to ‘achieve the complex and sophisticated drug release profiles’, thereby limiting the number of medications a person would take (Park et al., 2019). A study has shown the example of a firm that has produced 112,500 nasopharyngeal swabs using Stereolithography Additive Manufacturing, an example of a car manufacturer who deployed AM to make ventilators, and an example of an AM parts producer who manufactured 10,000 face shields in a day (Tareq et al., 2021). These parts manufactured through AM during the pandemic crisis lift a part of the burden on the other manufacturers and help meet the demand. Thus, it can be seen that AM has the potential to keep healthcare or a pharmaceutical SC resilient against global disruption.

2.1.5. Autonomous robots

Autonomous robots offer a plethora of benefits to an SC, such as enhanced efficiency and productivity, reduced defects, better worker safety and assignment of more strategic tasks to workers instead of the usual mundane tasks (Ramirez-Peña et al., 2020). The main objective behind using robots in an SC is due to address the issues that arise due to the shortage of workers and employees who are needed to keep the SC running. With the presence of robots, humans can be allocated to other tasks which are less repetitive and involve complex decision making. In warehouses, robots can be deployed to ‘accomplish the repetitive tasks of storing and retrieving parts by lifting and transporting unit racks autonomously’ (Wang et al., 2020). In addition to reducing the number of workers, the productivity and efficiency of a worker can be increased if a robot can collaborate with a human (Román Ibáñez et al., 2021). Robots would also help reduce the fatigue in the workers and thus increase the quality of work (Chiaradia et al., 2021). With robots performing repetitive tasks, the number of humans needed in the SC can be significantly reduced, thus ensuring compliance with pandemic protocols, and also result in increased output. This would also ensure that supply is not disrupted owing to manpower shortages. However, a major drawback of using autonomous robots instead of humans would be the lack of accountability and responsibility in the case of unwarranted events during their operation (Noorman, 2014). Thus, there needs to be an ideal collaboration between man and machine to ensure things go smoothly.

2.1.6. Blockchain Technology (BCT)

BCT, along with BDA, can be used to increase visibility in the SC, thereby reducing response time and increasing efficiency (Ivanov & Dolgui, 2020). Another empirical study has proven that BCT does indeed increase visibility, and hence can contribute to enhanced SC resilience (Dubey et al., 2020). Smart contracts can reduce ‘costs of transactions, increase social trust and foster social proof behaviours’, thus aiding creation of sustainable business models (Dal Mas et al., 2020). When it comes to the healthcare and pharmaceutical SC in particular, trust, cooperation, SC connectivity, SC visibility and information sharing emerge as the major catalysts of SC resilience (Senna et al., 2020). Adoption of BCT in a public distribution system for essentials ensures elimination of ghost demands (demands for a product from non-deserving people during a public distribution scheme) and moral hazards (farmers and stocks not getting their intended value), thereby ensuring resilience through proper utilization of resources (Kumar, 2020). BCT in healthcare can have a plethora of positive societal impacts such as support of healthcare operations like clinical trials, vaccine supply and traceability, and also enhance medical compliance and security (Dutta et al., 2020). The issue of malpractices in the healthcare industry that harm the trust of the public in the healthcare system, such as counterfeit drugs, can be addressed through the implementation of BCT (Hasselgren et al., 2020). However, the transformation of existing business models and the creation of new business models across all industries using BCT is still in its infancy and is expected to evolve further due to the increased momentum with their application to SC (Cheung et al., 2021; Dubey et al., 2020; Grover et al., 2019; Queiroz et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019).

2.2. Factors impacting a PM involved in SC digital transformation

Section 2.1 has described the role of digitization of an SC using Industrial 4.0 technologies to enhance resilience in detail. Mergel et al. (2019) conducted a study to define digital transformation. They defined digital transformation is a holistic effort to revise core processes and services of government beyond the traditional digitization efforts. It evolves along a continuum of transition from analog to digital to a full stack review of policies, current processes, and user needs and results in a complete revision of the existing and the creation of new digital services. The authors describe the outcome of digital transformation efforts focuses, among others, on the satisfaction of user needs, new forms of service delivery, and the expansion of the user base. Mergel et al. (2019) describes the digitization as a process to highlight the transition from analog to digital services with a 1:1 change in the delivery more and the addition of a technological channel of delivery. Also, the authors defined the digitalization as to focus on potential changes in the processes beyond mere digitizing of existing processes and forms.

This section would talk about the challenges that lie ahead for a PM when it comes to making operational decisions during the implementation phase. In the age of modern technology, project managers are considered excellent executioners of digital transformation projects and are expected to drive the entire journey from the front as a leader (Makkuva, 2017). A project manager is responsible for the time, cost and quality of the project, and is the most responsible person for the success of the project (Radujković & Sjekavica, 2017). A PM is responsible for the operational decisions that are taken during the course of the project, while the top management is responsible for the strategic decisions that are beneficial for the organization as a whole. The success of a project depends not only on the success of the product but also on the success of project management (Purna Sudhakar, 2012). Every project has its challenges and obstacles during its lifecycle (Mossalam, 2018). Projects especially in the technology industry are subject to a very complex environment such as usage of virtual teams, a large number of change requests during development, customers who are unfamiliar with the system, etc (Zwikael, 2008). These challenges can affect the planning and can hinder the identification of project objectives thereby having undesirable effects on the project outcomes. Thus, it becomes of vital importance to ensure that these challenges are navigated through successfully (San Cristóbal et al., 2018). The various operational challenges that are faced by a project manager are given in Table 1.

Table 1. The challenges in PM.

