Information Systems Solution for Amazon Australia

This report suggests a new information system solution for Amazon Australia that includes analysis software from Epiphany, a new Database management system from Oracle, and logistics from Manugistics. The system will be based on a service-oriented architecture that will be rendering a decentralized service. The report also includes analysis of the existing human activity system, DeLone-McLean Model of Information System success, and measures of success.

Introduction to Information Systems
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Executive Summary
Database Management System is an example of general purpose information system which
is a combination of the data and the software, and it helps in analysis and organization of
data. The components of the information systems are procedures, network, database,
software and hardware. Issues have been seen in the existing human activity system, and to
solve them Business process management software can be used to automate the financial
tasks and the operations. The business process management software is in itself able to
create technology that will be able to handle large number of invoices each day. One such
solution is the usage of Appian business process management suite that will be able to create
a technology system entirely integrate all other tasks in to a single system. This will
emphasise a positive impact on the user experience and customer satisfaction. Business
process management can serve specific needs and integrating with the enterprise resource
planning can be beneficial for Amazon. Application can be build that can have all the
operations related to purchase to pay. At the same time, mobile and social interfaces can be
used to access the business process management platforms.
Keywords: Database management system, information system, Amazon web
service, human activity system, value chain.
1. Introduction
Organizations over the world deal with large amounts of data and it data are the
facts and the basic values that are organized in to a database. It is considered that
information is similar to data while, information includes the information which is
required to solve problems and answer questions (Stonebraker et al. 2013). Thus, an
information can be described as a software that helps in the organization and analysis
of data. The main purpose of the information system is to transform the raw data in to
information that can be used for decision making within an organization. Database
Management System (DBMS) is an example of general purpose information system
which is a combination of the data and the software, and it helps in analysis and
organization of data (Gouhar 2017). While there are specialized information systems
that are designed to specifically to work on a particular process within an organizational
setting or even used to carry out a specific analysis. Enterprise resource planning is an
information system which is used to manage both the external and the internal
information of an entire organization. The components of the information systems are
procedures, network, database, software and hardware. A human activity system can be
described as notional system the emphasises on the human activity (Laudon and Laudon
2015). The systems are considered to be notions because they are intellectual
constructs and are not real world activities. The human activity systems are at the three
levels: 1) the system serves the environment of the larger system within which it is
Assignment Report – 1803ICT or 7610ICT (omit one)
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embedded; 2) the system serves the purpose of its members; 3) a system which the
serves the main purpose of its collective entity (Eaasos.info 2018). This study is based
on suggesting an information system solution for the Amazon Australia from the
perspective of a trainee business analyst.
2. Part 1 Overall analysis of the Amazon Australia Business
2.1 Part 1- question a: Information on Amazon Australia
Amazon first arrived in Australia on 4th December 2017 and compared to other
retailers, the prices of the products were not cheaper. On the very first day of launch,
the prices of the various products that were offered on the Amazon website are: FIFA 18
(PlayStation 4) video game for 40 dollars, Nintendo switch console for 399 dollars.
While it was also seen that the Amazon Australia also did not launched the Amazon
prime services on the very first day of its launch. It was though that the arrival of
Amazon in Australia will shake up the Australian retail industry and it will put price
pressure on the retail chains and the departmental stores. It was said by several market
analysts that the American retailer giant will be unable to offer products at the cheaper
rates while it can provide few products at discounted rates. This will force the
Australian retailers to innovate strategies to keep the customers loyal (news.com.au,
2018). Amazon Australia has currently spent around 2 billion dollars per month on the
online shopping. Considering from the online retailing, Amazon Australia has a share of
7.3 percent and it is major share. The business strategy employed by Amazon Australia
includes wide range of products, marketplace for local business, free shipping benefits,
and lower price of the products (webalive.com.au 2018).
2.2 Part 1- question b: Organizational form of Amazon Australia
According to Mintzberg’s classification, Amazon’s organizational structure can
be described as a professional bureaucracy. Which has an operating core as its vital
part and employs both the horizontal and the vertical decentralization. The organization
is considered to be formalized but facilitates the decentralization so that the
professionals are autonomous (Lunenburg 2012). The organizational structure of
Amazon is hierarchical and consists of the senior management team of the one
worldwide controller, three vice presidents, and two CEOs. There are 7 other
departments that include the head of the segments, legal operations, human resources
and information technology that report to the Amazon CEO along with the management
team (Panmore Institute 2018).
