Managing Information Systems: CRM System for Amazon - Report

This report proposes the implementation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for Amazon, aiming to enhance customer relationships and achieve strategic business goals. The report begins with an introduction to CRM and its benefits, followed by an organizational overview of Amazon. It then analyzes the internal and external environments using SWOT and Porter's Five Forces models, identifying Amazon's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report also examines market trends and Amazon's strategic use of IT, pinpointing problems and opportunities for improvement. A System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model is proposed, justifying the chosen system through feasibility studies and comparing alternative solutions. The report details the SDLC phases, including system analysis, design, development, testing, and implementation, as well as post-implementation activities and project, change, and risk management. The conclusion summarizes the benefits of the CRM system, emphasizing its potential to improve customer satisfaction, streamline processes, and boost profitability for Amazon.

Running head: Managing information system
Customer relationship management system for Amazon
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Letter to the Sponsors
Mr. Steven Hatch
Senior Manager,
Amazon
2127 7th Ave. Seattle, WA 98109, US
Mr. Hatch,
Amazon is continuously enhancing its business and in recent days, the profitability and well-
settled business has given a sustainable market reputation to the organization. The
organization has always focused on delivering customer satisfactory products. The products
and services provided by the organization stays parallel to the recent innovations. The well-
established and strong brand name of this organization has collected numerous customer for
it. Therefore, implementation of an efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
System that will be integrated with the current operating system of this organization will
boost the organizational functionalities. Not only enhancing the customer relationship, but
also the particular system will show a wider direction towards achievement of the strategic
and business goals of the organization.
In order to implement the CRM system effectively, a System Development Life Cycle
(SDLC) can be considered to be fruitful. It will encompasses different processes like
planning, analysing, designing of the system, development strategies, testing, implementation
plans, and post implementation plans. All these stages of the SDLC will help to form a
strategic alignment of CRM to with the business goals of the organization.

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After considering the business nature and necessity of the organization, a CRM software is
suggested. I look forward to your approval and sponsorship from you, so that I can
implement a CRM software in your organization.
Thanking you.
Kind Regards

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Table of Contents
1 Introduction........................................................................................................................5
2 Organizational overview....................................................................................................5
3 Analysis of internal and external environment..................................................................6
3.1 SWOT analysis............................................................................................................6
3.2 Porter’s five force model.............................................................................................7
3.3 Market trend and practices..........................................................................................9
3.3.1 Market trends.......................................................................................................9
3.3.2 Practices of Strategic Uses of IT in Amazon.......................................................9
4 Identification of problems and opportunities...................................................................10
4.1 Problems....................................................................................................................10
4.2 Opportunities.............................................................................................................10
5 System development lifecycle model...............................................................................11
5.1 Justification of the selected system...........................................................................11
5.1.1 Feasibility...........................................................................................................11
5.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of alternative solutions and decision-making
process of selecting appropriate solution.........................................................................12
5.2 System Analysis and System Design........................................................................13
5.2.1 Collection of business requirements..................................................................13
5.2.2 Creating process diagram...................................................................................14
5.2.3 Designing of proposed system...........................................................................14
5.3 Development, testing and implementation................................................................14

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5.4 Post implementation activities...................................................................................15
5.5 Project management, change management and risk management............................15
6 Conclusion........................................................................................................................16
7 Reference..........................................................................................................................18

