Introduction
Amazon’s latest IT/ IS strategy is a massive expansion of its e-commerce platform and the creation of a new website to further encourage online shopping. Over the last couple of decades, Amazon has made a great effort to reinvent the very notion of a marketplace for consumer goods. In 2016, the company made a decision to rebrand the reputation of its platform as a place where one could make purchases at a lower price and include clothing apparel from world-famous brands.
The key stakeholders in that innovative process were Amazon’s CEO and the CEOs of respective companies that commenced to market their goods on the platform in question. As for other roles and positions, the success of that business decision depends heavily on specialists in the fields of data science, cybersecurity, and marketing.
Main body
For Amazon, collaborating with clothing brands is an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage over traditional retailers. So far, the statistics showed that Amazon’s sales exceeded that of Macy’s – the largest retailer to date in the United States. While Amazon’s sales numbers saw a tangible increase of 25%, Macy’s sales plummeted by 37% in 2016 (WSJ, 2016). As for clothing brands, the collaboration with Amazon posed certain disadvantages which were, however, outweighed by advantages and potential gains in the long perspective.
Some clothing brands might have been reluctant to cooperate with Amazon since such a business decision could be not quite congruent with the image of exclusivity and luxury that they might want to uphold. However, the collaboration is likely to expand the said clothing brands’ customer base and reach out to younger, technology-savvy clients.
Clothing brands’ collaboration with Amazon will give rise to a necessity to make changes to the governance and management systems of the platform. E-commerce management usually entails stock management, product management, order management, and shipping (Patil, 2017). Thus, it is safe to assume that respective clothing brands will need to access information about sales, shipping, and returns. At that, it is not only essential to make transaction data available to third parties but also ensure the privacy of all personally identifiable information.
Admittedly, the expansion of the platform will require increased risk management and new solutions regarding cybersecurity of the website. Since Amazon is a large company, it is likely to have already taken numerous measures to protect itself from cyber attacks by using SSL (Secure Socket Layout) and allowing third-party providers to handle customers’ credentials.
Conclusion
A cybersecurity expert’s recommendations would primarily relate to having a shared vision and standards with all collaborators. For instance, Amazon would have to make sure that each brand that markets their goods through the platform complies with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Further, Amazon could promote a mutual effort in upholding cybersecurity by educating customers. In the shopping process, the platform could give short notifications about scammers that could try to contact customers via email.
Alongside notifications, Amazon could make sure that users choose appropriate passwords and are aware of the correct way of transferring personal data and financial information. Lastly, each company that entered the collaboration could benefit from hiring coaches for comprehensive staff training. During training sessions, staff would learn how to spot leakages and other employees’ suspicious activities. All the recommendations enlisted would apply if I were to develop my own IT strategic management plan. However, a system governance strategy would heavily depend on the size of a business for which I would be working, for as it is seen from the analysis, the presence of collaborators makes a company take different measures.
References
Patil, P. (2017). Study on e-commerce security issues and solutions. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, 6(1), 100-102.
WSJ. (2016). Amazon’s strategy for fashion expansion. Web.