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Amazon.com
A Strategic Assessment of Amazons' e-Strategies
Amazon's remarkable ascent as one of the top online global retailers can be attributed to the foresight they had in creating a comprehensive distributed order management, Enterprise esource Planning (EP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and e-commerce series of systems. The many other e-commerce sites that rose quickly with massive infusions of venture capital just as quick exited the market, flaming out due to a lack of system and process scalability, lack of understanding of customer dynamics, and a complete loss of focus on scalable business models. All of these factors are what caused competitors to Amazon to exit the e-commerce market either through acquisition, merger or complete exist from the market.
When starting Amazon, Jeff Bezos invested heavily in the distributed order management, EP, SCM and e-commerce integration points to book distributors initially, and then expanded into a broader product mix. This allowed…
References
Amazon Investor Relations (2012). Investor Relations. Retrieved June 28, 2012, from Amazon Investor Relations and Filings with the SEC Web site: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?p=irol-irhome&c=97664
AlSagheer, A. (2011). Six sigma for sustainability in multinational organizations. Journal of Business Case Studies, 7(3), 7-15.
Birkinshaw, J. And Sheehan, T., 2002. Managing the knowledge life cycle. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 43(3):75-83
Amazon's cloud computing (AWS, EC2) solutions; paper analyze competitive position Amazon's cloud computing solutions industry recommend strategies strengthen firm's competitive position international context.
Amazon's cloud computing (AWS, EC2) solutions
Cloud computing services which are accessed directly over the internet are gaining popularity in this technology age. Industry experts have referred to it as a game changer and it has been shown to give companies competitive advantage through giving them a unique selling point as well as other macroeconomic advantages such as changes in outputs and inputs which increase the profitability of the company. Cloud computing has many advantages above the traditional computing models. Cloud computing helps to create a dynamic world characterized by fast changes in the business world through agile business environments and globalization.
Amazon Web Services is a strong player in the cloud computing industry with 80 to 90% of the market share and the company deploys about…
References
Adams, D.A., Nelson, R.R., & Todd, P.A. (1992). Perceived Usefulness, Ease of Use, and Usage of Information Technology: A Replication. MIS Quarterly, 16(2), 227-247.
Bianco, J.S. (2009). Social Networking and Cloud Computing: Precarious Affordances for the "Prosumer." Women's Studies Quarterly, 37(1/2), 303-312.
Business Wire. (2011). Future of Cloud Computing Survey Reveals New Drivers for Cloud Adoption Retrieved November 7th, 2012, from http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110622006602/en/Future-Cloud-Computing-Survey-Reveals-Drivers-Cloud
Dunning, T.H., Harrison, R.J., Feller, D., & Xantheas, S.S. (2002). Promise and Challenge of High-Performance Computing, with Examples from Molecular Modelling. Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 360(1795), 1079-1105.
Amazon.com founded by the legendary Jeff Bezos was one of the pioneers of e-commerce phenomenon when it launched the world's biggest online book store. Thereafter it went on to upscale its business to offer music, software, office products, electronics, health products and much more. Although Jeff Bezos did not have enough experience about the dynamics of the retailing business, the exponential growth of the Internet made him envision a huge growth opportunity waiting to be tapped. He opted to start the company from Seattle as it was a repository of a huge talent pool and also nearer to one of the largest book wholesalers operating from osenberg, Oregon. From very humble beginning within the confines of a garage, to becoming the largest virtual bookstore, Amazon.com has seen it all. (Kotelnikov, 2011)
(1) (i) Identification and evaluation of Amazon's Strategic position in the context of its internal and external environment:
Strategy…
Rivalry: Amazon faces competition from small regional stores as also large national chains like Wal-Mart which is its most formidable challenger. Internet being an enabler, Amazon is fully dependent on consumer's ability to access the Internet. Presently, 56% of U.S. households are online implying that Amazon can be accessed by a sizeable population. However the explosive growth witnessed in the 1990s will be far from present and growth will largely be incremental. In Amazon's case, persistent profits appears negligible given the low barriers to entry, moderate bargaining power of buyers, high threat of substitutes and high rivalry. But Amazon's strong brand name and its predominant Internet retailing presence will ensure that it will corner any profit that the industry will earn. A graphic showing Porter's Five Forces is shown in Exhibit-I. (McAfee, 2003)
Product and Technology Life Cycle: Amazon apart from running the world's largest virtual bookstore and allied products has immersed itself in the product life-cycle chain through its launch of the Kindle e-book Reader in 2007- a year later than Sony. Sony being the pioneer launched the product at a price point of $349 but later slashed it to $299. Amazon's Kindle launched in Nov'2007 was priced at $399 which is higher than Sony. It is interesting to note that although Sony's product was priced cheaper and it had the First Mover Advantage -- FMA, it was Amazon's Kindle that became the preferred purchase and caught buyer community's fancy in the U.S. Hence being cheap did not become the route to wining market share for Sony, but presenting a superior value offering by Amazon was. Although both Amazon and Sony relied upon e-ink Corp technology, Amazon quickly offered a differentiated product to be ahead of the technology curve by launching 3G downloads of books. (Tim, 2010)
Amazon went on to offer Kindle DX at the global level with more feature rich capabilities including increased storage. Sony users still had to download their books through their PCs. The year 2010 changed the dynamics when Barnes and Noble launched 'Nook' followed by Apple's revolutionary iPad. Nook was priced cheaper at $149, but iPad's price range from $499 to $829 surpassed everybody with more features, unique User Interface and added benefits than the competition had to offer. Although prices on entry-level products tend to ease with the evolution of new product categories, newer player do not have to compete at entry
Amazon
Facts Recap
The rivalry between Amazon and Barnes & Noble has taken another turn. Barnes & Noble announced that it would not sell books from Amazon's print publisher in its stores. Amazon has taken away significant business from brick-and-mortar book stores, something that Barnes & Noble has countered with a number of different approaches. The move into print publishing for Amazon represents that company's continued vertical integration efforts, which includes digital publishing and the Kindle. Amazon's move into the offline sphere represents a shift in the dynamics of the bookselling industry. Amazon has dominated, causing problems for bricks and mortar retailers. However, some like Barnes and Noble and a number of independent book stores are continuing to survive and even thrive in this competitive environment.