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1 Introduction
A Customer relationship management (CRM) can be explained as a technological
solution for managing the relationships as well as interactions of an organization with its
customers (Nykamp 2019). Having a clear goal of improving the business relationships, the
CRM system efficiently helps organizations to maintain connection with the customers,
streamlining the processes, and improving its profitability. Additionally, implementation of
CRM solution is beneficial for firms in focusing on delivering satisfactory business to the
customers, thus achieving the organizational goals and objectives (Trainor et al. 2014). This
research proposal is going to present one proposition Amazon for implementing of a new IT
system, which will help it in achieving its business goals and managing the customer
relationship with the organization. The selected IT solution that is CRM will be proposed by
the system development life cycle (SDLC).
2 Organizational overview
The American multinational company Amazon is currently providing e-commerce,
artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital streaming business to its customers. This
organization is well-known establishing several industries by the mass scale and
technological innovation. In addition, it is identified as the AI assistance provider, largest
online market, and cloud computing provider or platform all over the world (Amazon.com.
2020). Amazon also found to be distributing downloads and streaming of different music,
video, as well as audiobooks in terms of Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, and the
Audible subsidiaries. Apart from that, this organization also has expanded towards publishing
by the Amazon Publishing, a television and film studio, named Amazon Studios, along with
the cloud computing provider named as Amazon Web Services.

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3 Analysis of internal and external environment
3.1 SWOT analysis
The internal environment of an organization can be identifies by analysing the strength,
weakness, opportunity (SWOT analysis) and threat of that organization. SWOT analysis of
the Amazon are discussed below,
Strength
 The organization has already
established a brand name and
identity in the market.
 It caters to a wide range of
customers providing everyday needs
at an inexpensive price, and hence
delivering a customer oriented
business.
 The creative ideas along with the
innovation additions has create a
unique reputation of it in the market.
 It controls the costs and minimizes
the inventory replenishment time.
 It has the largest number of
merchandise selection with the
maximum number of third party
sellers associated with it.
 The organization always gathers
higher number of revenue and has
Weakness
 The business model of this
organization is easily imitable.
 In few areas, due to higher
competition it is losing the sales
margins.
 The tax avoidance controversy of
Amazon in US, UK and Japan has
created negative impact on its
reputations.

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superior distribution and logistics
system.
Opportunity
 The chances of penetrating and
expanding its business in the
developing market creates higher
opportunities.
 Expansion of physical stores can
enhance its business in a wider
aspect.
 It has the opportunity of enhancing
the organizational politics and
technological measures.
Threat
 The controversies related this
organization has affected its brand
name
 Increasing rate of cybercrime can act
as the major threat by affecting its
network security.
 Aggressive competition by the
competitors like Flipkart, Myntra,
Walmart and many such can affect
its sales rate.
(Table 1: SWOT analysis of Amazon)
3.2 Porter’s five force model
Competitive rivalry (Strong)
Usually, the retail firms undertake aggressive business, and hence delivers a strong
competitive force against each other. Factors like higher aggressiveness of the companies,
availability of higher number of substitute and the minimal switching costs are responsible
for stronger competitive force. Amazon has to compete directly with firms like Walmart,
flipkart and many others, which are already established retail and e-commerce busieneese.in

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addition, due to presence of more number of substitutes in the market and minimal barriers to
the customers makes this force higher for Amazon.
Bargaining power of customers (Strong)
The modern age customers have higher access to the existing firms and the type and
nature of product along with the price structure each organization is providing. Hence, they
always analyse and compare several factors before taking their buying decisions. This
particular external factor affects the most to Amazon. Due to ability of many alternatives in
the market, customers easily flip their buying decision. In relation, minimal switching costs
also another reason that can change the purchasing decision. Therefore, bargaining power of
customer always remains high for the organization.
Bargaining power of Suppliers (Moderate)
Suppliers usually control all the availability of materials or resources to Amazon,
which the organization mostly needs for managing its daily e-commerce businesses. There
exist a number of suppliers in the market and it completely depends on the organization to
select its suppliers. Therefore, this force puts moderate impact on the organization. Moreover,
the medium forward integration mainly minimizes the actual suppliers’ effect on the selected
organization. Moderate integration also equates to medium degree of control, which suppliers
have, while selling their products to firms like Amazon.
Threat of substitutes (Strong)
There exist numerous e-commerce or retail organization that almost delivers same
business facilities as that of Amazon. The increasing market benefits and profitability has
provided numerous opportunities to undertake retail and e-commerce business. Therefore,
finding substitute of this organization is not much difficult. In addition, presence of many