#	Challenge	Description	References
1	Poorly defined goals and objectives	A project with clear goals and objectives will have teams that perform better; the scope of the project must be clear to the entire team.In the pharmaceutical industry, when project decisions are aligned with the corporate strategy and defined business objectives, it increases the overall commercial value and risk structure of development projects.	Asmus et al. (2015); Mirza et al. (2013);Tereso et al. (2019); van der Hoek et al. (2018); Bode Greuel and Nickisch (2008)
2	Unrealistic Deadlines	Having unrealistic deadlines for tasks in a project, in addition to having a detrimental effect on the employee, decreases the quality of the project.	Delisle (2020); Griffiths et al. (2011); Kuutila et al. (2020)
3	Scope Creep	This refers to the changes in the requirements of the project that would extend the boundaries of the project. While “scope creep” offers more flexibility and makes the customer happy, it could bring in risks due to flawed decisions and human biases.A study conducted for the implementation of an Electronic Medical Record system highlighted that change in scope can lead to confusion and lack of clarity, which will further lead to delays.	Teye Amoatey and Anson (2017);Bianchi et al. (2019); Manlapaz et al. (2016).
4	Team Conflicts	Conflicts within the team may arise due to the lack of trust, thus limiting communication to self-protection. Each member of the team may perceive conflict on a different scale with another member, thus giving rise to dysfunctional conflict relations which have implications on overall task effectiveness due to deviation from “optimal task flow patterns”. Task conflicts have a positive impact on team performance, while relationship conflict and process conflict hurt performance. A study focused on improving the decision-making process with respect to the development of economically viable medical devices has shown that a team with lesser conflicts would provide “a firm foundation for ongoing project management through the identification, at the outset, of project specific risks and strategic alliances”.	Zulfadil and Machasin (2020); Park et al. (2020); O’Neill et al. (2018); Lefley and Marešová (2021)
5	Inadequate Risk Management	Risk management has emerged as an important factor that drives a digital transformation project to success by reducing the risk of project failure. Every project that is undertaken must have risk management techniques tailored to that particular project, and these techniques must offer maximum value to the stakeholders.In a pharmaceutical R&D project, technology management decisions when combined with adequate project risk management processes leads to “a significant improvement in project selection and review”.	Vujović et al. (2020); Willumsen et al. (2019); Jacob and Kwak (2003)
6	Mid-project adjustments	Changes in scope during the project are an unexpected event, and there have been instances where it has led to the failure of the project. Constant product changes that are brought in during the course of the project must be accompanied by additional resources that are needed to ensure the project is on track and the benefits are realized.	Geraldi et al. (2010); Chandrasekaran et al. (2016)
7	Lack of accountability	The presence of a project owner, who is different from the project manager, will drive accountability for the benefits gotten through the project, thus driving the project to success. This promotes decentralization as well, which in turn increases solution quality and increases the ability to cope with environmental changes. Clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities must be determined amongst the project stakeholders to ensure an “ethical, cohesive and transparent decision-making process for the sake of achieving the mission of the organisation”.A study conducted across 84 biotechnological projects showed that the presence of a strong project leader is vital to increase trust amongst the team members which in turn increases motivation.	Zwikael and Smyrk (2015); Badewi (2016); Curran et al. (2009)
8	Mid-project cancellation	Projects which are cancelled would lead to “loss of economic resources, despair and embarrassment”, and might even go to the extent of exterminating the organization. A study has shown that a firm’s liquidity would take a hit due to the pandemic, and hence project cancellations would have a more severe impact on the firm and may lead to layoff or downsizing to boost profits and avoid bankruptcy.Mid-project terminations in the pharmaceutical industry are prominent and can lead to significant financial and non-financial losses.	Ahonen and Savolainen (2010); De Vito and Gómez (2020); Mujtaba and Senathip (2020); Delerue and Sicotte (2020)
9	Lack of client involvement	Good involvement with the client during all the stages of the project can help reduce unexpected risk and unconstructive actions or reactions. A study has shown that active user or client participation in the project greatly reduces the chance of project failure, and another study has shown that good client involvement would set realistic expectations about the system and capabilities.	Heravi et al. (2015); Tam et al. (2020); Garg and Chauhan (2015)
10	Lack of external communication	There is a need for a “proper communication channel between the customers and the development team” to ensure project success. Lack of communication has been a challenge in project’s success in other industries as well.	Salman et al. (2021); Doloi et al. (2012); Sambasivan and Soon (2007); Sanchez et al. (2020)
11	Lack of management support	A study has shown that support from the top management can drive the project to success. This support would drive the allocation of additional resources when needed. The absence of support and feedback may lead is detrimental to the project.A study conducted in the healthcare industry in India showed that support from top management was critical for the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools. It can also be seen that while top management support alone decreases innovativeness, top management support coupled with project management professionalization increases a hospital’s innovativeness.	Zwikael (2008); Bernardo et al. (2017); Garg and Agarwal (2014);Schultz et al. (2019)
12	Improper sequencing of project tasks	Complex projects have interrelated activities, and appropriate sequencing of these activities is important to reduce first-order and second-order rework time. Tasks can also be sequenced to reduce the losses during project cancellation midway.	Wen et al. (2021); Long et al. (2020)
13	Unclear project dependencies	Modern software projects are undertaken in ecosystems, which are a collection of projects which are dependent on each other. Identification of these dependencies is crucial for developers to understand how their code affects the entire ecosystem. Identification of these dependencies, both external and internal, is tedious and difficult.	Blincoe et al. (2019); Bathallath et al. (2016); Ossher et al. (2010)
14	Improper cost forecasting	Forecasting the cost of a project is vital and its importance has been highlighted through the concept of Earned Value Management, a method to evaluate the project’s current cost performance, since the 1960s. While cost underestimation would lead to cost overruns which would harm a firm financially, cost overestimation would lead to the project being cancelled during the initial phase itself.In the healthcare sector, the cost of implementation of technologies such as RFID is high, and this has been shown to be one of the major challenges to adoption of RFID in healthcare.	Batselier and Vanhoucke (2017);Andersen et al. (2016); Haddara and Staaby (2018)
15	Improper time forecasting	Planning Fallacy, which defines the act of people underestimating the time required for tasks due to cognitive bias, is a major reason for project failure in software development. While cost overruns have significantly dropped in the Information Technology industry over the years, time overruns have increased from 63% to 82% between 2000 and 2007. Underestimation due to overconfidence can result in the task not being completed, thus leading to unnecessary failures which would further lead to financial and psychological harm.	Fink and Pinchovski (2020);Nelson, R (Nelson, 2007); Makridakis and Moleskis (2015)
16	Burnouts	Burnout can be defined as a “psychological syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and reduced personal accomplishment”. This can lead to a plethora of negative reactions such as absenteeism, intention to quit, job withdrawal and low organizational commitment. Burnouts can be experienced by the project manager as well due to the high expectations and pressures to deliver the project on time and within the committed cost. Burnouts are ultimately linked to low workplace efficacy.	Maslach (1993); Maslach and Leiter (2016); Jugdev et al. (2018); Pinto et al. (2014)
17	Absenteeism	The H1N1 epidemic struck in 2009, and a study conducted during the period concluded that a significant number of infected patients “spent several days bed-bound, unable to perform routine activities of daily living and too sick or unable to work”. Absenteeism during a pandemic could arise either due to the inability to report to work or the unwillingness to report to work, and in both cases, it leads to severe workforce shortages. Such absences would lead to disruption in the operations and can have a toll on the cost and time of the project.	Teh et al. (2012); Stergiou and Farmaki (2021); Lawrance et al. (2021)
18	Team Communication	With many organizations promoting work from home policy, the communication between “communication out of character, that typically happens effortlessly in co-located work settings, becomes troublesome and requires explicit attention”. Compared to face-to-face interactions, virtual interactions lack verbal (tone, volume, verbal hesitation) and non-verbal (expression, movement, body language) and hence create an absence of feedback and subtle meanings.	Kramer and Kramer (2020); Hafermalz and Riemer (2021); Warkentin and Beranek (1999)
19	Project Monitoring	Every project is expected to deviate from its baseline schedule due to variability and uncertainty, and to reduce the impact of such deviation, project monitoring is essential. With many team members now working remotely, tracking the progress of the work becomes challenging.	Martens and Vanhoucke (2019); Olson and Olson (2006)
20	Social Facilitation	Studies revolving around this factor have taken place for centuries, where it has been understood the mere presence of other people during the execution of a task, either as co-actors or spectators, may offer motivation to perform. Social Facilitation is more important in a virtual group setting than in a traditional workplace, but this is reduced in virtual teams.	Ferris et al. (1978); Markus (1978); Kayworth and Leidner (2002); Martins et al. (2004)
21	Professional Isolation	Professional Isolation refers to the belief that a person is disconnected from others in the workplace. It can lead to a decrease in performance coupled with increased turnover intention. In a study conducted in France, it was found that professional isolation was the most influential factor which impacted performance negatively. Another study concurs with the understanding that professional isolation is a major concern amongst remote team members due to a lack of interpersonal networking and informal learning.	Diekema (1992); Golden et al. (2008); Carillo et al. (2021); Charalampous et al. (2019)
22	Insufficient Technical Knowledge	Technical skills can be considered as one of the most important skills needed by a project manager to deliver successful projects and also to ensure a level of project quality performance. However, the intricate technical details are usually provided by the technical experts in the team, and the project manager is expected to have a level of technical understanding that would aid the integration of the technical subsystem of the project with the other components of the project such as cost and delivery schedule.	Sunindijo (2015); Goodwin (1993)
23	Insufficient Business Knowledge	A study conducted on 902 job advertisements by Fortune 500 companies showed that business knowledge, which refers to the knowledge of the business processes, was demanded by more than 83% of the companies surveyed. Business knowledge of the project team is one of the contributing factors that lead to the support of the top management in a project. An overlap of technical and business knowledge is thus important for delivering a system that is novel. However, it is costly and impractical for a team involved in core Information Technology activities to acquire knowledge about the business processes as it reduces the benefits of specialization. In the pharmaceutical supply chain, in-depth knowledge of the regulations is also required to deliver strong solutions.A study has shown that for a healthcare organization, having good knowledge of the business process “enabled the project teams to systematically store knowledge about the processes from different internal and external sources” and uses them as necessary.	Lee (2005); Štemberger et al. (2011); Tiwana (2012); Hoopes and Postrel (1999); Tiwana and Keil (2007); Tarafdar and Gordon (2007)
24	Lack of motivation	When teams perform interdependent complex tasks, “strong team motivation positively moderates the relationship between ability and project performance and the relationship between opportunity and project performance”. Lack of motivation amongst team members was found to be an important hindrance to projects “during the development and post-development stages”.	Dasí et al. (2021); Banaeianjahromi and Smolander (2019)
25	Cultural Differences	Cultural differences in the style and practice of the project team members stem from the reason that virtual teams have members from various countries, thus requiring “cognizant and careful team leadership”. A study showed the observation that a team member from a country, “where English is not the first language, can be quiet in conference calls”, thus creating communication gaps in the project. Another study has proven that cultural differences harm coordination between the team members.	Zwikael et al. (2021); Kiely et al. (2021); Zakaria and Mohd Yusof (2020)
26	Presenteeism	Presenteeism can be defined as “attending work when ill” and can lead to a loss in productivity which would cost greater than the costs of being absent from work and relevant medical treatment combined. Presenteeism can lead to productivity loss, thereby challenging profitability. Presenteeism also negatively impacts work engagement and job satisfaction.	Johns (2010); Collins et al. (2005); Fernando et al. (2017); Côté et al. (2021)
27	Lack of proper Project Management Tools and Techniques	The usage of appropriate project management tools and techniques can help contribute to the improvement of performance and effectiveness, thereby supporting the organization. Project management tools can also help disordered managers. A study has identified task scheduling, scope statements, requirement analysis and lessons learned as four major tools; and multi-project scheduling software, cost monitoring software and databases for various metrics as tools that are underutilized but have high value.	Sane (2019); Coetzer (2016); Besner and Hobbs (2006)
28	Unfair Performance Appraisals	Fair employee performance appraisal can drive a project to success, and biased or unfair appraisals would reduce the probability of success. A strong appraisal system in place would increase the team members’ trust in the top management and a good appraisal system in place communicates more powerfully with the employees than any other managerial message. A fair appraisal system would increase job satisfaction and job commitment, thereby increasing productivity through motivation. However, a perception of unfairness in the appraisal process would negate this motivation and lead to a reduction in performance.	Khan and Rasheed (2015); Hofstetter and Harpaz (2015); Mayer and Davis (1999); Sholihin and Pike (2009); Garland (1973)
29	Time zone differences	Development of software and its usage is now a global activity with organizations having sites around the globe. However, as the number of sites increase, there need to be proper communication channels, repositories, enhanced project monitoring, better knowledge management, knowledge of local regulations, and management of distribution effort loss (occurs for dependent task types, where an additional effort is lost due to unfinished tasks).	Binder (2009); Taweel and Brereton (2006); Yadav (2016)

