HMV group is a multinational entertainment retailing company which operates in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada and Singapore. HMV is part of the HMV group plc which also operates the Fopp music and entertainment chain. The company supports the music entertainment life of every individual who is interested in music or videos. The company achieves this by supplying plethora of products such as the Blue DVDs, blue-ray discs, books, games and many others to their beloved customers via stores or on-line services. The company is able to do all these at because of the availability of the Sybase IQ that enables the company to achieve system greater efficiency and higher per-customer sales revenue.
The company offers miscellaneous range of services, products and experiences which gives it an edge over its competitors. The company has about two hundred and eighty stores around Ireland and U.K. this companies presents a range of customer products and services such as Gamerbase pay-to-play online gaming in over 50 HMV stores, live music and entertainment through the sale of event tickets via hmvtickets online and in-store among others. A glance at the HMV UK and Ireland entertainment market shows that the market performed badly with volumes declines in music and digital downloads. The games market also declined by 24%.
The main competitors of HMV companies in U.K and Ireland include group plc, Amazon, Smartphone, YouTube, online piracy and the iTunes. The company is also utilising the use of technology in its effort to promote its products. For instance, the cheetah Mail a technology developed by the company to promote its products not only provides the company with reliable and comprehensive technology, but also helps the company to improve the way the company communicate with their clients relates to the original purchase. By using the Cheetah Mail platform, the company benefits from both improved deliverability and the tracking and reporting functions.
Management information system is a system that provides the information necessary to manage the organization effectively. The information generated by the system is considered vital components of prudent and reasonable business decision. The company uses MIS to support the major functions and activities of their business. This entails managing resources such as labour, capital and raw materials. The MIS supports the process of collection, manipulation, storage, distribution and utilization of an organization’s information resources. HMV uses the MIS to drive their clear business strategy. Some of their focused strategy includes drive for cash and to continue to reduce costs across the business, reinvigorate HMV stores with the expansion of their range of portable digital products among others.
For MIS, the HMV uses a system which is provided through SAP Company which is the leading developer of ERP systems. HMV uses Sybase IQ for the following: for data warehousing which houses all data from each stores and the ecommerce sites, the business intelligence (BI) core of its ecommerce product recommendation system and marketing database are used for personalised email campaigns, hence increasing their customer revenue. With the Sybase IQ, the company’s marketing database not only achieves much faster data loading and query speeds, but it also enables the company to increase their customer purchasing ratio up to about 15 times with more optimized campaign mailings hence increasing their per customer sale by about 1.5 to 3 times.
The supply chain management is defined as the management of the network of interconnected businesses that are involved in the final provision of products and services required by the final consumer. This is the process which facilitates the movement of goods from the manufacturer or the producer to the final consumer. The process involves series of stages. Supply chain management is important because it gives company a competitive advantage over its competitors. The HMV has an online platform and the internet website that facilitates online sales. In addition, the company offer online music and entertainment through the sale of events tickets via hmvtickets online. It also operates pay-to-play gaming base store for online gaming. The company also has strategic partnership with several vendors including orange mobile. As one of the biggest chain retailer, the company has to ensure that its supply chain objectives are achieved through collaboration of various departments. For instance, the product department ensures efficiency in the distribution of goods from the company to the final consumers.
The HMV also commissions the “logistics business” for their supply chain strategy management. The company have set up national distribution centre which allows suppliers to make bulk deliveries to a single point, and by carrying out price labelling and security more efficiently. For logistics solutions and managements, HMV uses the iFlow database model to help visualise scenarios and guide decision making.
The purehmv card was offering an incentive for customers to gain exclusive ‘money-can’t buy rewards. However, to further win customer loyalty, HMV ditched the purehmv for a digital platform designed to better integrate loyalty with online and offline retail, social media and content-offering more personalised engagement with the customers. The HMV plans to launch free Wi-Fi at its 270 high street shops so that when shoppers enter an HMV store, then they get an automatic welcome message inviting them to join the scheme.
HMV uses cash registers in their stores. However, to help with the flow of the customers, the company have incorporated other payment systems within their store. For instance, cashmaster international. This is a method of counting cash and other payment media in each of the HMV’s 225 stores across the UK and Ireland.
In e-commerce and on the web, HMV was keen to repeat its success online, and more specifically via the mobile. In order to take advantage of the e-commerce, HMV worked with Mo-Bank and the world pay on a new mobile platform.
HMV went into administration because the company was facing a miserable future. This was evidenced by the disappointing sales before Christmas. The fear was further triggered by the sudden 25% off sale in stores and online and its inability to compete with companies like the Amazon. Things that could have been done to stop it from referencing Information Technology include re-branding the products, carrying out vigorous marketing research, and innovation among others.
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