Zappos.com Assessment & Analysis

CEO of this endeavor will be Tony Hsieh. This project shall focus on the projects and plans that are or should be under way for the company that Tony Hsieh leads, that being Zappos. Zappos is an online shoe retailer that used to operate as its own company. They have since been acquired by Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos but Hsieh is still the man running things.

• Summarize the team charter here to emphasize your: • The main objectives of this project will be to improve the company culture of Zappos, ensure that there is proper strategic alignment with parent Amazon.com and ensure that the business model in question is proper given the retail and other facets of the American market as well as any markets that Zappos sells and ships to. • The ground rules for the team shall be fairly simple.

There will be a project leader that makes any final decisions if there is an impasse. However, the other people in the group (including the leader) will act as equals with everyone having a say. Everyone will be respectful, not interrupt others as they are talking and so forth. • In terms of the leadership and personnel in the team, there will be the project leader. There will also be perspectives from each group member including those about information technology, company culture, emotional intelligence and supply chain mechanics and efficiency.

The different prisms and perspectives to be contributed will be delegated to the team members in a roughly equal fashion so that no one person is shouldering too much of the work. • At a high level, the charter of this group is to take a third party and outside view of the inner workings of Zappos and how they do things.

Items that are of concern, that are under-defined and that are not being done to the level needed will all be identified and addressed • All findings will be backed up by scholarly and impartial research rather than relying on rosy assumptions or outcomes from Zappos and their public relations people. In other words, the lay of the land as it truly is and what the firm should do differently will all be focused upon. The final presentation of this report can be in printed report and/or Powerpoint form.

Section Two • The amount of work that shall be necessary for this project is not inordinate or prohibitive. It is just that the data will need to be selected and analyzed carefully for its scholarly value, what can and should be included in the final analysis and what conclusions could or should be drawn from the same. • The timeline for this project will be about a couple of weeks. There will be three main phases and those are data collection, data selection and report/presentation preparation.

Some definite things that will be included are LEAD management concepts and vLeader scores. Evaluations of each person's own work as well as a constructive review of what others have done will all be done before the final details and report is decided upon.

Section Three • The CEO of Zappos, up to and including Hsieh, will include the following: • Marketing Efficacy • Supply Chain Infrastructure Quality and Efficiency • Public Presence and Image • Company Culture • Employee Morale/Attitude • Sources of information that can or will be accessed for this project include: • Reputable internet sites. (e.g.

government, newspaper sites, cable news networks, etc.) • Peer-reviewed journals (from EBSCO, Gale, JSTOR, etc.) • Other academic journals • Approach to this report and presentation will include: • Focus on facts -- not hype or PR spin • More focus on recent news and updates • Strong focus on victories and failures and what was learned from either • Section Four Collect information to report on in individual team member reports • Outcomes inspected will be that Zappos/Amazon have mostly done a good job • There will surely be instances where things did not progress as expected • There will also surely be proof of what Zappos did in response • There should be input from Hsieh and other leadership about how adjustments were come to and made Section Five This project should build leadership and teamwork skills in the following ways: • People must actively participate since the leadership structure is flat • People must actively participate because everyone will have deliverables that the group members will be held accountable for • The vLeader Simulator is expected to provide insight both during and after the fact as lessons learned in the simulator can and will be applicable to what happens during this project.

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