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number of substitute can easily affect the consumers’ decision. Therefore, this force puts a
strong impact on the business of Amazon.
Threat of new entrance (Weak)
New firms can also reduce the business and sales of Amazon potentially. However, this
force of the porter’s model is identified as the weaker force. Amazon, definitely delivers
customer satisfactory business and has collected a reputed brand identity. Gathering as same
amount of market presence and brand recognition as Amazon is surely difficult for any new
entrance. In addition, providing the economies of sales similar to that of amazon is quite
difficult for the new entrance.
3.3 Market trend and practices
3.3.1 Market trends
Market trend can be expressed as the perceived tendency present in the financial markets
for moving a particular direction over the time. Amazon itself has made bigger moves by
establishing a noticeable record-breaking business activities. Starting from the expansion of
many of the private label brands, to launching of a series new attribution efforts, this
organization has showed impactable performance over the years. In addition to that, the
growing number of ad placements, creative tools needed for the brands and targeting the
capabilities has also contributed a lot for creating a trend in the market. Moreover, other
market trends of this organization can be identified in terms of focusing on the vendors,
merging the business with social media and leveraging the powerful customer data.
3.3.2 Practices of Strategic Uses of IT in Amazon
The organization is best known for delivering a customer satisfactory e-commerce
business. With the enhancement of this technological era, the discussed organization also
using different technologies for simplifying it’s daily business functionalities. The main

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technology used by the selected e-commerce comprises web service, middleware, group ware
and most importantly networking. Therefore, these mainly lay all the pillars of the
management information systems. In addition to that, the enterprise systems, which are
integrated with internet are identified in terms of accounting, human resources and the
logistics.
4 Identification of problems and opportunities
4.1 Problems
Amazon, being an e-commerce company, deals with a wide range of customers every
day. In addition, owing a minimal number of physical outlets somehow hinders its
profitability. Therefore, implementation of a CRM software is needed (Khodakarami and
Chan 2014). However, the increasing amount of cyber threats, risk in managing the network
security and the implementation cost can creates problem while implementing this software.
Apart from that lack of proper training among the employees regarding how to use this
software can also create major problem.
4.2 Opportunities
Due to the increasing benefits of CRM, suggestion of its implementation inside the
working environment of Amazon is given. The organization can grab higher opportunity for
creating and maintaining improved client relationship. Increasing ability of cross-selling and
team collaboration can be resulted along with better efficiency for serving the clients
(Choudhury and Harrigan 2014). Other opportunities can be explained in terms of higher staff
and customer satisfaction, increased profitability and revenue, cost savings, and minimal
client attrition. Therefore, the organization must include a CRM software.

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5 System development lifecycle model
5.1 Justification of the selected system
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can be expressed as a cross-functional
enterprise system that operates with a purpose of strengthening the customer relationship with
the organization. In collecting customer feedbacks, working on them and in delivering
customer satisfactory services, this system helps the organization in a wider aspect (Mishra
and Dubey 2013). Not only collecting customer loyalty, but also the CRM solutions can
enhance the profitability of the organization by streamlining many administrative processes
of the business such as, sales, service divisions and marketing (Nyadzayo and Khajehzadeh
2016). This in return, will help the firm to put more focus on building as well as maintaining
effective customer relationships with the organization. A strong and effective CRM solution
can also be described as a multifaceted platform in which, every single business process is
considered to be crucial. In addition, going a step further, the new generation CRM solutions
delivers a Built-in intelligence that effectively automates all the administrative tasks, such as,
data entry, service case routing and many others (McMurtrey 2013). The automatically
generated insights can also help the business in understanding the customers in a way better
manner and predicting their expectation and needs. Therefore, it can be said that the without
having support of an efficient integrated CRM system, the growth opportunities of the
organization might be missed and higher revenue loss can also cause (Soltani and
Navimipour 2016). Loss of customer can also majorly affect the sales and profitability of the
organization.
5.1.1 Feasibility
The feasibility study of CRM aims at amplifying or accelerating the selected
company’s discussion in CRM and verities of customer related activities and initiatives. The
major outcome of this particular study also provides a greater clarity of the on-going issues in