Assessment
It was a good idea for Amazon to extend into print publishing. The business is not dead, and Amazon still sells a lot…
Works Cited:
Haq, H. (2012). Barnes & Noble refuses to sell Amazon-published books. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 3, 2012 from http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0201/Barnes-Noble-refuses-to-sell-Amazon-published-books
Turner, K. (2012). Independent retailers turn page on business. Toledo Blade. Retrieved December 3, 2012 from http://www.toledoblade.com/Retail/2012/02/05/Independent-retailers-turn-page-on-business.html
AMAZON VS. EBAY
eBay vs. Amazon
Both Amazon and eBay have carved out significant niches in the online retailing world but they have done it strikingly different ways. However, despite these differences they are very similar in many ways including the legal, political and other struggles they face. This report will cover all of those in fairly deep detail. Topics to be covered will include a profile for each, stock performance in the recent past as well as with the initial public offering, three news events that the companies are facing, an overall financial analysis of each company, the accuracy/reliability of the data and lastly a recommendation of which company is in a more solid position financially and is best built for future performance (Yahoo Finance, 2012).
Company Profiles
Amazon and eBay are certainly both in the online-only retail sector, but they approach the sector through very different business models.…
References
Connecticut joins calls for Amazon to pay sales tax. (2011). International Tax Review,
22(9), 29.
Diekmann, F., Roe, B.E., & Batte, M.T. (2008). Tractors on eBay: Differences between
Internet and In-Person Auctions. American Journal Of Agricultural Economics,
Amazon
Situation Overview
Distribution channels can often create interesting situations when there are vertical or horizontal consolidations. Amazon has recently integrates backwards with the intent of attracting suppliers and the expectation of utilizing other outlets for full distribution of its products. The company can now publish an author's book and push it through traditional distribution channels that are not under Amazon's control. For example, if Amazon publishes a book for a client, it can then push this through the distribution channels of its competitors, such as independent bookstores. This significantly expands Amazon's control over the industry and it already has incredible power as the industry leader.
However, such a move to vertically expand backwards has not come without controversy and resistance. Barnes and Noble, the largest traditional bookstore chain, which also has a significant online business, has decided not to stock Amazon's products in the hope of discouraging authors from…
Amazon v. Borders
Borders Group filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2011 (ahba, 2011) and began liquidating its assets in July of the same year (Khouri, 2011). The company was founded in 1971 and operated an expanding network of stores until 1992 when the group was bought by Kmart and later merged with aldenbooks. The combined entity was spun off with an IPO in 1995. Flush with capital, by 1997 the company announced an ambitious plan to grow the chain rapidly. In launched its online site in 1998, three years after Amazon entered the business. In 1999, the company made an ill-advised purchase of a toy retailer that hurt its liquidity and was forced to seek options to recapitalize. It signed a deal with Amazon to run the Borders e-commerce site. The company continued to have problems in the late 2000s, including another liquidity crisis, job reductions and it finally…
Works Cited:
Funding Universe. (no date). Amazon.com, Inc. FundingUniverse.com. Retrieved October 21, 2011 from http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Amazoncom-Inc.-Company-History.html
Hitt, M.; Keats, B. & DeMarie, S. (1998). Navigating in the new competitive landscape: Building strategic flexibility and competitive advantage in the 21st century. Academy of Management Executive. Vol. 12 (4) 22-42.
Khouri, A. (2011). Borders bookstores to liquidate. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 21, 2011 from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/22/business/la-fi-0722-borders-closing-20110722
Wahba, P. (2011). Timeline: A short history of Borders Group bookstores. Reuters. Retrieved October 21, 2011 from http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-borders-timeline-idUSTRE71F3AT20110216
mazon's eBusiness Model
ssessing the Potential of mazon.com's E-Business Model
mazon.com continues to expand well beyond the boundaries of its initial business model that focused only on books to today including merchandise, suppliers for businesses, and consumables. The common thread that unifies all of these elements together however is the unique customer experience that mazon.com strives to deliver, all in the context of responsive service (Pine, Gilmore, 2008, et.al.). For mazon.com to successfully expand into entirely new markets it must stay focused on and continually committed to its customer-driven innovation, which over time has become part of its brand (Crosby, Masland, 2009, et.al.). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate whether or not mazon lost part of its identity by expanding into markets beyond books, and recommend how mazon can continue to protect its brand as well. Recommendations for Barnes & Nobile and Borders are also included based on…
Amazon has mastered electronically enabling their supply chain to a level no other online retailer can match today, traversing supply chain optimization to reverse logistics electronically better than many distribution companies (Logistics Today, 2004). The cost efficiencies they have attained through process automation are formidable and make up a large part of their brand when considered at the user experience level (Hausman, Siekpe, 2009, 5). It would be a fatal mistake to move into a distribution model comparable to Dell, as Amazon has defined the underlying technologies, processes, systems and performance that paradoxically have helped Dell grow and survive as a company over time. Amazon needs to continually be concentrating on its core strengths of scalability, website and web application performance and pursue the next major goal of being the dominant Cloud computing platform the Internet, which is heavily discussed in their annual report and SEC filings (DataMonitor, 2010, pp, 7, 23, 24, 25).
