Management Information Systems at Wal-mart Essay

Management Information Systems at Wal-mart - Essay Example The intention of this study is Wal-mart as the largest retail company in the world that has been on the top of Fortune’s 500 list for several years. It is also the largest employer in the world. Wal-mart deals in general merchandise as well as specialized product lines such as pharmacy, tire and lube express and photo processing. Wal-mart sells high quality branded products to its customers at the lowest prices. Wal-mart achieves this seemingly contradictory combination right using advanced management information systems. In addition, it makes special long term contracts with big suppliers and removes middlemen. The basic idea behind Wal-mart’s business is discount merchandising that is keeping margins low by selling at a large discount but improving the top-line by selling a very large volume of products. In realizing Wal-mart’s corporate strategies in practice, management information systems have played the most significant role. Wal-mart’s supply chain is considered the best in the world due to a very efficient use of information technology. This is the company’s core competency. Wal-mart has been a pioneer of many supply chain management practices based on advanced information systems. The use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is the biggest and most recent of these. The following sections discuss the use of management information systems used by Wal-mart and the strategic advantages derived by the company as a result of them. 3. Wal-mart’s Inventory Management System Wal-mart uses an inventory management system called Retail Link. This system allows the suppliers to have a look at the number of products of each type at the shelves in each retail store of Wal-mart at any given time. In addition, the system gives information about the sales rate for any period say an hour, a day, a week or a year. The suppliers also get real time information about the time of the day their products sell, the accompanying produ cts which it sells and other details. All this information helps the supplier companies in efficient inventory management. In many cases, Wal-mart leaves the stock decisions entirely to the supplier companies. This saves considerable costs in administration. The inventory risks such as stock-outs are hence transferred to the suppliers. This leads to a significant cost reduction (PriceWaterHouseCoopers, 2010). 4. Channel Partnership with big companies through information systems Wal-mart has forged several strategic partnerships with major supplier companies. These partnerships have been facilitated by modern information systems and flawless execution. A prominent case study is the strategic partnership between Wal-mart and Procter & Gamble. Both the companies are major players in their sectors. They have developed a common supply chain information sharing channel to better co-ordinate the supply chain activities. What began as a data sharing activity slowly permeated through strateg ic, operational and tactical levels in the two organizations. For achieving their objectives, Wal-mart and P&G together came up with a data highway that allowed the companies to share information on sales at all stores, types and time of sale, shelf information and so on. This drove down costs of both companies and increase customer satisfaction. The conceptual diagram for the data highway is shown in Figure 1.4.1. Figure 1.4.1: Channel Partnership Data Highway between Wal-mart and P&G Source: Grean, Michael; Shaw, Michael J. Supply Chain Integration through Information Sharing: Channel partnership between Wal-mart and Procter & Gamble In this approach, Wal-mart used scanners inside its retail stores to study their own business. The observations were critically analyzed. P&G used consumer buying patterns and compared it with the customer information available from market research or other activities. All the information collected and analyzed by the two companies was collected. This led to

Concept of McLuhan's definition of Hot media Assignment

Concept of McLuhan's definition of Hot media - Assignment Example McLuhan’s various comparative arguments over the importance of the medium rather than the content of the medium, quoting examples from various facets of life are analysed to prove that hot media has the power to change the past traditions and bring a revolutionary change in society. The article finally reaches on the conclusion that views of McLuhan on the concept of hot and cool mediums are still relevant and are respected widely in the present time of high definition digital technologies. Introduction of Concept Before considering and arguing in favour or against the concept of McLuhan’s definition of hot media, it is more relevant to know what a concept means. â€Å"Concepts are centres of vibrations, each in itself and everyone in relation to all others,† (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994:23). Concepts have got transformed in the wake of vast coverage of distinctly different theoretical writings on the digital age. It has proved one fact that concepts are elastic i nstruments that emerge from the solutions of the current problems. It is more applicable in the current context of huge changes occurring in social and cultural settings (Flew, 2007). Conceptual work can primarily be divided into three categories, as based on its usage. The first is related to such concepts that are universal in appeal although it is not a stable definition, as concepts go on changing; it is the tendency to mutate over time and between various cultural contexts, taking meanings far distanced from those earlier conveyed. As Bruno Latour (2000)) talks of 'recalcitrant objects' concepts can also be recalcitrant: such concepts can be considered but it is an arduous task to review and analyse them. Concepts attract arguments both in favour and against them, turning them to various meanings, which makes it all the more difficult to bind them in a single clear-cut definition (Flew, 2007). Gane (2003)) and Haraway (1997)) have quoted Georg Lukacs and the Frankfurt School in the context of commoditisation of knowledge, which is irrespective of whether it is scientific or creative innovation. Another form, named intellectual property has further plastered this process. The purpose of such concepts, according to Donna Haraway (2004: 335)) is to be used as 'thinking technologies' to state and measure some of the major social and cultural changes of the times. Arguments in Favour of the Definition of Hot Media The concept of ‘hot media’ presented by McLuhan, related to the concept of information, is very complicated. Theorists also hesitate to describe its meaning. Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, who have written on the concept of information, have defined information as an empirical measure rather than a physical trait. This approach has impacted media theorists like Marshall McLuhan and at the same time has also been criticised by feminist writers, such as Donna Haraway and Katherine N. Hayles, who find fault in taking out information from the medium or physical body in which it is flashing. This criticism reinforces a physical theory of information, which is tested by thinking of information as a part of a vast, structural network of informatics. Dona Harraway has also followed this route to observe a link between the physical and the semiotic via the research of entities that have both the physical characters and presence of new governance on intellectual property such as the Flavr Savr tomato (Flew, 2007). McLuhan initiates discussion by