2.3 Part 1- question c: Value chain of Amazon Australia
According to Porter’s Value Chain Model consists of the 5 primary activities: inbound
logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service. All the
support activities are mentioned in the vertical column and it mentions all the primary
activities. The support activities include the firm infrastructure, technology
development, human resources, and procurement (Koc and Bozdag 2017).
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Figure 1: value chain analysis of Amazon (done by author)
2.4 Part 1- question d: Competitive strategy of Australia Amazon
According to the porter’s five forces analysis model, the five forces are as
follows:
 Competitive competition or competitive rivalry (high force)- Amazon
competes in a competitive environment and the rivalry exists within the
online retail industry which includes the low switching costs (high force),
high probability of the substitutes (high force), and aggressive nature of
the firms (high force) (Panmore Institute 2018).
 Bargaining power of the customers or the buyers (high force)- Amazon
follows an approach emphasising on the customers. Thus, the external
factors that affect Amazon are: substitutes availability at high proportions
(high force), low switching costs (high force), information of high quality
(high force)
 Bargaining power of the suppliers (medium force)- in the e-commerce
business, the suppliers here control the supply and the availability of the
materials and supplies. The bargaining power of the suppliers are entirely
based on the moderate suppliers (medium force), medium forward
integration (medium force), small supplier size (high force) (Panmore
Institute 2018).
 Substitution or threat of the substitutes (high force)- Amazon with the
other market competitors in the field of online retailing. The external
factors that are upon whom the intensity of substitution depends are: cost
of the substitutes is low (high force), substitute availability (high force),
switching costs is low (high force).
 New entry or threat from the new entrants (low force)- when new firms
emerge, they potentially reduce the share of Amazon in the online market.
Amazon experiences a less intensity of the threat and this includes: costs
of switching is low (high force), cost of brand development is high (low
force), scale of the weak economies (low force) (Panmore Institute 2018).
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Inbound
Logistics
Operation
s
Outbound
Logistics
Marketing
and Sales Service
Procurement
Technology Development
Human resources
Firm Infrastructure
Margin
Support
activities
Primary activities

3. Part 2: Analysis of the existing human activity system
3.1 Part 2- question a: Identification of the existing human activity
system within the Amazon
The several issues that were identified within the existing human activity system
are: removal of the competitor’s products, amazon reviews, removal of the kindle
content, selling of the Wikipedia materials in the form of books, selling of Nazi T-shirts,
treatment of the worker in Amazon’s warehouse, E-book pricing, selling of books that
denies the holocaust, blocking the pre-orders on the Disney movies (Forbes.com 2018).
The stakeholders involved within this human activity system are the retailers,
products of the market competitors, book writers, consumers, amazon employees. Here,
the amazon employees in the warehouse complained about being humiliated by the
supervisors, the consumers complained of receiving books that are mere copy of the
Wikipedia content, the book writers are found to be writing book reviews on their own
books in the reviews section, amazon itself removed products that are similar to the
products of the other market competitors.
3.2 Part 2- question b: Issues
Stakeholders Issues
retailers amazon itself removed products that are similar to the
products of the other market competitors
products of the
market
competitors
amazon itself removed products that are similar to the
products of the other market competitors
book writers the book writers are found to be writing book reviews on
their own books in the reviews section
consumers the consumers complained of receiving books that are
mere copy of the Wikipedia content
amazon employees amazon employees in the warehouse complained about
being humiliated by the supervisors
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3.3 Part 2- question c: Business process model for Amazon
Figure 2: Business process model for Amazon (Done by author)
3.4 Part 2- question d: DeLone-McLean Model of Information System
success and comparison with the existing human activity system
This updated model consists of the 6 critical dimension like net system benefits,
user satisfaction, system use or usage instruction, service quality, system quality,
information quality. Considering the six areas, the areas where the human activity
system is not successful are the user satisfaction, system usage intentions, information
quality and service quality. The user satisfaction dimension is compromised considering
the fact that Amazon removed some of the products that are similar to the products that
it was producing. Also, there were complaints regarding the fact that Amazon was
selling books that were copies of the content sourced from Wikipedia. System usage
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Goal specification,
environmental
analysis,
organizational
analysis
Process design
Specification and
modelling
Process
implementation
Workflow
modelling and
implementation
Process
evaluation
Warehousing/
controlling/
process mining
Process
enactment
Workflow
execution/ Run
time
Process monitoring
Process for
improvement
Target
metrics
Implemented processes
Metrics/ Audit
events
Export for other
reporting purpose

intentions and the information quality is hampered due to the actions of the books
authors that were manipulating and adding the reviews in the book review section. The
same was misused by the other book authors and they were posting negative reviews.
