Imagine being an advisor to Hank Harris. What would you suggest should be Seller’s Lab competitive strategy going forward?

1. What is the Amazon ecosystem structure? What are the different actor types involved in the Amazon.com ecosystem? What is the role of Seller Labs within the Ecosystem?

2. How would you assess the performance of Seller Labs since 2015? How do you judge the firm’s performance in terms of revenue, MRR, market share?

3. Do you believe Seller Labs currently has a competitive advantage in the market? How does the X-Chart acquisition change Seller Lab’s competitive position?

5. Focusing on the sellers, assess the benefit and challenges of competing in the Amazon marketplace. Should sellers expand beyond the Amazon marketplace?

General

For the case assignment, you will investigate the firm’s problem(s) as they relate to Information Systems and prepare a written paper for the case. The individual case must be completed by each student and submitted for grade by the due date listed in the course schedule.

The case analysis and discussion need to address the main issues in the case related to information systems. Assume you are a consulting group and are giving advice to the CIO and other senior IS managers and they are the audience for your analysis report. Read the rubric carefully and make sure you understand the requirements for “exemplary performance”.

Sections:

Executive summary – a couple of short paragraphs which summarize the remainder of the report and anticipate the answer to the question “What would you suggest should be Seller’s Lab competitive strategy going forward?”
Background – use this section to lead into your Problem Statement; identify symptoms, critical factors and the current state
Problem Statement – a succinct statement of the problem/dilemma/issue, preferably in a single declarative sentence; be careful to identify the real problem and not the symptoms of the problem
Analysis – apply models, course content, and outside research to support your position; logically discuss options, implications and tradeoffs
Recommendations and Conclusions – these should be your recommendations regarding how the organization should deal with the problem; they should be fully supported by the Analysis section
Appendices – References and Charts – does not count towards the 5 pages

PART 2

Did Facebook act in an unethical way? If you think it did, why were its actions unethical and what should it have done differently? If you think Facebook did not act in an unethical way, please explain why not.

PART 3