2.3. Literature gap

Existing literature has shown studies related to formulation of guidelines and roadmaps for organizations, especially small- and medium-scale firms, opting for Industry 4.0 transformation (Agostini & Nosella, 2019; Cezarino et al., 2019; Garzoni et al., 2020). A review that was conducted regarding Sustainable Enterprise Resource Planning systems identified the gap when it came to the implementation of such a system due to the non-availability of a general plan that would aid practitioners with implementation and adoption. The study formulated guidelines for the implementation of this system through extant review of literature, applied project management as one of the concepts for the design of the guidelines, and suggested usage of inputs from experts from related fields of study to study the implementation activities in detail (Chofreh et al., 2020). A study that talks about the application of Industry 4.0 techniques to a manufacturing company state that digitization is a very demanding process consisting of various activities, and suggests the option of outsourcing for small- and medium-scale companies for better economic viability in the implantation and post-implementation activities (Hirman et al., 2019). Interestingly, an application of text mining to 1460 job advertisements on a professional networking platform, that were related to Industry 4.0 and smart factories, identified ‘Project Management’ as one of the most frequent requirements in these job advertisements (Pejic-Bach et al., 2020). It has also been said that the competencies of PM who work in Industry 4.0 projects will have to include enhanced soft and hard skills, and also mentioned the need for discussions with project managers to establish a definitive guide containing the required competencies (Ribeiro et al., 2021). When it comes to Information Technology-related project management, there is a need for a lot of improvements in project management techniques due to the rising complexity of projects, and an adjustment of these rules and techniques with respect to the external environment is necessary (Vujović et al., 2020). Out of a total of 26,000 blockchain projects in the year 2016, only 8% of the projects were implemented successfully (Pournader et al., 2020), thus showing that there might be challenges during the implementation and adoption phase which need to be studied (Shoaib et al., 2020). With the evolution and maturity of BCT, there is a need for further studies that would help managers ‘make design, evaluation, and implementation decisions’ (Bai & Sarkis, 2020) along with further studies in ‘operationalizing’ BCT-enabled SC (Nandi et al., 2020). Another study has stated that many professionals have expressed difficulties when it comes to the adoption of digitized SC and an assessment of these challenges is important (Zouari et al., 2020). A study has also highlighted need for capable project managers who can apply the right project management techniques to implement Industry 4.0 technologies logically and realistically (Bag et al., 2021). Additionally, the effect of the pandemic on pandemic on project management has been extreme as well (Müller & Klein, 2020).

This research aims to plug the gaps identified above. There is a need by practitioners for insights related to implementation and operationalizing Industry 4.0 enabled SC, which would, in turn, enhance resilience. Successful implementation can be driven through proper project management practices.

Thus, this study deals with the intersection of three concepts: Industry 4.0 SC, project management, and the pandemic. While studies have been done relating to the intersection of any two of the above three concepts and have been applied to various industries, there is a lack of study that revolves around the intersection of all three concepts and their subsequent application to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. This study aims to provide a more realistic framework of the challenges and their priorities concerning the current world scenario and would also be validated through experts in this domain. This study would also contribute to the literature by offering a causal relationship of the challenges to analyze the behavioural aspects of challenges interacting with each other. The mentioned contributions, along with insights offered from experts, would aid practitioners in successfully execute projects related to SC digitization during this pandemic, so that healthcare and pharmaceutical SC are more resilient during future events of disruptions.

3. Research methodology

The methodology activity for this exploratory study can be divided into 7 phases as depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The seven phases of this study.

Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this study involves extensive study of existing literature. While the first phase studied the importance of Industry 4.0 in enhancing the resilience of healthcare and pharmaceutical SC, the second phase studied the need and the challenges related to the implementation of advanced technologies. The literature required for these first two phases were obtained from Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases. The outcome of Phase 1 and Phase 2 has been presented in Section 2.1 and Section 2.2 respectively.

Phase 3 of this study involved gathering inputs from 10 experts in India who have been working on SC transformation projects regarding the validity of the factors identified. Previous studies have shown that in multi-criterion decision making (MCDM) studies, there are no new constructs that are added to the study if the sample size is increased to more than 10 (Moynihan, 1996). A study that evaluates the challenges in adoption of ‘Procurement 4.0’ has also shown that a sample size of 10 would give reliable results (Jerome et al., 2021). The experts have been working as project managers and program managers and have been leading transformation projects during the pandemic. Inputs are collected through telephonic interviews. The survey was done using telephonic interviews. Respondents have been identified using professional networking sites. At the end of this phase, the respondents suggested that all the factors identified do play a role and have an impact on project management. Thus, the outcome of Phase 3 is the list of all factors identified in Section 2.2, with none of them being filtered out.

The further phases of this study are based on an approach taken in a study that was conducted to study Circular Economy Indicators. In this study, the authors proposed the usage of a hybrid technique of BWM (Best Worst Method) and DEMATEL. This hybrid approach, in addition to identifying the intensity of each of the factor under study (BWM), also offers insights regarding the causal relationships between the factors, thus giving a structure which would aid in further analysis (Yadav et al., 2020). Another study that followed a similar approach was used to study the soft dimensions that influence the implementation of green supply chain management (Kumar et al., 2019). However, to achieve a ‘more realistic understanding of subjective and ambiguous human judgment’, fuzzy set theory can be integrated into the MCDM techniques (Lu et al., 2020). Such integrations can help treat imprecise judgement and uncertainty from responses (Ubando et al., 2020) and help quantify linguistic inputs (Gue et al., 2020). Thus, fuzzy set theory helps in bridging gaps caused by uncertainty due to imperfect human knowledge, by quantifying the uncertainty (Csiszár et al., 2020). Therefore, this study will follow a hybrid BWM – fuzzy DEMATEL approach, where fuzzy set theory will be applied to DEMATEL for increasing the rigour and providing impartial insights. The further phases of the study are done in subsequent sections.