Conclusion
The indication of any e-commerce company moving beyond their product focus to embrace platform initiatives is one that also signals a dominance in their chosen markets. Amazon.com has
Amazon as an Innovator and a Competitor
E-Commerce is today considered a necessary element of a firm's business strategy. In many ways, the model for its importance may be attributed to the enormous success and sustainability of Amazon.com. It was with the pouplar inception of what first began as an online bookstore that retailers of all forms began to understand the true capacity of the internet to reach wide purchasing audiences, to display and market items without the use of physical space and a wide spectrum of additional benefits to be explored more thoroughly in this text. In the ensuing years, and particularly since the transition into the 21st century, all manner of consumer item from butter knives to airplane tickets could be purchased with a credit card and a few mouse clicks, owing largely to the model established and refined by Amazon.
Still, it has been incumbent upon Amazon…
Works Cited:
Amazon Strategies (AS). (2011). Amazon Earnings and LivingSocial. Channel Advisor.
Huang, G.T. (2010). How Amazon Innovates: Lessons in Strategy for Microsoft and Others. Xconomy.
Johnson, M.W. (2010). Amazon's Smart Innovation Strategy. Bloomberg Businessweek.
THE SITUATION
Amazon has quickly grown from an online retailer to a global platform for e-commerce, e-commerce hosting, cloud computing, logistics and 3rd party e-commerce services, in addition to its core business of online retailing. The multi-faceted success of Amazon can be traced to Jeff Bezo's prescient insight into the future of e-commerce to the foundational level. Mr. Bezos defined three criterion for choosing the location of Amazon's corporate headquarters. These included having the necessary programming talent to develop software, closeness to a major book wholesaler, and a state with little or no sales tax. He found all three in abundance in the Seattle, Washington area and launched his company there. These three factors also gave Amazon the ability to accomplish another key objective Jeff Bezos, had and that was to get big fast, at all costs. He believed that scale would prove to be a significant differentiator over time,…
Within four years it is anticipated at Amazon.com will, by capitalizing on their extensive it infrastructure, be able to manage the development of entirely new DRM approaches to profitably selling many forms of digital content from their many sites. Finally, with the extensive it infrastructure the company has today, the natural extension of their business model is into the area of Web Services. This projection of the Amazon.com business model is entirely consistent with the theories of how knowledge can change an organizations' structure as defined by Grant (1996, pgs. 110-121) in addition the creation of competitive advantage through the use of better system and information integration (De Wit & Meyer, 2005, pgs,. 120-140). The concept of distributed order management Web Services, in conjunction with their approach to managing and propagating selling sites globally through their Merchant Services that is being tested today will lead Amazon.com to be one of…
Amazon's growth pattern has been simple. The company has grown in two main ways since its inception. The company has added more products to its lineup over the years and it has expanded internationally as well. The company has grown rapidly as the result of these additions to its lineup and organic growth within its core books business. The pros of this approach are that it allows the company to maintain a strict focus on what it does best, to control its costs and it allows Amazon to retain an innovator status. The company also experiences lower costs as the result of having no bricks and mortar presence. The cons of this approach however are that it is entirely dependent on the Internet and this limits its total growth potential.
There is little that Amazon should have done differently. The company started in 1994 and is now the largest online…
Amazon and Border's Books
The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the history and core business of Amazon.com and Border's Books, comparing and contrasting their respective management approaches related to Internet marketing include fulfillment, which each does significantly different from the other. Three factors that contributed to the success of Amazon are provided in addition to three factors that led to Border's eventually going bankrupt despite having a flourishing and profitable retail business. In analyzing each of these businesses, the innate ability of each management team to anticipate and react successfully to changing market conditions is also assessed. Finally, three recommendations are made for how each company could build greater flexibility into its decision making process to stay more agile and able to adapt to changing market conditions.
Comparing the History of Amazon and Borders
Both Amazon and Borders began with the goal of being a global leader in…
References
Scott Cook. (2008, October). THE CONTRIBUTION REVOLUTION: Letting Volunteers Build Your Business. Harvard Business Review, 86(10), 60-66+.
Crosby, L., & Masland, J.. (2009). Customer Experience Innovation. Marketing Management, 18(2), 10.
DATAMONITOR: Amazon.com, Inc. (2010). Amazon.com, Inc. SWOT Analysis, 1-9.
Feigenbaum, J., Parkes, D., & Pennock, D.. (2009). Computational Challenges in E-Commerce. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 52(1), 70.
E-Commerce and the User Experience
Amazon.com was able to scale and grow its e-commerce strategies as a result of the strength of its e-business platform. The use of real-time pricing updates and the targeting of BarnesandNoble.com continue to be one of the key strategies Amazon.com uses, to the benefit of B2C customers (Chevalier, Goolsbee, 2003). As the number of Amazon.com sites has grown, including those in place globally, so has the need for scalability across millions of users. This aspect of e-commerce has benefited the company in its Amazon Web Services Strategy and makes its B2B services more reliable as a result (Feigenbaum, Parkes, Pennock, 2009). E-commerce as the basis of the company's B2C strategy has transcended the website and online stores to now also include distributed order management systems sold to other companies, along with Amazon Web Services and consulting services (Cenfetelli, Benbasat, Al-Natour, 2008). From these examples it's…
References
Ronald T. Cenfetelli, Izak Benbasat, Sameh Al-Natour. (2008). Addressing the What and How of Online Services: Positioning Supporting-Services Functionality and Service Quality for Business-to-Consumer Success. Information Systems Research, 19(2), 161-181,239.
