Management Information Systems and Creating a Successful Company

Lowe’s is a home improvement warehouse that was founded in 1946 as a single store and since has grown to become the second largest in the world. As technology has evolved, Lowe’s has made many advances incorporating new systems and devices to stay competitive. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the information technology management systems used at Lowe’s. It will look at Porter’s Five Force Model, supply chain management; data base management system, five agent-based technologies, e-commerce and system development lifecycle. Furthermore, it will look at business continuity planning, emerging trends and security vulnerabilities relates to the organization to remain competitive.

Competitive advantage exists when a firm has strategy, product or an attribute that makes the firm capable of delivering similar benefit to that of competitors at a cheaper cost. Having competitive advantage is not enough the company should be capable of sustaining that particular competitive advantage for a longer period of time.

see if you can identify additional capabilities and core competencies. Do you think the core competencies mentioned in the case and/or the ones you found are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and nonsubstitutable and as such, are also competitive advantages? Why or why not?

A Competitive Advantage is a peculiarity for an organization between it's competitors . It's achieved either by lowering prices or by greatening the value of the product or by offering luxury service and benefits to cope with high prices .

1. What is competitive advantage, and how does it relate to a company’s business model?

Competitive advantage(CA) is an advantage competitors gain by providing or offering customers or consumers greater value for their money through product and service differentiation or through lower prices. Maintaining competitive advantage is crucial to many businesses or organizations' success in order to survive in the market. Competitive advantage is characterized by superior performance which could be an attribute to outperform the competitors whether current or potential; or gaining a higher market share in a particular industry thereby ensuring market leadership; or ultimately, maximization of profit.(JOBBER 2010)

The organisation I chose for this assignment is called J Sainsbury plc. J Sainsbury plc is one of the world's leading retailers, playing a part in the lives of 15 million customers a week. John James and Mary established Sainsbury Supermarkets in 1869. Sainsbury's Supermarkets employs over 138,000 people. Of these 70 per cent are part time and 30 per cent are full time. 58 percent of colleagues are women. A large Sainsbury's Supermarket offers over 23,000 products - 40% of these are Sainsbury's own brand. Sainsbury's serve nearly 10 million customers at 432 stores throughout the UK each week. Of these stores, 17 are in Scotland, nine in Wales and seven in Northern Ireland. Nearly 60 percent of

This strategy emphasizes the use of an organization’s resources and capabilities to achieve a core competence that cannot be imitated by competitors. Furthermore, the resource based school argues that if an organization distinctively improves its internal capability; that is being able to have effective inside machinery to deliver products and services to customers, the organization will enjoy a massive advantage in the market. This school also argues that in order to have a competitive advantage, an organization must have resource and capabilities that are sophisticated to those of competitors (QuickMBA,

To remain competitive a company must consider who their biggest competitors are while considering its own size and position in the industry. The company should develop a strategic advantage over their competitors’

A different perspective of approaching competitive advantage is its relationship with different business models, the degree of innovation and the information systems present. A competitive advantage is imminent if the current strategy of a company is value adding and is not now being implemented by its would-be competitors. The sustainability of a competitive advantage is rather difficult and although a competitive advantage can be sustained it has been recorded that this is not always the case. A fellow competing company can equally penetrate the market and invalidate the initial’s firm competitive advantage. In this instance, we do see that sustainability in the context of sustainable competitive advantage is not reliant on the time. A competitive advantage in this instance is only sustainable when the efforts by fellow competitors to vanquish the company's competitive advantage have ceased. When

Competitive advantage is explained by Mahoney and Pandian (1992) as the function of industry analysis, organizational governance and the firm’s effects in the form of resource advantages and strategies. In order for a firm to be competitive it must adapt to the volatile business environment and through strategic management decisions establish a competitive advantage that will ultimately produce superior performance relative to its competitors (Akimova 2000).

A good business strategy would be that to attain a competitive advantage over other competitors. So what is a competitive advantage? And how company can be able to have a competitive advantage over other competitors? This essay would now discuss what a competitive advantage is and how a company can build a competitive advantage over other competitors in the same industry by using two furnishing stores, Ikea and Courts as examples.

What is a competitive advantage for the company? How can the management use it? Make SWOT analysis for the company.

Organizational health means profit; therefore, to gain profits organizations must secure and grow their competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the means of strategically differentiating products and/or services an organization from its competitors, such as branding, customer base, product quality, reputation, leadership, organizational culture, innovation, intellectual property, patents, leadership, and customer or governmental relationships, to reduce and/or eliminate threats, such as substitution, buyer power, or new entry, and increase seller power (Ployhart, 2012; Ramesar, Koortzen, & Oosthuizen, 2009; Singh, 2009; Srivatvaa & Martinette, 2013). Consequently, rather it is innovation, product quality, leadership, relationships, or patents organizations cannot ignore the fact that human capital as the primary resource needed to sustain and grow their competitive advantage power (Ployhart, 2012; Ramesar, Koortzen, & Oosthuizen, 2009; Singh, 2009; Srivatvaa & Martinette, 2013).

Consumers have many choices when deciding where to purchase their goods. While retailer managers are deciding how to win the consumer’s business and increase revenue, they are also constantly trying to figure out ways to reduce costs. Technology helps retail managers improve areas of inventory and supply chain management as well as customer satisfaction and loss prevention (Green, 2002). This paper explains how technology