3.1. BWM

BWM was introduced in the year 2016 to perform MCDM studies to select the best alternatives through pairwise comparison (Rezaei, 2015). Ever since its inception, the topic has been picked up and applied by many scholars in their studies to avoid the complexities that were brought in by other MCDM techniques (Mi et al., 2019). A major reason for the acceptance of BWM as an MCDM technique was because of less inconsistency in results and a reduction in the number of pairwise comparisons (Liu et al., 2021). One of the strong competitors for this method is the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) which was invented in the 1970s. This technique was used in thousands of studies to arrive at insights and actions, and this stands as proof of the validity of this method. However, in AHP, when the number of alternatives increases, the pairwise comparisons become confusing and create a lot of inconsistency which needs to be corrected by the decision-maker to improve. This process can cause the decision-maker to start manipulating the values to reduce the inconsistency (Asadabadi et al., 2019). Other MCDM techniques come with their own set of drawbacks. Analytic Network Process (ANP) has limited applicability due to the complex procedure and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) requires a large sample size and is usually used in empirical studies (Zhao et al., 2020). Thus, BWM was a choice for this study due to its quick acceptance and wide advantages.

Studies that came subsequently started apply the concept of fuzzy set theory to BWM. A detailed study conducted by Guo and Zhao (2017) concluded that fuzzy BWM is a better technique than the standard BWM using three case studies, and it was found that fuzzy BWM has a higher comparison consistency and also obtain reasonable preference ranking. However, a study that was done against this study by Mi et al. (2019) said that the conclusion of the study by Guo and Zhao (2017) may not be true because a wrong consistency index was chosen in the method. A re-analysis of the findings in the prior study confirmed that a different choice of values would have yielded a different result to the study, that is, original BWM performs better than fuzzy BWM since the ‘fuzzy extensions of BWM contains uncertain information which may result in inconsistency’ (Mi et al., 2019). Thus, the research around the extension of fuzzy set theory to BWM is still in its infancy with differing opinions arising from literature. Also, this study uses the output of BWM as an input to the fuzzy DEMATEL process. The application of fuzzy set theory to DEMATEL has been well studied, appreciated in literature and is extremely robust. Thus, to negate the effect of uncertainty by the respondents, the study applies fuzzy set theory to the second part of the analysis.

3.1.1. Step 1: development of a categorization framework

Through an extant review of literature, 29 factors were identified. To proceed with the analysis, these factors had to be divided into groups. This process was done with the help of the experts who suggested that categorization can be done based on the four main stakeholders of a project: the customer, the senior management, the PM, the project team and a team member as an individual. The reason why the project team and the individual team member are considered as different stakeholders stems from the fact that both the team and the members benefit from the success of a project. When the project succeeds, the team, on the whole, earns merit and the members each gain new experience which may differ from each other. Also, studying certain challenges on an individual level would be better since not all individuals would react to a challenge ahead of them in the same way. Although the challenge might exist for all the members of the team there will be a non-uniformity in the reactions and behaviours. While challenges related to the team may be addressed through a readymade solution, potential solutions for the challenges of an individual needs to be tailor-made. Also, in the case of Lack of external communication, communication needs to be driven by the entire team, even in the absence of the PM. Another interesting observation was that the respondents suggested grouping Lack of motivation along with the Project Team group. The respondents said that although motivation is traditionally based on an individual, initiatives taken to increase motivation for employees in the organization are usually team activities. They also said that the mere presence of a single motivated employee in the team can boost the morale of the others.

The classification for the same is shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Classification of the factors in groups.

Main Group	Factors	Denoted as
Client (CL)	Scope Creep	CL-1
	Mid-project adjustments	CL-2
	Mid-project cancellation	CL-3
	Lack of client involvement	CL-4
Senior Management (SM)	Lack of accountability	SM-1
	Unrealistic Deadlines	SM-2
	Lack of management support	SM-3
	Unfair Performance Appraisals	SM-4
Project Manager (PM)	Poorly defined goals and objectives	PM-1
	Inadequate Risk Management	PM-2
	Improper sequencing of project tasks	PM-3
	Unclear project dependencies	PM-4
	Improper cost forecasting	PM-5
	Improper time forecasting	PM-6
	Project Monitoring	PM-7
	Lack of proper Project Management Tools and Techniques	PM-8
	Insufficient Business Knowledge	PM-9
Project Team (PT)	Lack of external communication	PT-1
	Team Conflicts	PT-2
	Team Communication	PT-3
	Time zone differences	PT-4
	Cultural Differences	PT-5
	Insufficient Technical Knowledge	PT-6
	Lack of motivation	PT-7
Team Member (TM)	Burnouts	TM-1
	Absenteeism	TM-2
	Presenteeism	TM-3
	Social Facilitation	TM-4
	Professional Isolation	TM-5

3.1.2. Step 2: identification of the best and the worst factor

The next step in the BWM process is to identify the Best and Worst factor. This is done with the input from the respondents. This is done on both, the main group and the sub-group level.

3.1.3. Step 3: allotment of preferences

In two tables, one for the Best factor and one for the Worst factor, experts are asked to enter values between 1 and 9 to show the intensity of the importance. This is again done on group and sub-group level. The Best and Worst comparison of the main group indicators is shown in Tables 3 and 4 respectively. The comparison for the sub-group factors is done similarly to the main-group factors and is shown in Appendix B.

Table 3. Best-to-others (BO) comparisons for main group factors.

Respondent Number	Best	CL	SM	PM	PT	TM
1	PM	4	9	1	2	3
2	PM	3	8	1	3	3
3	PT	5	8	3	1	2
4	PT	8	5	2	1	2
5	PT	3	8	2	1	2
6	PT	3	8	3	1	4
7	PT	8	5	3	1	4
8	PM	4	7	1	2	3
9	TM	5	8	3	2	1
10	PM	3	8	1	2	2

Table 4. Others-to-Worst (OW) comparisons for main group factors.

Respondent Number	Worst	CL	SM	PM	PT	TM
1	SM	6	1	9	9	8
2	SM	6	1	8	7	6
3	SM	6	1	8	9	6
4	CL	1	3	7	9	8
5	SM	6	1	7	8	7
6	SM	6	1	6	8	5
7	CL	1	4	7	8	6
8	SM	3	1	7	5	5
9	SM	4	1	7	7	8
10	SM	6	1	8	9	8

3.1.4. Step 4: calculation of weights

The weights for the main group indicators shown in Tables 3 and 4 are done using linear programming formulation depicted in Appendix C. This would give rise to main group weights, and this is shown in Table 5. The main group weight for a factor would the average of all the weights calculated through inputs from respondents. The variable ‘ξ’ stands from the maximum absolute difference and is further explained in Appendix C. The same procedure is repeated for the sub-groups as well to obtain the local weights. The weights for sub-group indicators is shown in Appendix D. The final weights, that is, the global weights for each factor in the entire system is shown in Table 6, along with the rank. This is further illustrated using a cluster diagram as shown in Figure 2. With help of the experts, it was assumed that a global weight of 0.030 would be taken as the cut-off for the analysis of the factors.

Figure 2. Cluster diagram for the global weights of the factors.

Table 5. Main group weights obtained for the main groups.

Respondent Number	CL	SM	PM	PT	TM	ξ
1	0.1282	0.0342	0.4103	0.2564	0.1709	0.1026
2	0.1774	0.0403	0.4274	0.1774	0.1774	0.1048
3	0.1079	0.0346	0.1798	0.4080	0.2697	0.1314
4	0.0394	0.0945	0.2362	0.3937	0.2362	0.0787
5	0.1481	0.0370	0.2222	0.3704	0.2222	0.0741
6	0.1818	0.0455	0.1818	0.4545	0.1364	0.0909
7	0.0452	0.1206	0.2010	0.4824	0.1508	0.1206
8	0.1235	0.0484	0.4165	0.2470	0.1646	0.0775
9	0.1046	0.0396	0.1743	0.2615	0.4200	0.1030
10	0.1503	0.0347	0.3642	0.2254	0.2254	0.0867
Main Group Weights	0.1206	0.0529	0.2814	0.3277	0.2174	0.0970

Table 6. Global weights of the Factors.

