Leveraging the New Infrastructure

CHAPTER 6

Management by Maxim: Linking Strategy and Infrastructure

Johnson & Johnson (J & J), the highly successful health care company, began to face new business pressures in the early 1990s when large customers, such as Wal-Mart and Kmart, created new demands. At the same time, the economics of the health care industry itself changed. In response, J & J created new ways of supporting and selling to customers, particularly large customers. It focused on developing long-term relationships with large customers, rethinking the firm’s traditional independent operating company model. The new customer services and business and organizational models that J & J developed had significant implications for the firm’s information technology investments. ...