Information systems (IS) and organization influence one another. One of the main priority of an organization is to implement strategic IS that will ensure their products and services more effective and efficient so as to maximize profits (Bose, 2012). Levi Strauss as fashion retail the pivotal competitive advantage is the speed to market, as the result of short fashion cycle and icons are less predictable. Consequently, to improve the whole value chain, the use of technology to coordinate and share information among all members across the value chain become a crucial problem to address (Choi et al., 2006). Furthermore, Li and Zhao (2006) confirm that the enterprise resource planning (ERP) is specifically necessary in the fashion …show more content…
Rainbird (2004) states that the value chain encompasses a broader perspective and embraces all business processes from the supplier to the customers, which includes supplier relationship management, supply chain management and demand chain management. Furthermore, Bose (2012) states that SAP supports an organization’s value chain, which is the key to establishing and certainly continue an effective and sound value chain for every company, especially for the manufacturing firms.
3. Case study and analysis
Levi Strauss & Co. (LSCO) is one of the leading branded jeans wear companies in the world, which founded in 1953 by Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss. As of 2014, LSCO has more than 56,000 retail locations worldwide, including 148 company-owned stores and over 1500 franchised stores around the world (LSCO official website). Although the strong brand images and global reputation, the business performance was not satisfactory in the late 1990S. In the light of this, LSCO has decided to build new strategies by re-organization of their information systems to regain lost market share.
3.1 Using information systems to increase company’s operational performance and competitive …show more content…
Firstly, innovative applications, using information technology to create database ensure accessible to its customers over the Internet. Secondly, change business processes, including better control over remote Levi’s stores or offices by providing timely information and speedy communication tools to managers. Last but not the least, IT provides competitive intelligence by collecting and analyzing information about products, markets, competitors and environmental changes.
3.2 Using Information Systems to add value within the organizations value chain
In order to reduce costs and prioritize work and resource use, meanwhile, improve business efficiencies and to streamline the decision-making processes, LSCO decided to introduce SAP’s order-to-cash (OTC) module as the new value chain (LSCO Annual Report 2004). From the Figure 1, we can see the company's overall value chain, which introducing a new SAP system to the existing value chain.
Figure 1 Overview of value chain involved in SAP's OTC module source: International Journal of Production