Amazon: Leveraging IT for Business Success - Essay Sample

Introduction

Information technology has dramatically changed the way businesses operate from the management level to the consumer level (Raunaque, Imam & Raja, 2016). Incorporation of Information technology (IT) and information technology management (ITM) has brought about positive changes in the business world (Jelonek, 2015). Amazon.inc is one of the leading e-commerce business organizations that has significantly used IT to run various operations for the business. At amazon, IT is the core factor of the business running from the management level, supply chain management, and consumer level. IT provides security and more business opportunities for the company. I am working as a system analyst in the company. Despite the successes that IT has brought to the company, there are many challenges that the company always works hard to overcome. This article, therefore, describes how IT and ITM impact the performance and outcomes of amazon.com.

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Amzazon.com is an e-commerce business organization that use IT facilities to run e-commerce services, payments, data storage, management, marketing, and logistics. The product line of Amazon.com include several media products, consumer electronics, baby products, beauty producers, IT products and services, food, scientific and industrial products, personal care items, jewelry, kitchen items, entertainment, sporting products, etc. it covers a range of products and services and involves many business vendors for supplies. In 2019, the company employed over 798 000 full time and part-time workers (Cutter, 2019). The company has helped to improve the quality and availability o products and services for the customer. The primary principle of the company is customer-oriented and not competitor oriented.

The organizational structure of Amazon is hierarchical. It is composed of three chief executive officers and three vice presidents whose reasonability's focus of critical aspects of the business who submit to the senior CEO Jeff Bezos (Rivet, 2017). Since the company is diversified, the organization's structure will remain dynamic because of regular changes. The structure is based on the following features:

Hierarchical Corporate Structure- the structure of the organization management has significantly developed as a result of an immense increase in the size of the business and market coverage.

Flexible- despite the size of the organization, the company has managed a flexible managerial structure; this is as a result of IT contribution that enable inter-communication and ITM. Unlike other organizations with a hierarchical structure, the company has developed a highly flexible management structure that adapts to emerging changes in the world of business and Technology. It leads to various changes in the internal and external environment; it has significantly contributed to robust innovation in online retail and global logistics (Rivet, 2017). The management incorporates minor teams that deal with different elements of the business. Small meetings are held at the management level with a slogan called two pizza rules meaning an assembly that is enough to be fed with two pizzas (Chen et al. 2016).

Stability- information technology is one of the elements that has helped to facilitate security of management structure (Rivet, 2017), information is the crucial element of the business, sharing information through IT platforms for management operations has been useful in maintaining stable organizational structure.

Environmental Challenges

Social

The company is facing various social challenges in the market; this has ha affected the expansion and social engagement across different markets.

1. Climate Change Issues- recently, the company has been faced with questions concerning plans to reduce global warming as a result of carbon emissions through various means of transport used (Pinho, Marengo & Smith, 2015). The company has been forced to develop a project referred to as shipment Zero.

2. Language and Cultural Diversity- Amazon is an international enterprise; cross-border trade involves venturing into new territories with different languages and cultures. It has affected staffing and customer care functionalities as well as virtual agents.

Economic

The company is facing many economic challenges across the globe; despite the strategies that have been developed to reduce the impact, it remains one of the most significant problems. These include:

1. Currency Restrictions- the exchange of currencies dramatically affects the way amazon works in cross-border trade. Differences in currency values and many limitations is negatively impacted sales and market share for the company in different countries

2. Coemption- the company is facing stiff competition from other online retailers such as eBay and Alibaba. Recently the Amazon has withdrawn from operating in the Chinese market because of high competition from the local rivals (Chow, 2019). Besides the Walmart also pose is one of the leading competitors in the USA and other markets across the globe.