Judith Chevalier, Austan Goolsbee. (2003). Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 1(2), 203.
Joan Feigenbaum, David C. Parkes, David M. Pennock. (2009). Computational Challenges in E-Commerce. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 52(1), 70.
Darren Filson. (2004). The Impact of E-Commerce Strategies on Firm Value: Lessons from Amazon.com and Its Early Competitors. The Journal of Business: Supplement to Volume 77 Issue 2, 77(2), S135-S154.
Amazon Strategic Plan
What began as a web-based retailing book sales site company in 1995 with revenues of $511,000, has grown into "the world's largest online retailer and one of the nation's biggest book sellers (New York imes. May 20, 2011), and is considered "one of the iconic companies of the Internet era" (New York imes. May 20, 2011). he company has blossomed not only because of the vision of founder Jeff Bezos, but a commitment to sound strategic planning which "perfectly aligns the long-term interests of shareholders with the interests of customers" (Amazon.com. Shareholder Letter. 2010).
Amazon.com occupies the number one spot in the internet services and retail industry with revenues of 34.2 billion in 2010 (CNNMoney. 2011). Amazon's main rivals include Google, E-Bay, Yahoo and Microsoft. he company has transformed itself dramatically from its inception as a publically traded company in 1997 with a focus on e-retailing books.…
The exogenous elements which an organization cannot control are the opportunities and threats which comprise their environment. For Amazon the opportunities are boundless in the constant development of the web, applications, and computing dynamics. As Bezos indicates in his letter to shareholders; "we live in an era of extraordinary increases in available bandwidth, disk space, and processing power, all of which will continue to get cheap fast" (Amazon.com. Shareholder Letter. 2010). The threats of course come from industry rivals and the competitive marketplace. Google, Yahoo, IBM and others are constantly innovating and attempting to garner market share in some of Amazon's most profitable areas. That said the focus for Amazon is not based on "who the competitors are, what kind of technologies are available, and so on-those things are going to change so rapidly" (Murphy, S. November 22, 2008). Instead the company confronts threats by identifying their core competencies and effectively harnessing energy to implement them.
Long-Term Objectives
For Amazon the long-term focus is on innovation, adaptability, and driving value to the customer. Bezos has an interesting perspective on this issue, indicating that the company's strategy is based on "things that won't change" (Murphy, S. November 22, 2008). To this end he emphasizes the importance of identifying "what's not going to change in the next five to ten
com. The company could start operating on a slogan such as "there's nothing you can't find here." t can also find new ways that it can turn its commerce from virtual closer to real. This would mean, for example, improving the sampling capacity. At this point, amazom.com provides features such as sample pages from a book or particular tracks from a music CD. This can be expanded on.
A reinforcing loop at amazon.com is, in fact, its capacity to attract new customers. A reinforcing loop will be an action that influences itself so that it will cause growth or decline in the company. n my opinion, Amazon's capacity to attract new customers will bring in additional revenues and the capacity to further develop the business.
One of the main reasons for this relies in the actual growth of the company up to this point. While founded during the crazy dot…
In this sense, the best idea is to continue using tactics that can increase the number of users on the site and potential customers. One of these would be to better systematize the website so that new users will have an easier time moving around and finding the products they might be interested in. A better correlation between the foreign Amazon sites is also advisable: someone using amazon.fr and searching for a product could be transferred to one of the Amazon sites that has it, in case the.fr site does not.
So, as we can see, the idea of amazon.com growth is susteianble, but it depends less on the external environment factors and more on the internal capacity of the organization to innovate and find ways by which to increase its number of customers, as well as current customer retention.
Nielsen, Jakob. July 2005. Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design. On the Internet at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050725.html.Last retrieved on September 15, 2007
Amazon
Amzon.com: An Evaluation
The age of the internet is in full swing. Shopping was once exclusively a retail experience in person, yet with the latest technologies, most people do a majority of their shopping online. Amazon.com is one company which has truly capitalized on this. The company has streamlined its services to be able to provide its clients with basically anything they could want, all in one stop; additionally, it has really invested time and money into an impressive information management system that allows the organization to monitor customer activity to continue t make improvements on its services and products. Overall, this has proven to give the company a clear competitive advantage, and one which fits with the overall mission statement of the company as a whole.
Amazon approached online retail selling in a way unlike any other company. One clear point of differentiation from its competitors is through…
References
Amazon. (2012). Faqs. Amazon.com. Web. http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-faq#14296
Chauhan, Harish. (2011). Your business DNA: Have mission statements become obsolete? Creating. All About Branding. Web. http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso?article=316
Jones, Steven. (2012). The business value o information systems: A study of Amazon. ArticlesBase. Web. http://www.articlesbase.com/organizational-articles/the-business-value-of-information-systems-a-study-of-amazon-5626584.html
Amazon.com has become embroiled in a controversy regarding pricing on indle books. The issue arose when several book publishers faced a class action lawsuit from the Attorney General about price-fixing on ebooks. Price fixing is considered to be anti-competitive activity that undermines the power of free markets. Thus, it has been illegal as part of the mandate the U.S. government has to promote free competition, for nearly 100 years. The publishers, however, have essentially placed the blame on Amazon. The company is now working with the publishers to deliver refunds to consumers, who were judged to have overpaid for their indle books.
