Problem: J&J subsidiaries in developing markets face the problem of not being connected in real-time with their distributors, thus the companies are unable to know where their total inventory is located and how much inventory to stock or produce at any given time.

Solution: Makabu's technical team suggested a software application that would use the Internet to automate the distribution, inventory and sales-force related processes. The application forced the distributors to record receipt of inventory and secondary sales of the inventory through the system thus given management at J&J real-time inventory and secondary data. The application was implemented for three different product lines and Johnson & Johnson is now planning to initiate a broad region-wise implementation of this system in its companies as well as link it with a new warehouse management system.

The application is Microsoft based, using MS SQL Server as the database running on a MS Windows 2000 platform. The web-page development was completed using VBScript and HTML, while the database and web page access used ASP and MS ADO technologies.