Technological

Amazon runs most of the operations through IT facilities; this requires the company and the customers to have proper access to the internet and IT facilities. Some of the technological challenges, therefore include:

1. Inadequate Access to Internet- some of the markets across the globe have poor access to the internet. Since the company deals on the online platform, customers are required to have useful internet to receive information about new deals, purchase, and track their products. Cloud services are also affected by poor internet access.

2. Rapidly Evolving Technology- amazon is being faced with a lot of changes in Technology, as the Technology advances the company, and the users may be required to adopt into the new technological environment (Roy & Charaborti, 2017). for the company to take int the latest technologies, hardware and software upgrades may be necessary, leading to more expenditure.

In response to these challenges, the company has maintained a flexible management system ready to respond to any emerging social, economic, and technological issues. The company focus on customer-oriented services to maintaining customer loyalty and explore new markets to overcome competition (Roy & Charaborti, 2017). On the hand, the Amazon has a team of IT experts to respond to technological changes, in our department, we analyze systems, make changes, and updates to amazon.com.

Opportunities

1. User-Friendly and Interactive Website

https://www.amazon.com/ is one of the best websites for online shopping. The site has positioned the organization in the market and provides an excellent company and user interactions. It contains features that are sure friendly and meet customer requirements in the new world of online shopping.

2. Global Market

IT has helped the company to explore into a global market; this provides an opportunity for the company to reach many customers s and build its brand across the border (Roy & Charaborti, 2017). Through different amazon suppliers across the globe market their products and services, this has helped in the growth and development of the company. It has been known globally.

IT Governance Issues At Amazon

The company generally base its serves on IT support facilities, management of information technology system has always been a change (Chen et al. 2016). New technologies, for instance, determine the way IT operations behave in the company. As a system analyst, I have tasked with several challenging issues as a result of changes in Technology. Require updates to the databases and marketing strategies through on; one platform is some of the problems the ITM team in the company must face (Jelonek, 2015). IT department is in charge of system governance; this includes transaction processing systems, interactive searching systems, supply chain management, and customer relation IT systems. All these systems require IT experts to develop them and make necessary changes that involve long working hours and system complexities.

Personal Experience in The Company

The company has contributed significantly to achieving my dreams in the field of IT. I play an essential role in the IT department. My responsibility is to analyses, design, and solves system problem. I contributed to the development of amazon web service (AWS), which is one of the best performing IT platforms in the company. There are many problems associated with the IT systems in the company that calls for our department to solve. Despite many successes in the process, there are challenges. The requirements are multidimensional and sophisticated; the process is communication and human-intensive. Developing security systems is also a challenge, and the evolution of IT keeps changing with new emerging threats. Despite these challenges, the company has provided an opportunity to explore more about the IT field. I have gained more knowledge and skills in system analyst, design, and development.

References

Chen, H. M., Schutz, R., Kazman, R., & Matthes, F. (2016, January). Amazon in the air: Innovating with big data at Lufthansa. In 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 5096-5105). IEEE.

Chow, D. C. (2019). Alibaba, Amazon, and Counterfeiting in the Age of the Internet. Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, Forthcoming.

Cutter, C. (2019). Amazon to retrain a third of its US workforce. Wall Street Journal.

Jelonek, D. (2015). The evolution of customer relationship management system. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Computers.

Pinho, P. F., Marengo, J. A., & Smith, M. S. (2015). Complex socio-ecological dynamics driven by extreme events in the Amazon. Regional Environmental Change, 15(4), 643-655.

Raunaque, N., Imam, M. A., & Raja, M. A. (2016). E-Commerce-Customer Experience and Relationship. International Journal of Advanced Engineering, Management and Science, 2(7).

Rivet, D. J. (2017). Amazon's Superior Innovation: A Study of Amazon's corporate structure, CEO, and reasons behind why it has become the most innovative company in today's market.

Roy, S. K., & Charaborti, R. (2017). Case Study 5: Amazon. In: Surviving in a Jungle. In Services Marketing Cases in Emerging Markets (pp. 45-59). Springer, Cham.