Lynn (2012) notes that Amazon has a dominant position in the ebook market, in part because of the success of its indle e-reader, but also because it has become the dominant bookseller in general in the United States. Amazon is using its bargaining power as the dominant retailer…
Kendrick, J. (2013). Amazon notifying Kindle book purchasers of upcoming refunds from class action suit. ZD Net. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-notifying-kindle-book-purchasers-of-upcoming-refunds-from-class-action-suit-7000020142/
Lynn, B. (2012). The real bad guy in the e-book price fixing case. Future Tense. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/04/e_book_price_fixing_amazon_is_the_real_bad_guy_.html
MacWorld. (2013). Ka-Ching! Amazon explains benefits from e-book price-fixing settlement. Macworld. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.macworld.com/article/2048003/ka-ching-apple-ebook-ruling-could-turn-into-real-money-for-millions-of-amazon-customers.html
This increase in reporting efficiency has led to more e-book publishers signing into the program (Isckia, 2009).
Supply Chain and Process Map
The following is a representation of the Amazon.com eDocs supply chain process map.
Amazon.com has over the last several years seen their eDocs business grow faster than their book business (Penenberg, 2009) and as a result have focused on streamlining the entire supply chain electronically, which is a core strength of this company. Figure 1 provides an overview of how Amazon.com has organized their IT systems to support and streamline their supply chain performance.
Figure 1:
How Amazon.com supports the eDocs Supply Chain Electronically
Sources:
(Penenberg, 2009) & IBM Global Services (www.ibm.com)
Conclusion
Initially having faced challenges over accurate reporting of sales and also keeping publishers interested in the program when payments were at times late (Penenberg, 2009), Amazon.com has been able to transform their eDocs program into…
References
Peter Beisser. (2007, February). Ready to Print. Book Business, 10(1), 10-11.
De Young, N.. (2009). How Digital Content Resellers are Impacting Trade Book Publishing. Publishing Research Quarterly, 25(3), 139
Isckia, T.. (2009). Amazon's Evolving Ecosystem: A Cyber-bookstore and Application Service Provider. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 26(4), 332-343.
Penenberg, A.. (2009, July). The Evolution of Amazon. Fast Company,(137), 66-72,74.
Third, the company's management faced challenges in changing the internal culture of Amazon.com away from market share gains to profitability gains, and this would require intensive changes in the structure, processes, roles and responsibilities, and systems of the company.
Opportunities
There are many opportunities for Amazon.com however to continue growing during this phase of their history. First, the commercializing of their technologies through Amazon Web Services, One Click Ordering and other technological innovations have proven to be effective in generating a higher level of customer loyalty than had been possible when the online store was undifferentiated from competitors (Gupta, Lehmann, Stuart, 2004). Second the consistency and predictability of their execution due to systems integration and fulfillment processes working is generating a higher degree of trust in the company. Third, partnerships are providing incremental revenue and illustrate an emerging strength of the company for being able to scale globally. Fourth, there…
References
Sunil Gupta, Donald R. Lehmann, Jennifer Ames Stuart. (2004). Valuing Customers. JMR, Journal of Marketing Research, 41(1), 7-18. Retrieved December 1, 2008, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 536757571).
This theory is well applicable nowadays, when the actions of a company are generally conditioned by the market environment itself.
The Weisbord Six-Box model has similar limitations as some of the previous models in that it aims to be exhaustive in identifying input elements and categories that would reflect organizational life. Additionally, his focus is again on internal issues of the company, which makes the model incomplete.
The Nadler - Tushman model for organization analysis is definitely more complete in including, within the same model, both inputs and outputs, as well as throughputs. However, it is quite complex and would be sensibly costly to implement in an organization, where all the specific variables that need to be included in the model would have to be monitored and taken into consideration. Further more, some of these variables may be irrelevant in the case of particular companies.
The McKinsey 7S framework is…
Amazon represents one of the modern success stories that is similar to other stories such as Microsoft and Apple in many ways. For example, the company originally started in a garage with a limited budget. The company's founder, Jeff Bezos, focused more on the potential for new distribution channels to be built rather than any specific product. Books were only one of the products on a long list of products that were identified as having potential in the distribution network that he had in mind. However, after much deliberation Bezos decided that books were the ideal product to start with. After the first month of the sites launch, the company was selling to all fifty states and over forty countries. This format had many advantages over a traditional brick and mortar store such as the ability to have a virtually endless inventory without actually having to stock the products. For…
References
Amazon Web Services. (2012). Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Retrieved from Amazon Web Services: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
Amazon Web Services. (2012). Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Retrieved from Amazon Web Services: http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
Brender, N., & Markov, I. (2013). Risk perception and risk management in cloud computing: Results from a case study of Swiss companies. Journal of Information Management, 726-733.
