Business Information Systems Report: Amazon, Zylite Group Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of Business Information Systems, focusing on Amazon and the Zylite Group. It begins with an examination of Amazon, including its market position, revenue, and an application of Porter's Five Forces to assess its competitive landscape. The report then delves into the importance of product positioning, customer needs, competitive pressures, and communication channels. A comparison of the Product Lifecycle and Boston Group Portfolio Matrix is presented, along with the similarities and differences between Management Information Systems (MIS) and Decision Support Systems (DSS). The role of MIS and DSS in helping the Zylite Group achieve its goals is explored, including the use of financial and marketing MIS. Finally, the report concludes with a feasibility report addressing the issues that must be considered before the adoption of an e-commerce approach by the Zylite Group, including technical, operational, and economic feasibility.

Running Head: BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
Business Information Systems
Institution
Date
Name

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Question 1
Amazon Company
Amazon is an American cloud computing and electronic company founded on 5th July 1994 by
Jeff Bezos based in Seattle, Washington. When ranged according to market capitalization and
revenue, Amazon becomes the largest internet retailer. Amazon.com website was initially an
online bookstore, it expanded its commodities to video games, furniture, electronics, audiobook
downloads and streaming, MP3 streaming and downloads, video downloads and streaming,
jewelry and food (Wikipedia, 2018). It has separate retail websites for France, Italy, Spain,
Australia, and Mexico including other countries in different regions. It generated a revenue of $
117.7 billion the last year 2017.
Amazon Porter’s Five Forces
Bargaining power
The bargaining power of Amazon customers is generally very big. Depending on the services
being offered and the nature of the product, the extent of bargaining power differs among the
customer groups. Amazon buyers purchasing from the marketplace have the highest ability
bargain since they can switch to competition or substitute services and products. As a result of
stiff completion in the marketplace, customers’ ability to switch to an alternative website.
Moreover, consumers of Amazon Web Services (AWS) have less bargaining power in relation to
those who are in the marketplace because they cannot switch prices to another service provider
Sellers on the marketplace as a group of Amazon customers do not have a strong bargaining
power due to the absence of an alternative to Amazon. (Research Methodology, 2017).
The threat of new entrants

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New retail business joining the online market is significant. Even with the existence of business
industry entry barriers including economy of scale and expected retaliation from existing
business, financially stronger businesses joining the market may take their competitive advantage
on their abilities of the services they offer and their innovative characteristics. In order to
minimize the effects of industry entry barriers, creativity and innovation are very crucial aspects
to be considered at this point. The threat of new entrants can be accelerated by lack of changing
costs for the consumers. Consequently, new market entrants will benefit from existing courier
services for the purposes of distribution of products.
The threat of alternative products and services
There are various types of direct and indirect alternatives for many of the products and services
available on Amazon. Traditional physical stores serve as a direct substitution. Other direct
substitutions to Amazon are seen in instances of some websites that provide sales of given
products such as electronic products from newegg.com and emusic.com for music and Barnes
and Noble providing literature materials. Indirect substitutions include Catalog-format retail.
Intensity of competitive
Amazon has numerous competitors making very high competition since it deals with numerous
range of products and services which are still provided by other companies. Amazon.com is
directly in competition with other internet retail websites including eBay and Barnes and
Noble.com through its marketplaces such as zShop. (Essay, 2018). Amazon has indirect
competitors include organizations that have improved their online stores after they have built
traditional stores. Competitors who are not in the same industry of operation at Amazon such as

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Kohls.com, Walmart.com and Bestbuy.com websites also sell a lot of similar products at
Amazon.com
Question 2
Importance of product position analysis
Customer Needs
Efficient product positioning requires a vivid comprehension of buyers’ preferences and choice
so that the best communication links are chosen and the important information will reach the
intended customers. Product positioning begins with describing a particular point of the market
segments to aim at. The best approach to it is to be more specific. Vendors also have to
understand buyers’ needs, more specifically related to the products and services they offer, to
apparently express value as a segment of their commercializing program.
Competitive Pressures
Marketers of a business should consider competitive atmosphere while they are looking at the
positioning elements of their marketing strategies. Efficient positioning explains to customers the
reason as to why this company's product and services be taken into consideration over other
competitive alternatives according to what the company already knows about the customer
preference. Effective marketing strategies evidently identify the way services or products is
distinct from companies’ products and services and in what ways (Chron, 2018). The business
must be specific on what they want to offer away from what other competitors do and to
understand the specific considerations and preferences of their customers.
Communication Channels

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Product positioning facilitate marketer’s opinion to notice how their offerings are dissimilar from
others that consumers have to select from. Through markets, this has to reach the intended group.
To perform this efficiently, they should select communication networks that aim to link with
their acknowledged target audiences at times when they will be most interested in these
messages.
Difference between Product Lifecycle and Boston Group Portfolio Matrix.
Product lifecycle is an important tool used by marketers to estimate and determine the stage of a
product in its life while Boston Group Portfolio Matrix is a way of nearing and examining
business marketing and business growth. The principal guiding rule of the Boston Consultative
group's strategy is that experience in a market share leading to minimizing production costs and
maximizing the business profits (Proctor,2014).
Sub-division of the Product life cycle into four stages in accordance with sales and time whereas
the corporate organization is grouped into four sections from the market sharing and expected
growth rate.
The Boston group portfolio matrix can approximately predict business overall general business
running conditions however the product lifecycle can reflect the performance of a particular
product in the market. .
Product lifecycle majorly studies the utilization of the product marketing strategy but on the
other hand, the BCG matrix primarily investigates the use of corporate resources and allocation
of this resources.
In terms of reflection, the Boston Consultative Group matrix can reflect a form of diverse
business situations, but the product lifecycle cannot reflect all businesses and product in the
curve (Christopher, 2016).