Service quality was hampered and unsatisfactory due to several disputes arising with
the selling of controversial products (Zaied 2012).
3.5 Part 2- question e: Measures of success
The measures of success of the existing human activity system failed to a large
extent considering the various issues that are associated with it. The first measure is
the employee satisfaction, in this measure Amazon failed due to the ill treatment of the
employees by their immediate supervisors in the warehouses. The second measure is
the customer and in this section also, Amazon failed to satisfy their customers through
their faulty service (Ayala and Manzano 2014).
4. Answer to Part 3: Suggesting new information system to
support the HAS system
4.1 Part 3- question a: New information system
The new information systems will include the analysis software from the
Epiphany, a new Database management system from Oracle and a logistics from
manugistics. For the communication purposes Amazon can make a deal with the
Excelon for the purpose of integrating the business to business system (Boicea,
Radulescu and Agapi 2012). Simple storage system and Amazon Web Service are
systems can be developed by Amazon. This system will actively be able to maintain
large number of customers and products. Amazon web service can be considered as a
standard for the retailers to sell their products (Newcombe et al. 2015). This will help
Amazon to create a market dominance through the robust, scalable and reliable web
service. Every second thousands of customers are searching and placing orders and for
this the system needs to be secured, reliable and fast. A reliable customer relation
management system can be placed that can track what a customer is searching, wish
listing and data mining. This system will be smart enough to make the analysis and
render the services actively. At the same time, Amazon can build a smart analysis
search system that will be able to detect any suspicious activity on the website. This
system can allow Amazon to personalize the searches of the customer and actively help
them. The whole system will be based on a service oriented architecture that will be
rendering a decentralized service (Laudon and Laudon 2016).
4.2 Part 3- question b: Data and information involved in the new system
The new data and the new information that will be involved in the new system
are the data based on the customer activities, searches, wish listing, the key words that
are mostly used by the customers, products that are searched the most. Along with it
data will be generated based on the suspicious activities tracked by the smart analysis
search system. The data generated will be directly used for the decision making. The
demand for the products that are most searched will be used. Such products will be
placed in the warehouses so that they can be easily delivered whenever an order is
placed. The data on the suspicious activity can be used to track down the ones that are
using the comment section to post fake information and fake reviews.
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4.3 Part 3- question c: New process model
Figure 3: New information system within the business process management (done by
author)
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Goal specification,
environmental
analysis,
organizational
analysis
Process design
Specification and
modelling
Process
implementation
Workflow
modelling and
implementation
Process
evaluation
Warehousing/
controlling/
process mining
Process
enactment
Workflow
execution/ Run
time
Process
monitoring
Business activity
monitoring
Process monitoring
Process for
improvement
Target
metrics
Implemented processes
Monitoring
results
Measurements
Metrics/ Audit
events
Export for other reporting
purpose

4.4 Part 3- question d: Analysis of the new information system
The new information system will be customer facing and will also be a back-end.
The system will be back-end because it will be used to analyse the activities of the
customers and thus it will be customer facing as well.
4.5 Part 3- question e: Dimension of impact
This will positively impact the stakeholders like the retailers, customers,
employees. The implementation of the new and improved information system will have a
positive effect on the decision making. The first positive effect will be the satisfaction of
the customers. With the enhanced data received from the information systems, the
retailers will be able to use them to source the products that are more popular among
the customers. Employees on the other hand will face excess pressure when the
activities within the warehouse will rise. This might lead to further dissatisfaction
among the employees. This is one of the negative effects of the new and improved
information system.
4.6 Part 3- question f: Measures of success
With respect to the new and improved information system, the measure of success
will reach to its 70 percent level. The enhanced system will have the added benefit of
the customer search analysis and the data will directly impact the way the customer
places order and gets their products delivered. However, the employee satisfaction
dimension will be impacted negatively. The enhanced will put a lot of pressure on the
existing warehouse stores and this will increase the work load of the employees in the
warehouse due to increased product storage and shipping (Ayala and Manzano 2014).
5. Answer to Part 4: Recommendation and reflection
 Amazon is in a market system where the there is a cut throat competition
and the expenses are always sky high. Issues like the free shipment of the
books and other types of products will have a negative financial impact on
the company. Thus, most of all amazon must charge money for the
shipments it is conducting. However, this strategy has a negative impact
on the free shipping services that is already existing. So, it is noteworthy
that if the Amazon taking away such offers then there is an increased
probability of the reduction in the number of customers (Amazon.com
2018).
