Zelda Sweeney: I Have Generally

¶ … Zelda Sweeney: I have generally though of Johnson and Johnson as a cosmetics distributor, but they are indeed an international superpower in various domains, including healthcare. It is quite interesting to observe the internal strategic approaches implemented to cope with the business operations at a global level. The cultural barriers, such as language have been successfully removed by a translation of the product characteristic in the various languages of the destination countries.

The economic factor is also very well covered, and extremely well explained. They opened stores and manufacturing facilities in the regions where a profit was possible, through average incomes and purchasing power. It would be interesting to see if Johnson and Johnson have based their choices on any diversification criteria, in order to maximize profits and reduce risks. I guess they did, otherwise they would not sell so many product lines to so many global destinations.

I believe another factor worth looking at, from a financial standpoint, is that of the international payment methods used. I would suppose they protect themselves against currency risks through hedging operations, but the information is quite difficult to find, as most companies keep this data private.

Relative to the political environment, I recently read a paper on the need to clearly analyze the political stability of a country where an organization desires to launch a new venture. It can severely affect the business outcome. And however Johnson and Johnson is a strong company, well received across the globe, barriers to entry, restriction on imports, or governmental laws and subsidies to encourage the national pharmaceutical industry in the detriment of foreign products could severely impact the outcome of Johnson & Johnson's operations.

All in all, I find your post very well documented and a successful combination of theoretical and actual data. Good job!

To Warren King: Even as one begins to read your post, it becomes obvious that you have considerable experience in the business and the marketing fields. The matters are presented in a professional, yet clear and easy to read manner. And Maybelline, a company that started low, but managed to success at international level, is one of my favorite companies, in both terms of products, but also as I find them to represent the epitome of corporate success.

But however I personally like the organization, it is also true that they do have some issues they could resolve in order to increase their success even further. One of them, as you pointed out, is that they sometimes fail to adapt to the unique requirements of each and every market.

Relative to product pricing, I'm not sure I would agree with a lowering of the retail charge. After all, they do sell the highest quality products; wouldn't a decrease in prices imply a cost reduction, which would in turn materialize in reduced quality of the final products? If this were to happen, they would lose part of their most loyal and wealthy customers. However, they would gain more clients from the middle social class. I guess it is one of those things where you have to find out if fewer sales of high priced products value more or less than more sells at lower prices.