Main Group	Main Group Weight	Sub-Group Code	Local Weight	Global Weight	Rank
Client (CL)	0.121	CL-1	0.405	0.049	6
		CL-2	0.315	0.038	11
		CL-3	0.068	0.008	28
		CL-4	0.212	0.026	19
Senior Management (SM)	0.053	SM-1	0.160	0.008	27
		SM-2	0.517	0.027	17
		SM-3	0.143	0.008	29
		SM-4	0.180	0.010	26
Project Manager (PM)	0.281	PM-1	0.082	0.023	20
		PM-2	0.154	0.043	8
		PM-3	0.130	0.037	12
		PM-4	0.057	0.016	24
		PM-5	0.095	0.027	18
		PM-6	0.141	0.040	10
		PM-7	0.125	0.035	13
		PM-8	0.037	0.010	25
		PM-9	0.178	0.050	5
Project Team (PT)	0.328	PT-1	0.216	0.071	3
		PT-2	0.126	0.041	9
		PT-3	0.181	0.059	4
		PT-4	0.056	0.018	22
		PT-5	0.055	0.018	23
		PT-6	0.268	0.088	2
		PT-7	0.098	0.032	14
Team Member (TM)	0.217	TM-1	0.201	0.044	7
		TM-2	0.138	0.030	16
		TM-3	0.432	0.094	1
		TM-4	0.142	0.031	15
		TM-5	0.087	0.019	21

3.2. Fuzzy DEMATEL

DEMATEL was introduced in the year 1972 (Gabus & Fontela, 1972) and gained quick recognition and has been applied to many studies to date. DEMATEL technique has been a widely accepted technique that is used to study the cause and effect relationship between factors (Agrawal et al., 2020; Nimawat & Gidwani, 2021). Splitting of factors into causes and effects can help ‘prioritize elements based on their influencing nature’ (Govindan et al., 2020). Fuzzy theory, along with DEMATEL, has proven to reduce vagueness while making human judgements (Ortiz-Barrios et al., 2020). While DEMATEL tends to offer crisp values to the strength of the relationship, fuzzy DEMATEL attempts to capture the subjectivity in the relationship between the factors (John et al., 2019). A few of the past studies that used fuzzy DEMATEL to model the factors for a system include a study to analyze the challenges of the application of blockchain in life cycle assessment (Farooque et al., 2020), a study to leverage the enablers of sustainable lean six sigma (Parmar & Desai, 2020), and a study to evaluate the barriers to smart waste management for a circular economy (Zhang et al., 2019).

In this study, fuzzy DEMATEL is done in two phases. Phase 1 would include the application of the fuzzy DEMATEL technique to the main groups, that is, client, senior management, project manager, project team, and team member. Phase 2 would apply fuzzy DEMATEL to each of the factors in these groups to arrive at the causal relationships within each group. This division into two phases would give an in-depth visualization of how the main stakeholders interact to drive a project to success, and also how each of the challenges for each stakeholder relates to each other. This technique is applied with the help of the same experts who were involved during the application of the BWM technique.To arrive at a common consensus concerning the influences between the factors, a small discussion was arranged to obtain the inputs and offer additional insights.

3.2.1. Step 1: identification of the factors (inputs) for DEMATEL

The input to the fuzzy DEMATEL technique comes from the output of the BWM technique done in Section 3.1. The outcome of the BWM technique eliminated 13 of the 29 factors, thus leaving 16 factors that can be used as an input to the fuzzy DEMATEL technique to identify the causal relationships. An interesting observation here is that all the factors belonging to Senior Management (SM) were eliminated in the BWM technique. This has been further discussed in the subsequent sections of this study. The final list of factors that would be under study hereafter is listed in Table 7.

Table 7. Factors considered for fuzzy DEMATEL.

Main Group	Factors	Denoted as
Client (CL)	Scope Creep	CL-1
	Mid-project adjustments	CL-2
Project Manager (PM)	Inadequate Risk Management	PM-2
	Improper sequencing of project tasks	PM-3
	Improper time forecasting	PM-6
	Project Monitoring	PM-7
	Insufficient Business Knowledge	PM-9
Project Team (PT)	Lack of external communication	PT-1
	Team Conflicts	PT-2
	Team Communication	PT-3
	Insufficient Technical Knowledge	PT-6
	Lack of motivation	PT-7
Team Member (TM)	Burnouts	TM-1
	Absenteeism	TM-2
	Presenteeism	TM-3
	Social Facilitation	TM-4

3.2.2. Step 2: construction of an Initial Direct-Relation Matrix

The factors identified are given to the respondents for identification of the impact of the relationship between them. The first phase involved creating an initial direct-relation matrix for the main group factors, followed by the second phase for the sub-group factors. To capture the inputs in a subjective form, crisp values were not used. Instead, a fuzzy linguistic scale was developed which involved triangular fuzzy numbers (Hossain & Thakur, 2020). The same has been depicted in Appendix E. The initial direct-relation matrix for the main groups is shown in Tables 8 and 9. The initial direct-relation matrices for sub-groups are shown in Appendix F.

Table 8. The initial direct-Relation Matrix for the main groups in terms of depiction.

	CL	PM	PT	TM
CL	0	H	H	L
PM	L	0	VH	H
PT	H	VH	0	VH
TM	L	L	VH	0

Table 9. The initial direct-Relation Matrix for the main groups in terms of numerical equivalent.

	CL	PM	PT	TM
CL	0	3	3	2
PM	2	0	4	3
PT	3	4	0	4
TM	2	2	4	0

3.2.3. Step 3: construction of a Fuzzy Initial Direct-Relation Matrix

Table 9 is now converted using Triangular Fuzzy Numbers as depicted in Appendix E and the Fuzzy Initial Direct-Relation Matrix for the main group is shown in Table 10. The same table for the sub-groups is shown in Appendix F.

Table 10. The fuzzy initial direct-Relation Matrix for the main groups.

	CL	PM	PT	TM
CL	0	(0.5,0.75,1)	(0.5,0.75,1)	(0.25,0.5,0.75)
PM	(0.25,0.5,0.75)	0	(0.75,1,1)	(0.5,0.75,1)
PT	(0.5,0.75,1)	(0.75,1,1)	0	(0.75,1,1)
TM	(0.25,0.5,0.75)	(0.25,0.5,0.75)	(0.75,1,1)	0

3.2.4. Step 4: construction of a Fuzzy-Total Relation Matrix

The procedure for conversion of the above Fuzzy Initial Direct-Relation Matrix and Fuzzy Total Relation Matrix is shown in Appendix G (Chakraborty et al., 2018). The Fuzzy Total Relation Matrix is shown in Table 11.

Table 11. The fuzzy Total-Relation Matrix for the main groups.

	CL	PM	PT	TM
CL	(0.091,0.469,2.447)	(0.276,0.779,2.876)	(0.304,0.870,3.054)	(0.213,0.730,2.838)
PM	(0.188,0.665,2.636)	(0.156,0.641,2.611)	(0.397,0.998,3.041)	(0.308,0.854,2.876)
PT	(0.273,0.796,2.851)	(0.389,0.986,3.041)	(0.242,0.861,2.982)	(0.398,0.999,3.054)
TM	(0.175,0.621,2.471)	(0.217,0.732,2.636)	(0.369,0.932,2.851)	(0.143,0.597,2.447)

3.2.5. Step 5: construction of a Crisp Total-Relation Matrix

This step is used to convert the fuzzy matrix into crisp values and was done programmatically. The Crisp Total-Relation Matrix for the main groups is shown in Table 12.

Table 12. The Crisp Total-Relation Matrix for the main groups.

	CL	PM	PT	TM
CL	0.799	1.105	1.198	1.06
PM	0.974	0.959	1.29	1.158
PT	1.101	1.276	1.175	1.288
TM	0.917	1.031	1.216	0.9

3.2.6. Step 6: causal relation diagram

For the creation of the causal relation diagram, each of the main group is taken and its corresponding sum of the row (R) and the sum of column (D) is taken. This is done to the matrix obtained in Table 12, that is, the Total-Relation Matrix before the consideration of threshold value. These are added to give the values in the x-axis, and the difference is taken as the values in the y-axis. Factors that fall in the fourth quadrant are the effects, and the factors in the first quadrant are the causes.