Hartung, A. (2015, July 25). Bigger Is Not Always Better - Why Amazon Is Worth More Than Walmart. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2015/07/25/bigger-is-not-always-better-why-amazon-is-worth-more-than-walmart/
There are two types of violations of the Sherman Act, the per se violations and the rule of reason violations. A per se violation is one that meets Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Section 1 holds that there was a combination or conspiracy and that this combination or conspiracy had a detrimental impact on interstate commerce (ABA, 2017). There is basically zero chance that Amazon is violating the Sherman Act in a per se manner. First, there has been no combination nor any conspiracy, and furthermore there does not appear to be any damage to interstate commerce. Indeed, the plaintiff literally is still selling its fishing equipment, just doing so through Amazon. Changing channels for retail of a good is not a violation of the Sherman Act, nor is outperforming a competitor operationally. A per se violation actually has nothing to do with the outcomes; the act itself is…
References
ABA (2017). Antitrust Sherman Act. American Bar Association. Retrieved December 4, 2017 from https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/antitrust_law/at325050_tft_lcd_11th_circuit_sherman_1_conspiracy_to_fix_prices.authcheckdam.pdf
Cornell (2017) Antitrust. Legal Information Institute. Retrieved December 4, 2017 from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/antitrust
Introduction
When the Internet was first established, few had the foresight of Jeff Bezos to envision a world where all shopping would be done online. Bezos started Amazon in the 1990s to sell books online. Soon he began expanding the company’s vision until it became the monster of e-commerce that it is today. However, in order for Amazon to work it has to have a very good global logistics operation in place. This paper will discuss how Amazon manages its global logistics, business and trade operations to maintain its competitive advantage over its conventional rivals. The report will also include a discussion of whether Amazon can continue to leverage or expand on its current business strategy. The findings will expose pitfalls and trade-offs that Amazon will need to consider going forward.
Background
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, who initially wanted the site to focus on selling goods…
References
Brown, J. R., & Day, R. L. (1981). Measures of manifest conflict in distribution channels. Journal of Marketing Research, 263-274.
Lebeda, F. J., Zalatoris, J. J., & Scheerer, J. B. (2018). Government Cloud Computing Policies: Potential Opportunities for Advancing Military Biomedical Research. Military medicine.
Meier, J. (2013) Interview with Mr. Jens Meier. Shippers’ Journal Nov. 14 2016. BVL. Retrieved from http://www.bvl.de/files/429/883/Shippers_Journal_Interview_Interview_with_Mr._Jens_Meier.pdf
Zur, I. (2018). Make no mistake: Amazon is going to take on delivery behemoths FedEx and UPS. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@itamarzur/make-no-mistake-amazon-is-going-to-take-on-delivery-behemoths-fedex-and-ups-d047cf6b6b0c
Amazon is a company that takes its social responsibility to stakeholders seriously. As it is a company that operates all over the world, it recognizes that it has a truly global role to play in making the world a better place. That is why it focuses on sustainability as one of its core corporate social responsibility (CSR) objectives (Amazon Sustainability, 2019). Its other CSR programs include working with Feeding America, Worldreader’s LEAP 2.0 program to promote education among underserved populations, and “Girls Who Code,” to help promote gender equality in the IT industry. Underlying these CSR programs is a Code of Ethics that seeks to promote compliance with all local, state and federal laws and to foster a strong ethical spirit among its workers.
The Code of Ethics for Amazon first focuses on compliance with all external lows of the city, state and federal government. Secondly, it focuses on removing…
Uncovering Jeff Bezos Leadership Style
Transformational Leader
Jeff Bezos is a charismatic and powerful CEO who has a committed relationship with his followers. A transformational leader has the ability to transform others by using his words. Transformational leaders are able to create big shifts in their followers thinking and this results in big shifts in their behaviors, which motivates the followers to achieve extraordinary results. This is quite true for Jeff Bezos by the fact that he has managed to motivate his employees and this has resulted in the success of Amazon from an online bookseller to what it is today. Jeff was able to link the company's long-term goal to the values that employees have and this arouses their interest and commitment for acting on the vision (Hambrick & Crossland, 2017). Amazon has grown tremendously under the leadership of Bezos because he was able to envision, innovate, and inspire…
Reference
Dong, Y., Bartol, K. M., Zhang, Z. X., & Li, C. (2017). Enhancing employee creativity via individual skill development and team knowledge sharing: Influences of dual?focused transformational leadership. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(3), 439-458.
Hambrick, D. C., & Crossland, C. (2017). A Strategy for Behavioral Strategy: Appraisal of Small, Midsize, and Large Tent Conceptions of This Embryonic Community.
Raymond, A. K. (July 13, 2018). Amazon’s Share of U.S. E-Commerce Market Approaches 50 Percent. Daily Intelligencer. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/amazon-share-of-u-s-e-commerce-market-approaches-50-percent.html
Rhetorical Analysis Essay
The argument of the three op-eds is that e-commerce has changed the way we live and shop. However, not all the articles agree on the effect of e-commerce. They range in terms of how retail has changed and what’s on the horizon. Amy Koss writing for the LA Times likens Amazon.com to Satan. The Editorial Board of the New York Times takes a more measured approach but still puts forward a doom-and-gloom perspective. Daniel Freedman of the Wall Street Journal is the only one of the three to recognize that Amazon has not killed off the human desire for contact and sociality and that retail is not dead but only changing the way it thinks of itself and the manner in which it caters to consumers: retail is no longer just about offering a product but rather about offering an experience—something that cannot be purchased online. This…
Works Cited
Editorial Board, “As Retail Goes, So Goes the Nation.” New York Times, 21 Apr 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/opinion/as-retail-goes-so-goes-the-nation.html?mcubz=3
Freedman, Daniel. “Bricks, Mortar—and Experiences.” Wall Street Journal, 20 Aug
2017. https://www.wsj.com/articles/bricks-mortarand-experiences-1503258657
Koss, Amy. “Amazon.com is a 21st century deal with the devil.” LA Times, 5 Jun 2017.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-koss-the-devil-as-amazon-20170604-story.html
AWS in South Korea
I. Introduction
A. Statement of Purpose
The purpose of this document is to deconstruct the viability of deploying cloud computing within the healthcare industry. Specifically, the author is seeking to examine the utility of a cloud paradigm for rendering e-medicine services overseas. Adoption rates for cloud computing have significantly increased in the past several years (Harper, 2017). However, there are a number of factors affecting those rates of adoption in the healthcare industry. As such, this paper will examine the most relevant of those factors within a proposed use case in South Korea.
