Review of Amazon's Information Management Systems, Free Essay Sample

Usually, most business enterprises under the E-commerce industry try to achieve significant competence through creating as well as sustaining unique process in order to help them in collecting relevant personal information regarding their customers as well as their purchasing trend. This particular Case Study analysis primarily assists in evaluating how service-based company- Amazon applies the Information Management Systems (IMS) as a critical tool to in achieving their competitive advantage over their competitors via effective acquisition as well as management of the stakeholders' relevant information. This case study includes the assessment of the significant Amazon's MIS activities in its entire value chain processes. The IMS' uniqueness is critically gets highlighted in this analysis via the evaluation of technology applied, the process as well as various systems used by the Amazon Company from the initiation process of their potential customers with the highly-rated website until the mode of payments as well as delivery becomes selected. Lastly, this paper will discuss various recommendations for the Amazon Company to help it in enhancing its original IMS in place. These suggestions are regarding the assessment of the qualitative data and the feasibility extent in the implementation process of the set strategies.

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Information Management System (IMS) is specialized software designed to help various managers in facilitating storage, organization as well as retrieval of information in the organization. Generally, Information Management Systems assist the managers of the organizations in ensuring and enhancing smooth as well as sufficient management of the organization by effectively storing, organizing, and retrieving relevant information. Additionally, the data collected by the various systems of the organization gets structured effectively to easily allow the managers to do the evaluation process based on the current performance in comparison with the previous output (Bayraktar et al., 2009). Usually, some of the commonly used types of IMS include the Process Control System (PCS), Human Resource Management System (HRMS), Sales and Marketing Systems (SMS), Inventory Control Systems (ICS), Accounting and Finance Systems (AFS), Office Automation Systems (OAS), as well as the Management Reporting Systems (MRS).

Firstly, Amazon's sales strategy has recently become unique which generally reflects its IMS. Currently, the company's operations have made a significant change from the single-leveled sales strategy to the multi-leveled e-Commerce strategies. In the case study, the original growth of the company became favored through the business-to-consumer sales models and business-to-business strategic operations (Gunasekaran, & Ngai, 2014). However, the current increase in the e-Commerce among the business stakeholders across the globe has improved interactions in between the customers and the business itself hence, forcing Amazon to extensively prioritize and customize its Information Technology (IT) systems in order to value as well as respect various customers' reviews as part of their daily business operations. Furthermore, the exclusion of the middlemen retailers has led to the growth of Amazon since it enables both sellers and buyers to freely interact by using Amazon as their primary e-Commerce platform.

Again in the analysis, Amazon's business model reflects IMS. For instance, browsing, accounts management as well as the final phase include shopping. The unique IMS plays a critical role in each of the steps within the operations of Amazon. Similarly, Amazon applies Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) Website to help in serving various developers operating with web-scale computing, as it provides the end-users with the exclusive control over the computing practices and allows consumers to use the Amazon's computer ecosystem. The EC2 helps in reducing time wastage by assuming the desire to boot a new server. Additionally, Amazon uses S3 to act as its storage tool for the internet application. This particular interface helps customers to ensure usage, retrieval, consumption of large volume of data from any relevant source irrespective of the time (Verwijmeren, et.al 2016). End users apply surfing process to help in finding the products they need to purchase. They also use Search Agent, the business model that uses data mining device whereby the information stored regarding the products as well as services get easy retrieval from central data base, and then customers get proper results. Besides, Amazon uses brokerage model since it acts as the core platform to B2B and Consumers to Consumers business transactions.

Supply Chain Design in Supporting Organizational Strategy

Supply Chain Design involves a process whereby an organization structures as well as manages its supply chain to identify the right balance in between the inventory, transportation as well as the production cost. With this, the company supports its intended goals by ensuring cost-effective process, maintaining the inventory level, and reduced transportation costs. Similarly, Supply Chain Design is very important at the strategic level the organization, since optimizing the design results into the strategic design network on several locations, company's size, as well as the geographical strategies of sourcing. Also, it helps in answering what-if situations at the organizational strategic level, and lastly, it gives the companies to model their strategic requirements for the decision making of the business.

Reasons why Managing Information is equally or more important than Moving Products

Generally, relevant information becomes the main driver of the Supply Chain Management (SCM) and it is also very important to the moving products. Usually, moving products play essential role within the supply chain management. However, information becomes a very important source for the open communication in between the business stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, government, technology and intermediaries and the business itself. Most organizations depend on the information to help them in solving various problems of customers and then apply it as the caveat in providing business solutions. These consist of numerous moving parts when managing the information as it aids in forecasting the financial performances, enhancing logistics within the transportation as well as warehousing, and then helps in monitoring the demand of customers. Therefore, overall, information acts as the linkage between the supply chain management and the success of the business.

Importance of IMS to the Organization

Overall, there are several benefits that the company enjoys when it applies to IMS. They include the following: All the organization's stakeholders have practical accessibility of one particular single database that stores all the data needed for daily operations. This benefit will enhance transparency in the organization. Secondly, IMS helps in achieving the cost reductions in its day-to-day operations, and timely data processing, which in turn improves productivity. Thirdly, it helps the managers in attaining the best decision through the proper data processing, which refines the data. Lastly, IMS reduces the amount of paperwork within the organization since all the information is stored in the computer system for easy retrieval and minimizes loss of data.

Conclusion

In general, the information management system is a critical aspect for any organization since it helps in enhancing the efficiency of various activities in the organization like the data collection, processing, storage and retrieval, and decision-making process which in turn increases the productivity of the organization and its supply chain processes.

Recommendations

Overall, the following recommendations will help Amazon Company to enhance its services to its customers through the e-Commerce transactions. They include: Amazon should improve its product sorting as well as improving its anti-phishing interventions. It should also integrate its website operations with the Social Networking. Lastly, Amazon should create customer relationship management intervention in the entire business processes. And also, Amazon Company should ensure implementation of Artificial Intelligence Systems in order to improve and upgrade the bonding with its customers.

References

Bayraktar, E., Demirbag, M., Koh, S. L., Tatoglu, E., & Zaim, H. (2009). A causal analysis of the impact of information systems and supply chain management practices on operational performance: evidence from manufacturing SMEs in Turkey. International Journal of Production Economics, 122(1), 133-149.

Gunasekaran, A., & Ngai, E. W. (2014). Information systems in supply chain integration and management. European journal of operational research, 159(2), 269-295.

Verwijmeren, M., van der Vlist, P., & van Donselaar, K. (2016). Networked inventory management information systems: materializing supply chain management. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 26(6), 16-31.