Information Systems at Amazon.com

Emerging as an American multinational E commerce co, Amazon has turned out to be leading online retailer co and offering cloud computing services. Two technologies driving the growth of Amazon has been the integration of Customer relationship management and Information management to the overall business strategy. The IT infrastructure of the organization has been built in such a way that could handle more than millions of operations and also handles queries and issue of more than half of the volume of sellers. The company uses the customer relationship management module under enterprise resources management to store personalized information and purchasing trends of its customers which is integrated with the marketing and advertising campaigns of the organization.

The sales strategy of Amazon has been very unique that reflects its MIS. The operations of the company have made a transition from a single level sales strategy to that of multi-level e commerce strategy. The initial growth of the organization was favored by business to consumer models of selling and business to business mode of operations. The recent development in the E-commerce population has enhanced the interactions between the consumer and the business thus forcing Amazon to give more priority and customization to its IT to value and respect reviews of the customers as a part of their business operations. The exclusion of the retailers has been the signs of growth in Amazon as it allows the customers to sell and buy the products using Amazon as a platform.

Customers initiate surfing Amazon in order to find the products which they desire to buy. Search agent is the business model used by Amazon at this occasion. It uses data mining technique where in the information stored about the products and the services are retrieved from the central data base and customers are offered with the appropriate results. For customers who would like to sell their product the image of the product has to be uploaded with a small description about the condition. Amazon takes the brokerage model as it acts as a platform to business to business, consumer to consumer transactions. Amazon charges a fee against the mode of usage by the end users. Auction brokers are yet another tool that has been used by Amazon that includes bidding information and fulfilment.

Amazon has got the patent registered (U.s patent Feb 8, 2005) for offering the personalized content to customer with the help of tracking the actions of users in a surfing session. This reflects the unique competence of Amazon in offering the most likely products to the customers at the time of search. At the time when customers search or complete finding the book the virtual space stating that customer who have bought this product / book have also bought these phrases reflect the success of the company in enhancing the retention rates of the customers and also has provoked a sense of belongingness with the customers.

However, Amazon needs to enhance the synergy that turns as an outcome of integrating the information sourcing from advertising, sales and post sales services. The MIS of the organization must aid in offering touch points to the customers at each point of time. Amidst using the customer relationship platform for marketing and acquiring more customers, Amazon must integrate its entire platform with social networking websites. It is evident from the MIS of E bay and upcoming E commerce organizations that majority of the customers do exist in the social space. By integrating the shopping experience of a user with their social networking profile will result in promoting the product as well as the services offered by Amazon to the close networks of the end users.

Answer the following questions

1. Explain how the Information Technology served the organizational needs of Amazon, and how you interpret the role of business managers in leading the successful introduction and adoption of IT at Amazon?

2. Discus how could Amazon achieve an effective outsourcing process?

3. With a very competitive business environment. In your opinion, how Amazon was able to manage and control the main business projects parameters specifically the users/customers expectations?

4. Based on the case, Amazon must integrate its entire platform with social networking websites. If you are the project manager of such project, explain how you plan for your project in terms of scope, time, and budget?