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relation to the entire CRM landscape inside the firm and facilitates the decision making
process of the organization on whether to include the CRM to achieve the organizational
goals or not (Yu, et al.2013). Apart from that, the Customer Capital Consulting may also
delivers a impactful and high level reality check of using the structured framework for
identifying the customer, several marketing practices, account and sales management,
channels or contact points, customer services as well as supporting other related issues
(Padilla-Meléndez and Garrido-Moreno 2014). Therefore, it will help the organization to
have a transparent understanding of the customers, important stakeholders along with the
management’s perspectives in context of how the organization is going to deliver customer
oriented business.
5.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of alternative solutions and decision-making
process of selecting appropriate solution
The main goal of a CRM system software is to create and maintain efficient customer
relationship in context of the organization. However, a data warehouse can be considered as
the alternative solution for this organization. Being an integrated, subject-oriented, time-
variant as well as volatile system data warehousing (DWH) can collect many advantages to
the company as well as its customers while implemented for a particular business purposes
(Vaisman and Zimányi 2014). Most common application of DWH provides successful results
and enhances the overall operation of the organization. Discussing about the number of
advantages, the DWH system can deliver improved business intelligence and makes sure the
consistency and quality of the data. By tracking the historically intelligent data and
information, it simplifies the business operations and saves the money as well as time of the
company (Berrahou et al. 2015). Integrating the business intelligence system with DWH, a
firm can also gather higher revenue and ROI.

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However, organizations like Amazon, which deals with higher amount of complicated
data every day, implementation of a DWH may need extra effort and time to load the data.
The homogenization and inflexibility f data can further slower down the data speed or even
loss of data. In addition to that, sometimes the internal sources continuously fuel the DWH
and bundles many issues, which might be undetected for a long period of time. Considering
an example, when the customer data is entered, some of the value field also accept null values
that may give incomplete customer data (Abai, Yahaya and Deraman 2013). Hence, selection
of CRM system will turned out to be effective for the organization and can deliver higher
profit to the organization.
5.2 System Analysis and System Design
5.2.1 Collection of business requirements
Being a cross-functional system in nature, CRM looks forward to collecting the new
and existing customer data that include the personal detains of every customers such as
address, email id, phone number, purchase history and many such. These data can help
Amazon to serve the customer in a better way and strengthen their relationship. CRM
systems collects many strategic advantages for the businesses (Wang, Cavusoglu and Deng
2016). One major use of this system is to collect the capability of adding personal touch to
the already existing relationships with the customers. By creating and maintaining particular
repository on every customer’s profile, the business can deal with every customer personally.
Moreover, by understanding the customers, their needs and expectation in a better manner,
the business can gather higher customer loyalty.
The main deliverables of a CRM is customer feedback and data that are essential for
making different market and production strategies (Jorgensen 2013). Collection of

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information such as, purchasing history, search history, lifestyle preference and many other
data are necessary for this system. The functional requirement of this system needs a desktop
and a cloud computing platform that will be shared across over the organization for achieving
collaboration and efficient service (Jamali et al. 2013). Operating system, Wi-Fi and different
hardware and software are some other functional requirements that are necessary for efficient
performance of this system.
5.2.2 Creating process diagram
Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools such as, requirement analysis,
structure analysis and document production tools can be used for improving the functionality
of CRM. In addition, a process model diagram will be drawn for incorporating with the
automated system analysis.
5.2.3 Designing of proposed system
In order to design this system efficiently, Amazon can use a Graphical User Interface
(GUI) screen design. It will make intuitive computer operations and provides immediate
visual feedback. It will provide several menus and submenus for easy use of the CRM
system.
5.3 Development, testing and implementation
Before developing a CRM system, there exist some crucial steps that the organization
need to focus. Mainly the organization need to clear about the purpose of developing a CRM
system. Depending on different business need the goal of development of the system can vary
(Steel, Dubelaar and Ewing 2013). Between the existing CRM types that is analytics,
collaborative and operational, it is necessary to select the best system that fits into the goals
of it (Noor 2013). After development, it is necessary to check the effectiveness and
functionality of the developed system. Hence, in order to test this four steps can be

