What are your views on this post? This is about Information System Managment (IFSM)
Even before I read this week’s readings the company that immediately came to mind was Amazon. I live close to where they are building a massive operations location and I don’t even know that massive is descript enough. Aside from the size of the building there are approximately 30 or more shipping bays. This tells me that they must use a strategic approach in order to meet their shipping demands. I believe it was earlier this year that they announced a program to use drones to complete orders in 30 minutes or less. It is this innovation and full use of IT that allow them to fulfill their vision of being the most customer-centric company and to create a place where you can get just about anything you want online.
According to their website it is their mission to “offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience”. That is only going to happen if they have an excellent supply chain management system in place. Making sure that they are meeting customer demand and limiting shipping errors is going to not only gain them a good business reputation, but it is also going to help limit overhead expenses.
We learned from our readings this week that a strategic information system delivers a product at a lower cost, delivers a product or service that is differentiated, helps to maintain focus on a specific market segment, and lastly enables innovation. It is evident from their financial success, growing from net sales of almost 7 billion in 2004 to an incredible 136 billion in 2016 (Amazon:Annual Review) and from their increasing stock price (under $70 in $965 currently (Amazon.com)) that they definitely have a strategic approach to IT.
In 2016, Bloomberg Business reported that Amazon was launching a global supply chain move that could be devastating to their competition. The program, known as Dragon Boat, was a global delivery network. It will control the flow of goods from factories and include leasing planes and taking part in freight booking. This would allow them to not only control the sale of goods, but their transport as well (Shuman, 2016).
References
“Amazon: annual revenue 2016.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/266282/annual-net-revenue-of-amazoncom/. Accessed 09 Sept. 2017.
“Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Stock Chart.” NASDAQ.com, www.nasdaq.com/symbol/amzn/stock-chart?intraday=off&timeframe=10y&charttype=line&splits=off&earnings=off&movingaverage=200day&lowerstudy=volume&comparison=off&index=&drilldown=off&sDefault=true. Accessed 10 Sept. 2017.
Schuman, Evan. “What Amazon is doing with its supply chain could devastate the competition.” Computerworld, Computerworld, 12 Feb. 2016, www.computerworld.com/article/3032656/retail-it/amazons-supply-chain-move-could-prove-devastating.html. Accessed 10 Sept. 2017.
