Innovative Use of Ict in Businesses: Amazon.Com

Innovative use of ICT in businesses: Amazon.com

Introduction

Nowadays Delivering fast, effective and high quality services relies heavily on access to accurate and comprehensive information on customers' needs and behaviors as well as an automated way of doing things. The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to record, store, process and access information within business firm offers vast opportunities to increase quality of service and efficiency.

Online retailer systems has increasingly become common place in retailing as retailers and consumers realize the full potential of ICT as providing rapid and comprehensive access to online catalogs of many items ease of use and an uninterrupted service. This case study reports on the innovative use of Emerging ICT technologies in the area of retailing by an ecommerce company known to as Amazon to become a world leader retailer business in just about 15 years. It also discusses how the ICT skills learned in its past experience is used to build yet another dimension of business like the Amazon cloud.

The company

Amazon is a US-based multinational electronic commerce company. It incorporated in 1994 and often called the world's largest online retailer. It's also currently gaining its ground as a utility computing infrastructure as service provider. Amazon is by far different from conventional and classic retailer companies due to its innovative utilization of ICT. Amazon is a customer-centric company and provides service for three primary customer sets: individual consumers, sellers and enterprises. In addition, the Company generates revenue through other marketing and promotional services.

The Company serves consumers through its retail Websites, and focus on selection, price, and convenience. It designs its Websites to enable products to be sold by it and by third parties across different product categories. It also provides easy-to-use functionality, fulfillment and customer service. It fulfills customer orders in a range of ways, including through the United States and international fulfillment centers and warehouses that it operates, through co-sourced and outsourced arrangements in certain countries or digital delivery.

Innovative ICT in Businesses

One major aspect of strategic business competitiveness and management is the innovative design and utilization of information and communication systems. Proper utilization of such systems relies on the appropriate integration of a company's business objectives and its plan for information systems (Thompson & King, 1997). Having good information systems and operating data is an important part of executing a strategy successfully (Thompson, Gamble, & Strickland, 2006). Porter's value chain model can assist with defining and analyzing areas that are likely to have a strategic impact on competitiveness (Porter,