Current State of It in My Organization: A Snapshot

he Current State of IT in My Organization: A Snapshot

Since the era of industrial revolution, technology has been playing an important role in continuous improvement of organizational performance. In the last three decades, information based technology has become major point of focus for small, medium and multinational organizations that seek to improve their competitiveness in the market (O’Brien, 2009). Organizations of all sizes and nature are increasingly facing the pressure to turn to technology-based management using IT tools and applications as a way of increasing their competitiveness (Beynon-Davies, 2009). Informational technology era has produced rigorous business pressures that affect the state of current and future competitiveness in organizations. These business pressures have brought some rapid changes in most industries. While most of the modern organizations have attempted to obtain, implement and use some of the most sophisticated IT tools, the states of these applications differs significantly from one organization to another (McLeod & Schell, 2007). Consequently, these differences cause significant disparities in their abilities to provide competitive advantage to an organization. In this discussion, I will describe the state of Information Technology in my organization (Amazon.com Inc) to reveal its strengths and weakness and highlight areas that need improvement in order to ensure that the organization uses the system to achieve a competitive advantage. In particular, my presentation will review the topic with an in-depth analysis of the organization’s information system (IS), information system development, the state of electronic commerce (e-commerce), storing and accessing of information and knowledge and the process of enhancing IT to gain a competitive advantage.

Located in Seattle, Amazon Inc (Amazon.com Inc) is an international corporation that deals with retail business using electronic commerce. It deals with a large number of products such as books, videos, software, electronics and well as household products, clothes, jewelry and foodstuffs. Founded in 1994, it is the largest online retailer in the world, having started its business when Information technology was a young project. As such, it has been able to management its information technology successfully, gaining a competitive advantage over its global competitors.

The current state of Information Technology and management in Amazon.com Inc: How the company builds competitive advantage

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the state of information technology in Amazon.com Inc, I decided to investigate the situation from an interview with two key persons in the organization. The aim was to get the desired information from reliable sources. I also wanted to make both primary and secondary sources available in print and electronic form. I was lucky to have an opportunity to interview Mr. Jeff Bezos, the founder, president and Chief Executive Officer of the company. I was also lucky to meet Ms. Shelly Foster, the head and team leader at the IT department. From the interviews, I realized a number of facts about IT management and its application to achieve of a competitive advantage.

First, Mr Bezos stated that the current state of technology at the company is largely information based, given that the company is purely an e-commerce project. The president started with a brief narration of the company’s journey from a simple internet-based project to the current multibillion-dollar organization. In this case, the founder stated that the company is one of the few corporations that have used some unique features of IT to achieve their dreams. For instance, IT has deconstructed and reconfigured the traditional system of value chains by disrupting the old boundaries and the emergence of new business models. The founder wanted to show how the company used dedicated strategies to gain competitive advantage through market leadership within the new business models set by the internet technology.

Value chains and major players within the electronic commerce

Bezos informs me that some of the major aspects of the information technology that allowed the company to achieve a competitive advantage over the traditional corporations in the retail market include the deconstruction and reconfiguration of the traditional value and supply chain systems.

Under the influence of a rapid and dynamic rate of technological progress and development, electronic commerce (or electronic business) has evolved to include all those technologies that are “internetworked” together. Bezos informs me that the term e-commerce involves the processes of preparing, supporting, processing and maintaining the performance exchange through networked electronics. The president says that his company uses e-commerce to focus on transaction and distribution processes and all the methods used to support these processes. This definition is similar to the one developed by Wirtz in 1990s (Blanchard & Fabrycky, 2006). In addition, the president informed me that electronic-commerce is used to mediate the process of buying and selling information, services as well as products through a system of internetworked computers and their applications. In addition, it enhances the exchange of these goods and services (Saunders, 2009). Within the company, e-commerce has electronically mapped the process of communicating information between the suppliers, marketers and buyers. This process, which is commonly known as mediation in management information system, allows Amazon.com Inc to coordinate its business interactions between the three types of players in a globalized market. From an analysis of the president’s response in the interview, I realized that the players in the globalized and electronic business environment are grouped into three phases of transaction- information, negotiation and execution. The three phases form the entire process of business transaction. The location of contact between supply and demand in the traditional trade system has been virtualized through electronic commerce (O’Brien, 2009). First, the market access is ubiquitous, which removes the restrictions created by geographical space and time. Secondly, the electronic market is highly augmented with transparency that results into a reduction in the cost of doing business. Finally, the process is enhanced with an increased speed of communication between all the players involved. Unlike the traditional supply chain systems, the virtualized supply chain system developed by e-commerce allows the market players to take the role of either the trader or the customer during the business process. Looking at the Amzon.com Inc business model,