IT Systems Recommendation: Amazon (Term Paper Sample)

IT Systems Recommendation
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
IT System and Recommendation
Name of the business – Amazon
Amazon Incorporation is a multinational technology company with its headquarters in Seattle. The company focuses on cloud computing, e-commerce, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Amazon is considered as one of the Big Five tech businesses in the United States alongside Facebook, Google, and Apple. The company is widely known for its disruption of highly acclaimed industries through mass scale and technological innovations. It is the world's leading AI assistant, online marketplace provider, and cloud computing business, as measured by market capitalization and revenue.
Additionally, the company is considered as the most extensive online company by revenue globally. It is one of the global values companies and the largest private employer in America. Initially, the company started as an online entity for books but later on expanded to the selling of software, electronics, video games, furniture, apparel, foods, jewelry, and toys. In 2016, Amazon surpassed companies such as Wal-Mart as one of the most highly valuable and successful retailers as per market capitalization.
The company distributes streaming of music, video, audiobooks, and downloads through its Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, and Audible subsidiaries. Amazon Publishing is a publishing arm of the Amazon Company. It also owns a television and film studio, a cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon studio, and Amazon Web Services. It also involves in the production of consumer electronics, including Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, Fire TV, and Echo devices. Further, the company's subsidiaries include Twitch, Ring, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market (Brijs, 2016).
Why are information systems essential in managing the organization’s business?
Any business organization can only be consistently successful if there is the continued and efficient management of the financial and management of data with well-functioning systems. For instance, Amazon has seen a drift in its control of workflow due to its reliability and accuracy. The company has developed an innovative system that enhances the effectiveness of information delivery and management of its services. To improve smooth service delivery, Amazon has instilled a well-organized information system. Its information system helps in enhancing independent processes and enables seamless workflow. The IT system entitles the Amazon Company to understand how its business operates, develops, generates, and sells its products and services (Brijs, 2016).
Information storage – consistency keeping of the activities logs is essential for the organization; it helps to understand the metrics of problem-solving and offer the solutions to the same issues. The company's business IT makes it easy to store and update its operational data, communication of records, revision histories, and documents. Additionally, the information system helps to ease the process of the decision-making process and smoothen the process of information delivery.
The existing information systems supporting the primary business functions
Sales and marketing – Amazon Co.'s marketing strategy relies heavily on the following pillars for its sales and marketing strategy:
* Use of a customer-friendly interface
* Provision of a wide range of products
* Exploiting of its affiliate resources and products
* Use of existing effective communication systems
* Usage of universal mentalities and behaviors
Manufacturing and production – the Amazon's Vendor Flex manufacturing program allows the company to have complete control of its products, and hence regulate the online retail logistics. For instance, the company has set up a P&G facility to enhance the secure packaging and shipment of their goods to their respective warehouses. The program has also enabled the plan to take control of the e-commerce aspect of their business transaction (Costa et al., 2016).
Human resources - Human Resources (HR) refers to the workforce of an organization and is seen as the beating heart of a company. This department is responsible for developing the perceived ambiance of the workplace. It does this by establishing prerequisite protocols to be respected when employees are interacting with one another. Organizational culture, on the other hand, can be defined as a set of shared values and beliefs that govern the behavior of people in the workplace (Brijs, 2016). The combination of these aspects creates the working environment of an organization. Some of the significant ways through which HR can impact organizational culture include their influence on employee relationships. The department is responsible for any complaints or conflicts that might develop between employees. Ensuring justice and fairness are the core basis of the resolution process creates a positive culture within the workplace - as employees will feel valued and protected (Costa et al., 2016). The compensation packages are another sector influenced by HR that can affect an organization's culture. Offering profoundly different packages for men and women in the same position, for instance, can create a negative perception of gender discrimination. As such, it is crucial to ensure fairness in matters like reimbursement as well.
Organizational culture can impact its employees in a variety of ways. Unfair compensation packages with no reward schemes, for example, are likely to affect the overall performances of the people involved. Should the employees feel the organization's lack of concern about their wellbeing, they will be demoralized in carrying out their duties. Organizational culture also affects interactions between employees in the workplace. Holding seminars about gender discrimination and sexual harassment, for instance, shows an organization's stance against these issues (Costa et al., 2016). This would, in turn, encourage employees to maintain the same standards of the company. The HR department and organizational culture go hand in hand when developing a company's image. Therefore, it is crucial to consider all employees' needs when developing this platform.
Information technology recommendation
Information needs.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a process in a business that involves management software that enables organizations to use a system of combined applications to automate and manage back-office activities that are related to technology, services, and human resources (Costa et al., 2016). Customers and suppliers have reaped a lot of benefits from one of them is a streamlined process in business. ERP systems assemble all data and promote coordination in the business process. Data that is centralized saves money since it captures all the activities of the organization and makes problems to be easily understood. A centralized system helps one to know if a problem lies with salespersons, resource allocation, or chain management supply. Secondly, it provides an opportunity for automation of workflow. For example, it has enabled corporations to identify repetitive tasks of a product cycle and automate it. Automated processes have significantly improved product delivery.
Information automation.
Secondly, customer service is efficient because ERP gives a better communication channel to customers and salespersons. It leads to better customer care and sales projection (Reynolds & Stair, 2016). To start with, ERP has improved back-end and front-end relations through the creation of an efficient delivery and shipping system (Kurbel .et al., 2015)
Benefits of the proposed systems.
Efficient shipping and delivery create a better experience for customers. It should also enable the prioritization of valuable customers since sales information accumulated over time gives the organization an opportunity for customer retention. It should also allow more tracing and control of products. ERP provides an effective way to keep tracking of goods and services. The organization can closely monitor how the services and products are moving. ERP makes it efficient for ease material management, inventory-taking, revenue tracking, and order tracking (Reynolds & Stair, 2016). Tracking is made easier one can track all the activities on a dashboard. Inventory tracking has also been made easier through real-time monitoring. It should provide a fast delivery process.
One of the issues that arise with the implementation of ERP is that it is very costly. The cost comes in terms of resources used, training of workers, and the value of the labor force. ERP consultants are also expensive to hire. The cost of ERP software, customization, planning, testing configuration, and implementation is very expensive (Reynolds & Stair, 2016). The system can as well be challenging to use since ERP deployment is time-consuming; it might take more than one year to make it functional. Moreover, the efficiency of the system may be reduced if there are resistance and restrictions to share information between business units. Due to dynamic changes, workers might also be poorly trained.
Change of staff is another issue, where companies can employ project administrators who are not skilled enough to manage the system. Changes in business practices may be introduced that are not aligned with the system (Reynolds & Stair, 2016). Resistance in sharing internal information between business units can reduce the effectiveness of the ERP software. Success, in this case, depends on the skills and experiences of executors, includin...