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Babson College - F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business

MIS 7550 — Deploying IT Strategically — Fall 1998

Assignment for Class 9 — November 2, 1998

Note: Our schedule for the remainder of the course will be as follows:

Class #9 — Nov. 2. "Infrastructure and Its Implementation"

Class #10 — Nov. 9. "Outsourcing"

Class #11 — Nov. 16. "The IT Function: Planning and Governance"

Class #12 — Nov. 30. "Organizational Change & Project Mgt."

Class #13 — Dec. 7 "Multiple Issues and Corporate Mobilization"

The syllabus on this web site has been modified to reflect any changes implied above.

For class #9, read the case ("Johnson & Johnson…") and two articles for this class, "Infrastructure and its Implementation" (scheduled in the initial syllabus as class #8 for 10/26) in the coursepack, pp. 197-236.

Be prepared to discuss the case and present your answers to the following questions:

Given the culture of highly independent operating companies at Johnson & Johnson, what are the business change implications on the deployment of cross-organizational strategic systems or on enterprise reengineering projects?
What is and could be the implications for shared information to J&J? How might this play out in terms of horizontal, vertical or diagonal processes?
Given the J&J environment, how would you expect to manage a project associated with these kinds of endeavors?
What organizational forms might J&J migrate to in the future? What should be the response of the IT organization and infrastructure? Pick one or two directions J&J might go in their business strategy and discuss how IT might respond.
What do the readings for this class offer in the way of specific steps or methods that would be useful to companies doing enterprise software (ERP) implementation? Where might these steps be installed in the overall IT Strategic Planning methodology (ITSP) presented in the first class?

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