Johnson and Johnson
Johnson and Johnson
During those early gripe sessions, Heisen got an earful—but few surprises. "The business side felt that in the past, IT didn't understand the business," Heisen says. They wanted reassurance, she says, that a data standard would be driven by business needs—"not simply because a technologist somewhere thought it was cool," Heisen says. Eventually, her team chose six bedrock "business imperatives" that relied critically on information technology. Included: the need for J&J to globally manage its "franchises" in areas such as wound care, where multiple J&J companies together had a significant market share and expertise. Additional goals included cutting duplication and waste, boosting customer service, speeding product time to market, improving ties with new business partners and igniting innovation. The next question: Which technology strategies would J&J need to support these six business imperatives?
After much negotiation with the business side, Heisen's problem-solving groups settled on 10 business-IT priorities: data-sharing, infrastructure, human resources, information security, technology applications, knowledge exchange, e-commerce, purchasing, governance and finance. Each now would be seen as a separate "chapter" in J&J's corporatewide strategy. But what should each of the "chapters" be able to deliver? Again, Heisen told her IT staff to get input from the business side.
Heisen then set up 10 task forces, one for each chapter, and put a senior IT executive in charge of each—with all of the top 10 execs reporting directly to Heisen. Hundreds of senior IT staff from around the world were invited to participate in those early task force discussions—and did. The groups met repeatedly and, after a span of months, each urged specific changes.
The result? A management stew of centralized and decentralized approaches to managing change. The groups decided, for example, that security should be managed more centrally than, say, R&D.
Ditto
During those early gripe sessions, Heisen got an earful—but few surprises. "The business side felt that in the past, IT didn't understand the business," Heisen says. They wanted reassurance, she says, that a data standard would be driven by business needs—"not simply because a technologist somewhere thought it was cool," Heisen says. Eventually, her team chose six bedrock "business imperatives" that relied critically on information technology. Included: the need for J&J to globally manage its "franchises" in areas such as wound care, where multiple J&J companies together had a significant market share and expertise. Additional goals included cutting duplication and waste, boosting customer service, speeding product time to market, improving ties with new business partners and igniting innovation. The next question: Which technology strategies would J&J need to support these six business imperatives?
After much negotiation with the business side, Heisen's problem-solving groups settled on 10 business-IT priorities: data-sharing, infrastructure, human resources, information security, technology applications, knowledge exchange, e-commerce, purchasing, governance and finance. Each now would be seen as a separate "chapter" in J&J's corporatewide strategy. But what should each of the "chapters" be able to deliver? Again, Heisen told her IT staff to get input from the business side.
Heisen then set up 10 task forces, one for each chapter, and put a senior IT executive in charge of each—with all of the top 10 execs reporting directly to Heisen. Hundreds of senior IT staff from around the world were invited to participate in those early task force discussions—and did. The groups met repeatedly and, after a span of months, each urged specific changes.
The result? A management stew of centralized and decentralized approaches to managing change. The groups decided, for example, that security should be managed more centrally than, say, R&D.
Ditto