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considered: 1) Checking the quality of data and conversion, 2). Checking the functionality, 3)
checking the integration and reporting, 4) checking on the user acceptance testing (Venturini
and Benito 2015). Testing of the system will avoid the inefficient functionality of the system
while being used. Other than testing the software, proper and regular training will be
provided to the members employed in the customer relationship department so that proper
use and expected outcome from the system can be collected (Peng 2014). The training will
focus on proper use and methods of encountering any functionality of the system.
Implementation of the CRM software needs both the management and the teams to be
prepared for its adoption. However, the initial component of implementation of the CRM
software is making an implementation plan (Magdic Car and Car 2013). This plan will
conduct for analysing the necessary data backup prior to the launch. Making different hard
copies and cloud copies, related to all customizations, software specifications as well as the
necessary data is essential. Moreover, it is essential that the security and privacy concerns
related to this software is cleared and the customer data will remain confidential.
5.4 Post implementation activities
A post implementation plan will also be made to ensure that the system is functioning
as per the expectation. How the customer relationship of the organization is getting managed,
what are the changes that the organization is facing after its implementation, whether the
organization is going to achieve its strategic and financial goals or not, how the existing
customer are getting managed and in what rate the company is collecting new customers are
going to be the vital consideration of the post implementation plan or activities (Leland,
Salter and FivePaths 2013).

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5.5 Project management, change management and risk management
Implementation of this selected software will follow an agile project management
approach. Senior managers and board of directors of this company will be considered as the
important sponsors of this project. In addition, the project will follow all the necessary steps
of a project management life cycle and will ensure that at the end of the project, suitable
outcome can be gathered (Pinto 2013). Not limiting the project plan up to the closer phase,
rather an additional stage of post implementation activities will be included. This will give an
overview of how the project is going to pit impact on the organization and checking of
whether the implementation goals are achieved or not.
In order to collect most satisfactory outcome from this software, the employees of the
organization, especially the employees associated with the customer relationship department
will be trained. Motivating and encouraging the employees will be another important activity
under the change management process. Necessary communication strategies will be adopted
by the organization so that successful flow of information can happen.
In order to conduct risk management of the project, a risk register will be created. The
risk register will gather information like identification, brief description of the risk, the level
in which it is going to put impact on the project, total frequency of its occurrence, responsible
individuals for managing the risk, migration plan and budget allocated. After creation of a
risk register, nest is to analysing as well as evaluating the risk (its likelihood and level of
impact). Identification of the risk trigger is performed next followed by a brainstorming
activity for finding out different ideas (Hopkin 2018). After completion of these steps,
suitable plan is created and the risk are reviewed and monitored according to the plan.

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6 Conclusion
Therefore, concluding the above discussion it can be said that CRM is an essential
software solution for improving and maintaining effective customer relationship. Amazon has
registered itself as a well-known and reputed e-commerce organization in the market. Due to
the business nature, the organization has to deal with a vast amount of customer every day.
Therefore, implementation of a CRM software will help the organization to focus on
maintaining its business goals and customer relationship. This report has analysed the internal
and external environment of Amazon. The problems and opportunities related to the selected
software has also discussed here. In addition, a SDLC model is selected for implementation
of the CRM in the organization. Concepts related to the development, testing and
implementation of this software solution along with some post implementation activities are
also discussed.

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