The same procedure as above is repeated for all the sub-groups and the final causal diagram is drawn for the main group and the sub-groups. The same has been shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The final cause-effect diagram.

3.2.7. Step 7: calculation of threshold value

The threshold value, which is calculated as the average of all the elements in the Crisp Total-Relation Matrix, is used to calculate the internal relations matrix. Relations that have a value lesser than the threshold value will be ignored (set to 0). Only the relations with a value higher than the threshold value will be considered. In the case of the main group, the threshold value is 1.091. Thus, the new Crisp Total-Relation Matrix for the Main Groups is shown in Table 13 and Table 14. This table will be used for plotting the relationship diagram. Values which are ‘0’ indicate no relationship between the factors in row ‘i’ and column ‘j’. The same procedure is repeated for the sub-groups, and the final relationship diagram is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The relationship diagram.

Table 13. Final output for the main groups.

	R	D	R+D	R-D
CL	3.792	4.162	7.954	0.37
PM	4.371	4.382	8.753	0.01
PT	4.879	4.841	9.72	−0.038
TM	4.406	4.065	8.471	−0.342

Table 14. The Crisp Total-Relation Matrix for the main groups considering threshold Value.

	CL	PM	PT	TM
CL	0	1.105	1.198	0
PM	0	0	1.29	1.158
PT	1.101	1.276	1.175	1.288
TM	0	0	1.216	0

4. Results and discussions

The objective of this study arose from the need for studies revolving around the implementation of technological advancements. With a plethora of studies that aid senior decision-makers of a firm take technological decisions, this study evaluated supply chain transformation projects from the perspective of a project manager. In addition to this, the study considered the challenges associated with remote working culture as well.

The first set of results for this study eliminated 13 of the 29 factors initially considered. A surprising finding was that all factors that related to Senior Management were considered to be not a great influencing factor during the implementation phase. The Senior Management group had a weightage of only 0.053 in the entire system. This is in stark contrast to various other studies which attributed the main success of technological adoption in a firm to the Senior Management. A study that was conducted in the healthcare domain which is one of the areas of interest of this study has shown that even with high investments, projects relating to health information technology fail due to poor leadership (Laukka et al., 2020). Thus, comparing with the other studies mentioned, it can be understood that the Senior Managementmay not have a significant role to play in the successful implementation of the project as much as it has a role to play in the planning and strategizing process.Hence, the role of the Project Manager (PM) appears to be more vital when it comes to the implementation phase involving operational decisions. There are also few interesting observations when it comes to the role of the Client in implementing technology projects. This study identifies the Client as a beneficiary of the transformation project. This, the Client may either refer to the organization itself with its own dedicated SC transformation team, or an organization that uses the services of another organization providing SC transformation services. The results show that mid-project cancellationsandlack of client involvementare no longer challenges for projects. When dealing with cancellations during projects, a case-based study which investigated five software projects that were cancelled found that four out of the five projects studied were ‘doomed before it was started’, indicating that the cancellations were not during the course of the project (Ahonen & Savolainen, 2010). When investments are high and are done after a lot of analysis, cancellation during the course of the project would lead to heavy losses, affect liquidity and take a toll on the firm internally and externally (Mujtaba & Senathip, 2020). These high investments are also a reason why clients involve themselves actively in such projects. Agile software projects which include the clients during the entire duration of the project often succeed (Tam et al., 2020). Thus, with investments being extremely high in SC transformation projects for the pharmaceutical industry, mid-project cancellation and lack of involvement from the client do not seem to be challenges that would affect the outcome of the project.Scope Creep and mid-project adjustments, however, seem to be a challenge during implementing SC transformation projects in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, thus corroborating with other studies that have predicted these two factors as a major challenge to project management (Ajmal et al., 2019; Ninan et al., 2019; Shmueli & Ronen, 2017).

BWM offered another key understanding of the role of PM and the project teams in the success of the project. While the project team contributed 32.77% of the total weight of the system under study, the PM contributed 28.14%. Totally with a contribution of almost 61% of the weight of the system, these two groups are vital to the success of the project and their respective challenges need to be addressed. A study to identify the success factors of project management identified the competence of PM and the ability of the project team as an important factor that leads to the success of the project and even called for additional investments to be made by a firm in the field of project management (Radujković & Sjekavica, 2017). Another study highlights the importance of the role of client involvement during the project which needs to be aided by the PM and the importance of the role of the project team during the utilisation phase (the phase where the finished project is utilized) to understand the project holistically (Munns & Bjeirmi, 1996). Thus, our study follows a similar outcome when it comes to the role of the PM and the team.

An interesting understanding was found for Presenteeism during the BWM stage. Presenteeism earned the tag of the most influential challenge for a project manager. Presenteeism contributed 9.4% of the weight of the entire system along, raising the need for extensive understanding about it. A study that delved deeper into the concept of absenteeism and presenteeism found that under the force of organizational policies relating to attendance and sick leaves, employees tend to substitute absence with their presence to increase their reputation, thus putting their health and wellbeing at risk as well as with their colleagues’ (Miraglia & Johns, 2021). Another study that follows our outcome of the study has indicated that high demands from the job would lead to higher levels of presenteeism, and this would in turn lead to higher rates of absenteeism (Deery et al., 2014). Our study also identifies Insufficient Technical Knowledge as another important challenge for the PM. This corroborates a study that states that while the PM needs to have the level of technical competence to evaluate and aid the integration of the technical subsystem of the project with other elements in the system such as delivery and cost schedules, it is the project team that needs to have an in-depth understanding of the technical nuances of the project (Goodwin, 1993). Lack of External Communication, which has been a major cause for failures in other projects across varied industries (Doloi et al., 2012; Salman et al., 2021; Sambasivan & Soon, 2007), has been identified as a vital challenge in this study as well.Insufficient Business Knowledge emerging as a challenge for PM indicates the need for the knowledge related to the business as a requirement for at least the PM, if not for the team. The pharmaceutical industry is heavily governed by regulations and possesses standard processes (Rantanen & Khinast, 2015). Also, this industry’s SC is extremely complex due to the life-saving interest of human beings and also the presence of various stakeholders including regulatory agencies (Kapoor, 2018). Thus, intricate knowledge is needed by the PM while executing projects related to this industry to comply with the various regulations and requirements. This study agrees with another study that specifies how important business knowledge is, especially to gain the support of top management (Štemberger et al., 2011). There is also a similarity with another that highlighted the importance of business knowledge through the analysis of job advertisements (Lee, 2005).

Post the BWM study, the output was taken as fed as the input to the fuzzy DEMATEL process. The fuzzy technique, as highlighted before, was used to capture the subjective views of the respondents to eliminate ambiguous human judgement. With the Senior Management being filtered during the BWM process, the DEMATEL result of the main group portrays the Client and the PM as the causal factors and the Project Team and Team Member as the effect factors. This indicates that the client and the PM have a great influence on the team as a whole and individual team member as well. This understanding that a PM and the style of leadership can influence the project team is further strengthened by a study which says that the autonomy given to project teams along with an environment for a self-organizing team to survive would lead to the team committing themselves more to the project, thereby increasing the chance of project success (Lill & Wald, 2021). Another empirical study has found that the type of leadership demonstrated by the manager can influence the employee (team member) directly (Khuwaja et al., 2020). Thus, it can be seen that the way a PM leads the team can have a direct impact on the team and its members. Also, the analysis of the cause-effect diagram shows that Project Team has the highest impact on the whole system (due to the high horizontal vector value) followed by PM, Team Member and Client. This result corresponds to the result obtained through BWM as well, where the Project Team had the highest weight followed by the others in the same order.