Description of the company and its industry
The company considered within this paper is a hospital in South Korea. In this regard it is a typical care facility for the health care vertical. The health care industry as a whole has had to make a number of advances in its Information Technology infrastructure…
References
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. (2017). Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. www.acorn.org. Retrieved from http://www.acorn.org/hipaa/
Harper, J. (2017). The increasing influence of cloud computing. www.analyticsweek.com Retrieved from https://analyticsweek.com/content/increasing-influence-cloud-computing/
Harper, J. (2017). 2014 trends in cloud computing. www.dataversity.net Retrieved from http://www.dataversity.net/2014-trends-cloud-computing/
Abstract
Amazon operates in 58 countries, and while its international operations tend to be offsetting in terms of costs and revenues, there still foreign currency profits that end up being translated back to Amazon’s financial statements. This creates translational risk for the company. The operating offsets mean that Amazon doesn’t need to utilize hedging strategies, but tactics like offsetting costs and revenues, and diversification of international operations, help Amazon reduce the translational risk that it faces. This paper will examine what foreign currency exchange rate risks Amazon faces, and what tactics it undertakes to mitigate these risks on its income statement and balance sheet.
Introduction
Amazon has online retail operations in 58 countries around the world, and these are typically priced in local currency. This has implications for the company’s strategies with respect to foreign exchange risk, and foreign exchange cash flows. The use of local pricing is aided, however,…
Amazon is described as “an e-commerce and cloud computing company, offering the internet’s largest retail platform,” situating the industry giant between multiple product categories (Interbrand, 2017).
Example Market
The example market chosen for Amazon is China, one of the main areas of potential failure for the company. Cultural factors that impact marketing include language, the ways consumers interact with digital sites/graphical user interface, the types of products being offered, and content.
Message Strategies
The message strategies Amazon uses in the home country are completely different from what is used in China due to differences in socio-linguistics and semantics. Visuals are also radically different, and some Korean online firms understand Chinese aesthetics better than Amazon (Caixa Liu & Jinhwan Hong, 2016)
Localizing Efforts
Amazon has purchased local companies in China like Joyo, to try and start with the localized platforms. However, the rebrand as Amazon was not as successful as was…
References
Caixia Liu & Jinhwan Hong (2016). Strategies and service innovations of haitao business in the Chinese market: A comparative case study of Amazon.cn vs Gmarket.co.kr. Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 10(1): 101-121.
Clemes, M.D., Gan, C. & Zhang, J. (2014). An empirical analysis of online shopping adoption in Beijing, China. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 21i(3): 364-375.
Dunn, J. (2017). Amazon is still getting dominated in China. Business Insider. 22 Feb, 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-market-share-china-alibaba-jd-chart-2017-2
Interbrand (2017). Amazon. http://interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2017/ranking/amazon/
Introduction
Some of the most successful social media campaigns have been under the radar, like that of Goodwill of the Great Plains (Bitter, n.d.). Others are broader and international in scope, like that of Amazon. A global brand with localized needs, Amazon is an ideal company to analyze because of the success of their national and global campaigns. Yet at the same time, Amazon is not known for their social media prowess. Lacking in creativity, the Amazon media campaign reveals several gaps that can be addressed through more thoughtful leverage of the power of social.
Obviously if metrics alone were the measure of a solid social media campaign, Amazon would have no problems at all. On Facebook, total fans of the Amazon page have increased exponentially (“A deep dive into the social mediahabits and performance of Amazon,” n.d.). The same is true for Twitter, albeit with far more moderate growth…
References
“A deep dive into the social mediahabits and performance of Amazon,” (n.d.). https://unmetric.com/brands/amazon
Bitter, M. (n.d.). Goodwill of the great plains.
Hitz, L. (2017). How to fill the gaps in your 2017 social marketing plan. Simply Measured. https://simplymeasured.com/blog/how-to-fill-the-gaps-in-your-2017-social-marketing-plan/#sm.00000w8hs7br3xeimuxp608amfrv4
Scott, J. (2017). Social Network Analysis. London: Sage.
Serrat, O. (2017). Social network analysis. Knowledge Solutions. 39-43.
The other benefit is being able to search and find out-of-print and used books at either new or used prices from a number of different vendors. It was an easy e-bay. One of the drawbacks from Amazon, which is indicative of many e-commerce, is not having a telephone number to call for customer service. The number is so buried, that the buyer can be old and gray before finding it or not find it at all. This leaves having to ask questions in e-mail about service, which can be frustrating and maddening.
Amazon also made new Web users familiar with such features as searching, credit card online buying, confirmation e-mails, and log-in screens and passwords. What seems so trivial now was so new and exciting barely a decade ago. Other e-commerce sites use different techniques, including audio and video, animation, less cluttered pages, etc., but for Amazon, their original approach…
Supply chain management isn't just a fact of life at Amazon. Corporate executives realize that supply chain management is in fact crucial to the success of Amazon now and in the future (Wheatley, 2000). Within five years of opening its doors to the public Amazon succeeded in enticing more than 20 million customers, located in more than 150 countries around the world (Wheatley, 2000).
