Introduction
American Express Company (AmEX) is an American multinational company that offers financial services. The company headquarters are located at the Three World Financial Center in New York. The company was founded in 1850 with the company’s logo being adopted in 1958 and it has an image of a roman gladiator.
The logo is engraved on the company’s traveler’s cheques and charge cards. AmEx forms part of the Dow Jones industrial average that is made up of 30 components.
It is renowned for its credit card, charge card, and travelers cheque businesses (Grossman, 1987). The cards offered by the company make up about 24% of the dollar transactions conducted via credit cards in the United States.
The company has a rich history that has made it to be ranked as the 22nd most valuable brand in the world. The brand has an estimated worth of approximately US $14.97 billion (Grossman, 1987).
The company was founded as an express mail firm in Buffalo, New York as it was a merger between Henry Wells and William Fargo. The two owned Wells & Company and Livingston, Fargo and Company respectively. Another party was John Warren Butterfield who previously owned Butterfield and Company.
According to Grossman (1987), the first headquarter of the company was located in a building at the intersection of Jay Street and Hudson Street. Due to less competition, the company established itself as a monopoly in the market of express shipments.
At that time, the company traded in goods, securities and currency in New York only. AmEx moved its headquarters in 1874 to 65 Broadway that was considered as a New York’s financial hub. The move was also facilitated by increase in operations that brought more funds to the company (Grossman, 1987).
According to Grossman (1987), the company experienced tremendous growth in 1890 and 1891, which forced the company to construct a ten-storey building at the side of the previous headquarters near Hudson River.
The company continued to grow and in the year 1903, it had managed to consolidate assets of approximately $ 28 million. This was one position behind the National City Bank of New York i.e. in financial services providers (Grossman, 1987).
AmEx purchased Broadway buildings to acknowledge the new status. The proposed building of a new headquarters’ building followed this but the plan was shelved for some time.
Products and Customers
American Express is renowned for its three main cards named; Green, Gold and Platinum charge cards. Other types also exist in other countries.
Co-branded cards are also available which serve airlines, hotels and normal retailers. For the airlines, the cards include; Aerolineas Argentinas, Air Canada, British Airways, Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic (Grossman).
In the hotel industry, the clients include; Hilton hotels, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts. They are also applied to hotels worldwide. The other clients include Costco, Bloomingdales, and Lowe’s, among others. The company also has a product for young people referred to as Blue and Bluebird in conjunction with Wal-Mart.
Employees
American Express has over 2000 as per the year 2010. The turnover rate was approximated at 7%, which is a low average. Approximately 9% of part time employers and 16% of full time employees are said to have been there for over 20 years. This led to the company being ranked as one of the best places to work at by the CNN.
Data Management
Human Relations
Any data that is held in the human relations database is private data that should be treated under Data Protection Act (1998) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996). The two Acts protect the privacy of people from the age of 12 to 18 years.
Parents working for the company may give out their children’s information to the human relations for purposes of insurance. The information should therefore not be accessed by anyone outside the system except as required by the law (Williams 2007).
The data kept in the system may include; the staffs marital status, number of children, health status of the staff and children, previous working records and current working terms.
Stakeholders Access
Unauthorized access to such data should be prohibited and adequate measures should be taken including use of strong passwords. However, some stakeholders may have unauthorized access to the information such as the company executives, managers and the staff to access their own profiles remotely via log in windows.
However, they should not reveal the data to any other party not authorized to access the information.
Logistics and Customer Relationship Enterprise System
Data contained in the logistics system and customer relationship system is critical.
Such data may include; state of running balances in the case of suppliers and debtors, location of the customers or suppliers, services delivered to the customers with the amounts paid, services or cards delivered by suppliers and the amounts paid, and complaints arising from all parties.
The provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) should regulate the financial information. That means that financial information contained in the databases of the two departments should be accurate and should be updated regularly to reflect the current financial position (Rezaee, 2012).
Stakeholders Access
The Act also allows access of the data by external auditors in addition to the legitimate persons with access. The auditor should have access to the data every time he is conducting an audit.
The people with access to such data include; the company executives, management, and the suppliers and debtors should also be allowed to access individual information remotely through log in windows.
Financial Enterprise System
The financial department is the stronghold of any business. For a large company such as American Express, the data contained in the database should be strictly regulated and protected (Giachetti, 2007).
The data to be kept include; the current financial status of the company i.e. the position of assets and liabilities, capital balances, daily transactions recorded separately, money held by the companies on behalf of other parties, status of running balances, and other sensitive financial matters.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) should regulate the data contained in this section. The data should always be accurate and the system should allow real time updating of data i.e. if a debtor pays a debt; this transaction affects the value in the debtors account and the overall assets, therefore every figure in the affected columns should change upon payment.
Stakeholders Access
The controls in the system should contain controls that allow access by the auditor as required by the law. The other parties with access include; the company executives, the management and data entry officers. The executives and the management access the information for decision-making and financial planning (Giachetti, 2007).
Operational, Business analytics and Intelligence
At the operational, business analytics and intelligence, the data stored there should also be well guarded due to the sensitivity involved. The controls should comply with provisions of the HIPAA, FERPA and Sarbanes-Oxley.
These departments hold wide range of data from financial to details about customers, employees and suppliers. The data held by these departments is vital for daily operations and also for determining how the company will react to changes in the environment.
Stakeholders Access
The access to the data should be granted to the company executives and the management only. These people will need this information for decision-making. Unauthorized access may expose the company’s vulnerabilities to competitors.
References
Carol, H. & Hannum, W. (1989). Instructional Systems Development in Large Organizations. New Jersey, NJ: Educational Technology Publications Inc.
Giachetti, R. (2007). Design of Enterprise Systems: Theory, Architecture, and Methods. New York, NY: CRC Press.
Grossman, P. (1987). American Express: The People Who Built the Great Financial Empire. Washington DC: Beard Books.
Rezaee, Z. (2012). Corporate Governance Post Sarbanes-Oxley: Regulations, Requirements and Integrated Process. New Jersey, NJ: Wiley & Sons.
Williams, C. (2007). FERPA, GLBA & HIPAA: The Alphabet Soup of Privacy. New York, NY: National Association of College and University Attorneys.