Further, the process of fuzzy DEMATEL was applied to the sub-groups to analyze their results as well. When the process was done on the Client, it was observed that Scope Creep leads to Mid-Project Adjustments. While it can be understood that modification of existing scope will lead to changes during the course of the project calling for a change in the allocation of resources, this study differs from a study which says that changes asked by customers during the course of the project, usually during the later phases, can cause the scope to be modified, thus leading to scope creep (Bianchi et al., 2019). A deeper analysis of PM identifies Project Monitoring, Improper sequencing of Project Tasks and Insufficient Business Knowledge as the causes for Inadequate Risk Management and Improper Time Forecasting. A study was done to identify approaches to reduce time and cost variability in projects highlighting the importance of project monitoring to identify potential deviations from time commitments and advising strategies to minimize the deviation through three control strategies, thereby creating a link between project monitoring and time estimation (Martens & Vanhoucke, 2019). In the area of Information System risk management, it was found that possessing knowledge of the entire area of interest along with ‘concepts, methods and methodologies, the interdisciplinary nature of the area’ is important for proper risk management (Finne, 2000). Identifying the right sequence of activities amidst rework iterations is important to forecast the rework time to ensure adherence to the schedule (Wen et al., 2021). These studies concur with the results obtained for the PM through DEMATEL. Another important observation here is that Project Monitoring is not influenced by any of the factors, as seen from the relationship diagram in Figure 4.

The application DEMATEL to the Project Team sub-group revealed that Team Conflicts, Team Communication and Lack of Motivation are the causes that lead to Lack of External Communication and Insufficient Technical Knowledge. A study has shown that the emergence of Team Communication Platforms has enabled team members to communicate with each other better and enhance knowledge sharing and topic-based conversations, thus enabling knowledge diffusion which in turn would enhance the technical knowledge of the team (Anders, 2016). The analysis of the relationship diagram for the Project Team shows that conflicts can be resolved through communication, a finding that has been proved by a study that says that task disagreements can be addressed through open and constructive team communication (Guenter et al., 2016). Higher levels of relationship conflicts have been known to adversely impact knowledge sharing (Kakar, 2018). This might in turn affect the level of knowledge within a team, thus concurring with this study. Finally, on the analysis of DEMATEL output of the Team Member, it can be seen that Burnouts and Social Facilitation are very strong causal factors that lead to Presenteeism and Absenteeism. This is supported by a study that says that Social Facilitation, which relates to the change in performance of an individual in the presence of a group, can cause presenteeism by motivating employees to attend work to be in their group to increase their mental well-being (Karanika-Murray & Biron, 2020). This study does not provide a link between presenteeism and absenteeism, as opposed to the study by Deery et al. (2014) which indicates that prolonged presenteeism might lead to absenteeism. However, another empirical study showed that there is a positive relationship between burnout and absenteeism, thus offering results similar to this study (Petitta & Vecchione, 2011).

5. Conclusion and implications

Industry 4.0 enabled SC can make the entire SC more resilient to disruption and help manage a global disruption such as a pandemic better. A crisis in a supply chain may occur due to three types of disruptions: micro, meso and macro. An accident at the factory that leads to suspension of work can be classified as an instantaneous disruption and can be seen from the micro perspective. Such disruptions can be addressed through a firm’s well-laid-out recovery strategies to achieve resilience (Hosseini et al., 2019). Topics such as climate change, which cause a very long-term effect, fall under the macro perspective of supply chain disruptions and is addressed through multi-structural network transformations (Dolgui et al., 2020). The effect of a pandemic on a supply chain can be classified under the meso perspective and this disruption can be coped with through adaptation and survivability (Ruel et al., 2021). This survival in new business environments can be further enhanced through the application of advanced technology (Bag et al., 2018; Singh et al., 2021). This advanced technology would also help firms belonging to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry promotes SC resilience, thereby helping the SC survive. In reality, technologies applied to healthcare and pharmaceutical supply chains show have demonstrated how processes such as quality tracking, batch tracking, audit compliance and predictive maintenance have been transformed and made more efficient and effective.

The following sections talk about the various contributions this study offers to academicians and practitioners (PM).

5.1. Theoretical contributions

A report by Goldman Sachs in the year 2001 identified India as an important emerging market economy at the beginning of the century and would continue to be so till the end of this century (O’Neill, 2001). For an industry like healthcare and pharmaceuticals, the potential profits from an emerging market like India can be astronomical if all the challenges caused by corruption, shortage of expertise, economic crises and cost-containment policies are successfully mitigated (Tannoury & Attieh, 2017). During a disruption such as the pandemic, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies must coordinate and work with the government of a country to reduce the devastating effect. In a country such as India, the proportion of people opting for healthcare insurance is extremely low, thus leaving the responsibility of payment of healthcare services directly on the individual. Along with this, there is also increased expectation for improved healthcare services since the citizens are better informed about their health. Putting these two statements together, there is a significantly high amount of spending individuals need to shell out of their own pockets to pay for healthcare in the country, thereby leading to a higher level of debts (Dang et al., 2016). To reduce the impact of this, the government frames various policies depending upon the need to ensure that there is only a reasonable flow of money from an individual to a healthcare provider. In India, this has been seen in abundance in recent times with the authorities fixing a ceiling on the price of COVID-19 tests and hospitalization and ambulance charges. The healthcare provider and the pharmaceutical companies in the middle thus need to balance both the stakeholders; they need to ensure they get enough money to run their business and stay alive, and at the same time, ensure they abide by the policies laid down by the governing bodies. Hence, one of the best ways to work around this dilemma is to improve their financial performance through the reduction of the expenses that they incur. A reduction in the operating expenses for a firm in this industry would greatly cut down costs, and with the price of the product or service fixed by an external party, would yield an increased profit. One of the many benefits of implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies in a traditional SC is the reduction of costs associated in the entire SC, which is the need of the hour for the firms in these industries (Alcácer & Cruz-Machado, 2019). Digitization, which has proven to increase the competitiveness of a firm (Coreynen et al., 2017), also helps a business survive in a highly dynamic and competitive environment (Ghadge et al., 2020). This study starts by exploring the various ways in which Industry 4.0 can benefit healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. The COVID-19 pandemic can be thought of as a black swan event, which implies that the disruption was improbable and difficult to predict but at the same time has enormous consequences (Parameswar et al., 2021). The study offers a theoretical understanding of how an Industry 4.0 enabled SC can react to these black swan events better by offering more resilience. Near real-time monitoring of disruptions, enhanced SC visibility, improved demand forecasting accuracy and better risk management were some of the benefits that were being offered through Industry 4.0 technologies as seen from literature.

Any study that is carried out in any domain must answer the six basic questions: what, how, why, who, where and when (Whetten, 1989). The answer to the ‘what’ part of the six questions is that this study identified a total of 29 challenges that are important to a project manager working in SC digitization projects. These 29 challenges were done through a narrative literature review and confirmed with 10 project managers who have worked on and digitized parts of a pharmaceutical SC before. These managers lead their project teams and work under the guidance of the organization’s senior management. They are solely responsible for the day-to-day decisions that need to be taken and ensure that the project is delivered successfully. These 29 challenges help answer the second research question, RQ2, which talks about the critical and non-critical challenges faced by a PM during SC transformation.

The answer to the ‘how’ part is obtained by analyzing the relationships between the factors identified. This is done in two steps, both of which involved the 10 experts. The first step involved the application of BWM to eliminate the factors of low intensity. Out of the 29 factors, 13 were eliminated. The second step involved the application of fuzzy DEMATEL to the remaining 16 factors to study the relationship and the cause and effects. Fuzzy DEMATEL was chosen over traditional DEMATEL to capture the ambiguity and subjectivity. Comparisons were drawn from existing studies to find similarities and dissimilarities. The application of two techniques helped created a framework where prioritization would be possible. Prioritization is extremely important in organizational decision making as it helps achieve an objective over another (Keeney, 2013). This analysis helped answer the third research question, RQ3, which talks about how these factors are related to one another.

With the ‘how’ part being answered, the next question of ‘why’ needs to be answered. This question was answered through a narrative literature review identifying why the implementation of technology is important in an SC. There is a need identified on why the implementation phase is as important once the senior management addresses the challenges on a strategic level. This implementation phase is filled with challenges for the project manager. Further answers to the reason behind the linkages between the factors are explained through comparison with other studies in this domain. Additional insights are also given by the managers and are discussed in the next sub-section. Understanding the importance of implementation of new technologies helps us answer the first research question, RQ1. Together, with answers to all the research questions, this study fulfills its research objective, RO, which talks about the transformation of SC from convention to digitized to offset the effects of global crises.

