We sat down with Johanna to explore her goals for her first year at TSS, how she plans to build a competitive portfolio of products, and how she is settling into her new role.  ‍

What are your main responsibilities as CPO at TSS?

My main aim as CPO is to ensure we continue to have a competitive product portfolio for the future, that is always delivering value to our customers and driving patient safety. We already have amazing technologies and solutions, as well as a lot of experience delivering temperature control solutions to the pharmaceutical industry to support their supply chain. But there is a lot more scope when it comes to helping both new and existing clients to use their data to make more informed decisions and transform their supply chains.  

Alongside my team, I will also be overseeing every stage of our product lifecycle, from ideation and design to launch and beyond. Customer success is critical to the continued growth of TSS, and I want to make sure our products always provide value to the business.

What skills do you think are really going to help you in this role?

I have quite a technical mindset and lots of experience in driving successful product development and digital transformation projects. In fact, one of the things I love about TSS is that our solutions are all about making sure that patients get the best treatments possible. I actually started my professional life as a developer, and I think that the technical mindset has really helped me throughout. Even as I moved into other roles such as Chief Information Officer and where I managed products and services, I still approached each challenge with that developer mindset. It also means I’m not scared of getting technical. In fact, I love it.  

As an accomplished CIO, I was responsible for digital transformation and implementing automation, and increased efficiency in our operations. Of course, information security and quality were also big parts of this role. I have also managed procurement strategies and sat in on a lot of product pitches over the years. So, I know the challenges our clients face and how we can support them. In my view, the success of our products can only be measured by the value they bring for the customers and patients. 

What are your first impressions of the company and the team?

What drew me initially to TSS was not only the focus on promoting the safer distribution of medicines and digital transformation but also the belief in data and collaboration. I think you can develop the best services and products by working closely with those you are trying to help. TSS has been working with the pharmaceutical industry for a long time and I could instantly recognize the team’s commitment to ensuring uninterrupted service for customers. This customer-first mentality is a critical success factor for building a competitive product portfolio, as is the desire to always improve the ways we work and product development. So yes, so far so good!

What are your strategic priorities for your first year at TSS? How can we better support our customers?

As a company, TSS has always had a desire to explore customer pain points and emerging technologies. That is a big advantage and something I want to continue to harness to support our customers in making data-driven decisions about their supply chains.  

It is an area where we are leaders in the industry. TSS has been capturing temperature data for years, and not only on excursions. Combined with our strong record of successful integrations with other key customer systems, we are in a great position to provide customers with a great end-to-end solution. I think there is a lot of potential for us to open up our offering to a wider section of the market. I will be looking to identify the universal pain points so we can support more potential customers, but also to use as the base for our ongoing product development and optimization.

" I am very excited about enabling our customers to obtain deeper insights using their temperature data, collected via our end-to-end solutions, and boosted with a higher level of system integrations. This is where being hardware agnostic can really help us create value for new and existing customers. To achieve this, we need to strengthen and expand our business analytics capacity. That is going to be a big priority for me this year. "

What challenges do you see in the market?

Well, an immediate challenge is a shortage of components due to the global semiconductor crisis affecting several areas, but that is not specific to us and will be a factor for most of the tech industry and anyone reliant on manufacturing. I believe that we will see an increased move towards recycling of components as a result of this, which may be a positive outcome of this challenge. For TSS a strategic priority for TSS is to continue to strengthen our identity as a SaaS and HaaS company and make sure the market knows all the different ways we can benefit and support them. Our products and services allow us to help pharmaceutical companies increase visibility over their supply chains to better manage risks and boost operational efficiency.  

Sustainability is also a priority. I don’t see it as a challenge as such, but more of an opportunity where there is a lot of work to be done in this area by the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. For our own part, TSS has several initiatives to minimize landfills and emission where an important one is the recycling of data loggers. The largest impact we have is probably to advise customers on potential operational efficiencies based on the data we process and insights we generate. By helping companies to digitalize and automate manual processes, reducing unnecessary drug quarantines and waste, we are not only helping the companies but also ensuring supply for patients when it is needed. A win-win situation for everyone.