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The Boston consultative group network basically focuses on the component and utilization of the
corporate properties while the product lifecycle, for the most part, studies the utilization of the
item advertising methodology.
Similarities between Management Information System (MIS) and Decision Support System
(DSS)
MIS is an information system that collects related information, summarizes and organizes it in a
way that can be used by the business executive making of decisions, it is a computer-based
system that has four crucial constituents, that is, data collection, entry of information, data
transformation and information usage. DSS is a user-friendly computer system that can be
accessed easily and simple operation by the people who are not interactive to the computer.
Decision support system is crucial in running of the business for it is consist of MIS which
supports a number of ways for retrieval and comprehension of information. Consequently, allows
diverse ways of access to information especially by the management.
During the communication, they provide commands that are easy to understand since they are
user-friendly containing both internal and external information database making the management
effective in terms of decision making.
Question 3
Difference between MIS and DSS
The main aim of the MIS is on the structured functions and routine decision in an organization
but for DSS, it focuses majorly on subtasks demanding the managerial judgment.

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MIS emphasizes storage of data and efficiency while DSS does majorly does data manipulation
and emphasizes the business strategies.
In DSS managers have to clearly understand the nature of the decision and the environment of
decision making while MIS does not require a complete understanding of the type of the
decision. MIS most depend on the computer skilled people but DSS relies on managerial
judgments from the managers. Management Information System and Decision Support System to
help Zylite group achieve its goals (Ada & Ghaffarzadeh, 2017).
In this case, a MIS financial system will provide financial data for Zylite Group manager to
come up with business decisions on activities in the business. This help to incorporate data from
different sources, pive simple access to monetary data in the outlined shape, Enable budgetary
examination utilizing simple to-utilize devices and Compare notable and current financial related
activities.
Considering Zylite Group, a financial MIS will have some of the subsystems to evaluate costs,
revenues, profits analysis and auditing organs for both internal and outside reasons plus
frameworks to do funds management. Having a financial MIS will likewise be utilized to
produce players reports, for example external stakeholders.
Using MIS for Marketing
A marketing MIS will promote Zylite Group operations throughout the many activities of
advertising departments. Moreover, subsystems in this type of information system are marketing
research, promotion of products and services, and product pushing, development of products and
delivery, pricing and sales analysis. The main uses of a marketing MIS are to generate sales

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reports for the Zylite Group. These reports are produced on a regular basis, such as by week,
month and another particular period. These sales reports enable managers to identify the most
performing aspects and the least performing.
DSS is very important in doing stock evaluation present and ready for sale in the company
including the jewelry. This will enable Zyline Group to make more profit by using DSS to
enumerate its properties.
Zylite Group will use DSS for sales optimization and sales projections
Decision support techniques will be used to analyze sales data and make expected trends on the
market while monitors existing trends. Planners will make a substantial DSS resources in order
to increase sales (Strauss & Frost, 2016).
Feasibility report addressing the issues that must be considered before the adoption of an e-
commerce approach.
As planned by the Zylite group to introduce an e-commerce system to enable the company to
expand its market. The company has to consider economic, technical and social feasibility. The
report is to address considerations by the Zylite company executive prior adoption of the e-
commerce system.
Through technical feasibility, the e-commerce to be adopted should be able to process a
reasonable number of transaction in a given time limit, capable to withstand a large number of
customers that are expected to use the system and the e-commerce system should connect
customer located in different regions.
Operational feasibility.

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The adoption of e-commerce system will require skills and expertise that may not be available in
the Zylite Group, it will not cost too much to acquire such experts.
Economic feasibility for this particular group states that it will be beneficial to introduce the
system for it will help the marketers to predict the business trends and aspects which promotes to
strategic planning (Tsekouropoulos, Andreopoulou & Misso, 2015).
In conclusion, e-commerce system will not only improve the sales of the business but also access
to international market, therefore, it will have lowered the operational cost.
References
McDonald, M., & Wilson, H. (2016). Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to profit from
them. John Wiley & Sons.
Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2015). Implementing EC
Systems: From Justification to Successful Performance. In Electronic Commerce (pp. 645-687).
Springer, Cham.
Proctor, T. (2014). Strategic marketing: an introduction. Routledge.
Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.

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Ada, Ş., & Ghaffarzadeh, M. (2017). Decision making based on management information system
and decision support system. TRANS Asian Journal of Marketing & Management Research
(TAJMMR), 6(1), 25-38.
Strauss, J., & Frost, R. D. (2016). E-marketing: Instructor's Review Copy. Routledge.
Tsekouropoulos, G., Andreopoulou, Z. S., & Misso, R. (2015). 5. Green business, Integrated
marketing communications and green marketing strategy for sustainability. GOingREEN. A
collaborative platform for the Excellences of Campania Region: A collaborative platform for the
Excellences of Campania Region, 1, 123.
Chron : The Importance of Product Positioning to the Marketing Plan. Retrieved from
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-product-positioning-marketing-plan-24275.html