The answers to ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘who’ is used to place boundary conditions or limitations on the model developed during the study (Whetten, 1989). Thus, this study contributes to the existing literature by identifying the need and techniques for an Industry 4.0 enabled digitized SC which can be successfully implemented by a project manager and the team for healthcare and pharmaceutical manufacturing firms in an emerging economy like India (where) in times of global unpredicted disruptions such as a pandemic (when) to aid project managers and project owners (who).

5.2. Managerial implications

This study talks about how a Project Manager (PM) can effectively cross the challenges that come during the course of a SC digitization project and deliver successful projects. The study aims to help the PM prioritize and attack challenges so that they are mitigated in order to make SC resilient to disruptions.

During the BWM process, Presenteeism was identified as the most influential factor in the system.This can be due to the pandemic; employees tend to attend work even while sick instead of being absent. This phenomenon leads to lesser productivity from employees, which can either affect the project timelines or lead to employees working over-time. The urge to continue working even when ill stems from work factors such as job security, supervisor support and job satisfaction (Caverley et al., 2007). Thus, any initiatives taken to improve the health in workplace would have an impact on presenteeism, rather than absenteeism. The key to tackling this issue lies in the organization first becoming aware that strict attendance policies and overload of work would stimulate presenteeism, after which organizational fairness needs to be established and communicated effectively (Deery et al., 2014). A respondent had highlighted about how deliverables are running on extremely tight deadlines with no slack due to lack of resource, thereby putting extra load of work on the employees who are present. The respondent also said that although the presence of a leave policy is present for employees affected with the virus, the organization still prefers them to continue working if there is no serious toll on the health condition of the individual. This practice needs to be checked and avoided as prolonged periods of presenteeism would eventually lead to absenteeism as well. There can also be options for employees to set their own timings of work to enable them exercise control over their own working schedule in order to reduce presenteeism (Kinman & Grant, 2020). This is further supported by the Gain Paradox Principle, which states that when the circumstances of resource loss is high (in time of pandemic), resource gains become more valuable and of vital importance (Hobfoll et al., 2018). This, however, would give to the Autonomy-Control Paradox, where greater levels of autonomy with respect to work increases the amount of time that is spent for work-related activities, thus in turn reducing the autonomy in practice (Mazmanian et al., 2013). Addressing the issue of presenteeism would greatly impact all the other factors that come under the team member group, such as absenteeism, social facilitation and burnouts.

This study strongly suggests that the key stakeholders in the success of a project in the decreasing order of importance are the project team, the PM, the team member and the client. Thus, a lot of care must go into ensuring that a project team is working appropriately.Lack of Motivation can be detrimental to the project as its highest intensity as seen through the relationship diagram obtained in the fuzzy DEMATEL process. This can be mitigated through the application of proper feedback mechanism in the team (Geister et al., 2006). The feedback channel must facilitate exchange of all kinds of information concerning tasks, relationships or any other concern. Motivation in virtual teams can also be increased through a mixed-incentive reward scheme, where the employee is rewarded based on evaluation done on individual level as well as supervisory level (Bryant et al., 2009). A respondent working with an organization specializing in digital transformations indicated that their organization does organize virtual events on a certain day of the week to take a break from work. However, another respondent contradicted this view and mentioned that motivational activities that are usually done in an organization virtually receive poor response due to tight work schedules and personal commitments. Communication between the team is definitely expected to take a hit due to the virtual setting and might lead to potential conflicts (Hafermalz & Riemer, 2021). The implementation of social networking tools such as Slack has led to more transparency, awareness, and informal communication, thus leading to better team communication (Stray et al., 2019). When this suggestion was laid to a respondent, the respondent said that such tools are used for both official and unofficial communications through the presence of various groups and channels. The respondent advised that caution must be taken to ensure that communications on the official channels must be restricted during non-working hours to promote better work-life balance for the employee. Also, in the absence of frequent face-to-face communication, it becomes important for the PM to find innovative ways to promote non-verbal communication virtually as well (Darics, 2020). Another important challenge here for the PM is the lack of technical knowledge by the project team. An empirical study that talks about how an organization can achieve superior performance through big data capabilities highlight the importance of human skills, which can be seen as a combination of technical and managerial skills, to add analytical traits to the organization (Gupta et al., 2020). A shortage of these technical skills may arise because in this age of rapid digital advancements, the technical skills have a shorter shelf life. This can be addressed through partnerships with educational institutions and development of innovative pedagogical approaches (Ra et al., 2019).

The PM comes with an own set of challenges that need to be mitigated. An important implication for a manager who would like to deliver successful projects is the knowledge about the business of the organization in play. Although there is no need to be technically excellent, a good understanding knowledge of how the developed system connects with the rest of the systems and how the group of systems together would offer benefits to the business is essential. Proper understanding of the business is also important in order to arrive at innovative solutions (Tiwana, 2012). The pharmaceutical industry is heavily governed by regulations and hence knowledge about these regulations is important as well. A responded highlighted how the emergence of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) had a heavy toll on the solutions that were being developed. Thus, the PM needs to be apprised of the business aspects of the entire system as well. In addition to business knowledge, the PM must also be capable to schedule tasks in such a way that rework time gets minimized (Wen et al., 2021) and although a very rare occurrence in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, be capable to schedule tasks in such a way that the losses are minimized on cancellation of the project (Long et al., 2020). Issues arising out of improper forecasting of time and inability to monitor projects properly can be addressed through the application of the Earned Value method which has proved to be extremely beneficial in integrating cost, schedule and technical performance (Abdi et al., 2018; Vandevoorde & Vanhoucke, 2006).

Finally, the impact of client on the system has been on the rise due to the preference of agile project methodology as a tool to drive the development of a project mutually. However, excessive involvement of the client in a project, in addition to causing client micromanagement, would cause scope creep as well. Scope creep can lead to delayed project completion and/or increased project cost, and can be controlled development of contingency plans, provision of slack times, enhanced usage of agile methodologies and flexible price contracts (Komal et al., 2020). This would lead to lesser changes during the course of the project, ensuring that the project is on track. Measures such as revision (when a PM predicts that the outcome of the project is not the same as one initially agreed upon and removes few extra elements which are not ‘core’ to the project through consultation with all stakeholders) and re-opening (when a PM feels that the goals of the project are no longer achievable and instead of working with the stakeholders, lets the stakeholder decide for themselves on what needs to be done) are corrective actions that can be implemented when scope creep occurs (Komal et al., 2020).

When there are multiple parties coming together to achieve a common goal through collaboration, there is a factor of trust that emerges between the stakeholders. This can be seen in the example of the importance trust in supply chain management, where collaboration between various parties of the SC brings in a plethora of benefits (Paluri & Mishal, 2020). Thus, a PM who is involved in SC transformation projects in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, through collaboration with all the stakeholders of the project, can use the findings of this study to implement and sustain a resilient digitized SC that is inert to future similar disruptions.

5.3. Limitations of the study

The study regarding the challenges that a PM has to wade through identified 29 challenges from literature that were verified by the respondents. However, this may not be an exhaustive list of the challenges, and this list may vary from industry to industry due to the different dynamics in each industry. The study is done with a group of 10 respondents who are project managers. Although the chance of bias creeping in is less due to the employment of fuzzy set theory, there is still a small possibility. The primary motive of this study was to identify the relationships between the variables and not the reasoning between them explicitly. The reasons behind the relationships have been identified through comparison with similar studies only. The discussion in this paper is limited to operational point of view of the project manager.

5.4. Further directions for research

This study can be extended by performing empirical studies on presenteeism and its effect during the pandemic. Further studies can also validate the relationship between the variables identified through techniques such as Structural Equation Modelling. This study can also be tried and compared with other industries in other geographies to learn about how results and views about project management vary across the globe. This study could also be extended through application to a case study of an organization. Greater insights regarding the relationships between the factors in the system are needed as well. Also, a study can be done on the importance of relation-building skills between the various stakeholders of a project, that is, client, senior management, PM, project team and team member. The strategic point of resilience and operational point of view of Project Manager is not considered in this study. The studies can be conducted by addressing the above points.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Joseph Jerome, Jude Jegan; Sonwaney, Vandana; ON, Arunkumar (2023), ‘Responses to survey on Project Management and Resilient SC’, Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/vd2bc8333z.1

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21693277.2023.2291649