 Amazon currently operates from several developed countries, however
there are several underdeveloped market that can provide a lot of scope
for Amazon. Such a move will definitely create larger customer base
within different areas in Australia. This step will also increase the number
of jobs for the local people residing in the areas with the increase in the
revenues. However, one major drawback will be arising from the cost of
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setting new warehouses and making the accessible to everyone. People in
the region might face cultural shock and will be unable to integrate with
the work culture.
 Business process management software can be used to automate the
financial tasks and the operations. The business process management
software is in itself able to create technology that will be able to handle
large number of invoices each day. One such solution is the usage of
Appian business process management suite that will be able to create a
technology system entirely integrate all other tasks in to a single system.
This will emphasise a positive impact on the user experience and
customer satisfaction (Muntjir and Aljahdali 2013.).
 Business process management can serve specific needs and integrating
with the enterprise resource planning can be beneficial for Amazon.
Application can be build that can have all the operations related to
purchase to pay. At the same time, mobile and social interfaces can be
used to access the business process management platforms (Rosemann
and vom Brocke 2015).
6. Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that, organizations over the world
deal with large amounts of data and it data are the facts and the basic values that are
organized in to a database. It is considered that information is similar to data while,
information includes the information which is required to solve problems and answer
questions. Information can be described as a software that helps in the organization and
analysis of data. The main purpose of the information system is to transform the raw
data in to information that can be used for decision making within an organization. This
study emphasises on Amazon Australia and The organizational structure of Amazon is
hierarchical and consists of the senior management team of the one worldwide
controller, three vice presidents, and two CEOs. There are 7 other departments that
include the head of the segments, legal operations, human resources and information
technology that report to the Amazon CEO along with the management team. - the
several issues that were identified within the existing human activity system are:
removal of the competitor’s products, amazon reviews, removal of the kindle content,
selling of the Wikipedia materials in the form of books, selling of Nazi T-shirts,
treatment of the worker in Amazon’s warehouse, E-book pricing, selling of books that
denies the holocaust, blocking the pre-orders on the Disney movies.
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7. References and Citations
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Amazon.com. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Market-System-What-Works-
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0300093349 [Accessed 13 Sep. 2018].
Ayala, J.C. and Manzano, G., 2014. The resilience of the entrepreneur. Influence on the
success of the business. A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 42,
pp.126-135.
Boicea, A., Radulescu, F. and Agapin, L.I., 2012, September. MongoDB vs Oracle--
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Available at: http://eaasos.info/Content/System/SYS_HAS.htm [Accessed 13 Sep. 2018].
Forbes.com, 2018. [online] Forbes.com. Available at:
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#fd8a21f2963b [Accessed 13 Sep. 2018].
Gouhar, A., 2017. Database Management System. International Journal of Engineering
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Koc, T. and Bozdag, E., 2017. Measuring the degree of novelty of innovation based on
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Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson
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European Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology, 1(1), pp.23-29.
Newcombe, C., Rath, T., Zhang, F., Munteanu, B., Brooker, M. and Deardeuff, M., 2015.
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pp.66-73.
news.com.au, 2018. Amazon launches in Australia. [online] NewsComAu. Available at:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/amazon-australia-finally-launches-
after-months-of-anticipation/news-story/d6092b8bcdb60b7b9daf9145023a4a23
[Accessed 12 Sep. 2018].
Panmore Institute, 2018. Amazon.com Inc. Five Forces Analysis & Recommendations
(Porter’s Model) - Panmore Institute. [online] Panmore Institute. Available at:
http://panmore.com/amazon-com-inc-five-forces-analysis-recommendations-porters-
model [Accessed 12 Sep. 2018].
Panmore Institute, 2018. Amazon.com Inc.’s Organizational Structure Characteristics
(An Analysis) - Panmore Institute. [online] Panmore Institute. Available at:
http://panmore.com/amazon-com-inc-organizational-structure-characteristics-analysis
[Accessed 13 Sep. 2018].
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer,
Berlin, Heidelberg.
Santos-Vijande, M.L., López-Sánchez, J.Á. and Trespalacios, J.A., 2012. How
organizational learning affects a firm's flexibility, competitive strategy, and
performance. Journal of Business Research, 65(8), pp.1079-1089.
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Stonebraker, M., Brown, P., Zhang, D. and Becla, J., 2013. SciDB: A database
management system for applications with complex analytics. Computing in Science &
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webalive.com.au, 2018. Australia's Ecommerce in 2018: How Amazon Challenges the
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https://www.webalive.com.au/ecommerce-australia-2018/ [Accessed 12 Sep. 2018].
Zaied, A.N.H., 2012. An integrated success model for evaluating information system in
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3(6), pp.814-825.
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