Interestingly despite its economic gains Amazon has also realized multiple losses. These losses have resulted in stock price declines during the early quarters of 2000 (Wheatley, 2000). Why the change? Costs in an e-commerce business are often fixed. Amazon, because it is a Web-based business generally must deal with many high fixed costs. Fortunately the best way to overcome this obstacle is by selling as much as possible, or by increasing volume (Wheatley, 2000). Amazon has done this successfully, expanding its product base to include almost…
References
Amazon.com. (2005). "Investor Relations." 28, Sept 2005:
http://www.amazon.com
Christopher, M. (1998). Logistics and supply chain management. New York: Prentice Hall.
Levy, D.L. (1995). "International sourcing and supply chain stability." The Journal of International Business Studies, 26(2): 343.
Amazon
How is data different from information? How is information different from knowledge? How knowledge is different from experience? hat are examples of each?
Data can be thought of in different ways but one explanation is that computers dwell in data, a building block for storage and retrieval. In this analogy, information would be the aspect that is able to give data the meaning and context needed, at which point, the human process of using data and information to build knowledge which can eventually lead to the broader concept of wisdom, which represents creating principles, or patterns, from knowledge (Doyle, 2014)
The Company chosen is Amazon for the following questions.
Using a company of your choosing as an example, detail the components of their value chain? hich components comprise the primary activities? hich components comprise the support activities? hat is the extended value chain?
Amazon has grown to an online…
Works Cited
Doyle, M. (2014, August 6). What is the Difference Between Data and Information? Retrieved from B2C: http://www.business2community.com/strategy/difference-data-information-0967136
Mellen, C., Allen, B., & Prokopets, L. (2010). Putting S&OP on the fast track. Supply Chain Management Review, 40-45.
O'Marah, K. (2012, December 23). Amazon beats Apple in battle for supply chain leadership. Retrieved from Supply Chain Management Review: http://www.scmr.com/article/amazon_beats_apple_in_battle_for_supply_chain_leadership/
Amazon.com:
Since its inception as a small online bookseller, Amazon.com has grown significantly to become a giant superstore firm. The growth of the firm has been fueled by various factors including its strong brand, exceptional customer value, unique shopping experience, huge volume of sales, and through realization of economies of scale. However, Amazon's growth has also been coupled by some losses as the firm has become exposed to greater competition and threats. In this growth process, Amazon.com has expanded its current business from selling books to include a broad range of products like music CDs, DVDs, video games, electronics, computer software, apparel, furniture, and even food items. In addition to its domestic market share in the United States, Amazon established four other distinct online stores that allowed the firm to ship some selected products globally.
Industry Analysis:
The book-selling industry consists of the traditional book selling, mail-order retailing, and online…
References:
"Analyzing Amazon.com: Macro Environment and Competitive Forces." (2006, December 18).
Yahoo Voices. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://voices.yahoo.com/article/101561/analysing-amazoncom-macro-environment-competitive-138171.html?cat=31
Anli. (2007). Book Retailing: The Case of Amazon.com. Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://gxuesm.gxu.edu.cn/html/07shuangyu/anli/anli007.doc
Knight, B. (2008, March 25). Case Study: A Strategic Analysis of Amazon.com in 1997.
Amazon and eBay. Both companies were among the first movers into the Internet. Amazon opened the doors to its online store in July, 1995 and completed its initial public offering in 1997. eBay was also founded in 1995 and went public in 1998. These two companies have always been among the leaders in e-commerce. Amazon began with a focus on books and music. It soon expanded its product lines significantly to become a general merchandiser. Amazon is also an intermediary for third party vendors. eBay has always played the intermediary role. Unlike Amazon, where goods are offered for sale, eBay has used an auction platform in order to move its goods, taking a fee on the sale. Both companies remain as industry leaders. Amazon has withstood challenges from leading bricks and mortar retailers to remain as the number one vendor on the Internet (Internet Retailer, 2012). eBay has struggled to…
Works Cited:
Amazon.com website, various pages. Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-faq#6986
Asay, M. (2012). PayPal is bleeding market share and it's all eBay's fault. The Register Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/18/ebay_paypal/
Bosman, J. (2012). The bookstore's last stand. New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/barnes-noble-taking-on-amazon-in-the-fight-of-its-life.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
eBay website, various pages. Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://www.ebayinc.com/history
New-found competitiveness for Small- to Medium-Sized Companies
The outlook for smaller companies is much stronger today than it was at Amazon's founding. That's because several of the advantages enjoyed at the time by Amazon have been commoditized or made easier and less expensive to implement.
As the number of users has climbed since 1995, smaller businesses can now take a market-maturing step and segment their customers in an ever-finer fashion (Rangan 1992). While no one can compete with Amazon on sheer number of SKU's, specialist suppliers can seek customers "at the fringe," and develop expertise in esoteric areas in which Amazon or other mass-market retailers cannot offer the same focus or expertise.
The ability to go after smaller niche markets has been augmented by recent changes in the Web -- both in terms of finding customers and completing transactions. This is the so-called "long tail," which means that, while most…
Comparing Amazon and eBay is really like comparing apples and oranges. The two, while appearing to be the same on the surface, are really nothing alike once the superficial labels are peeled off. eBay began as a C2C ecommerce site -- consumers selling to consumers. That gradually morphed into B2C as businesses (from big time car lots to small business owners) saw the advantage of posting items on eBay in order to boost sales. Amazon may appear to the untrained eye to follow in eBay's footsteps by offering a web-based platform where all sorts of sales strategies can be employed: C2C, B2C, B2B -- and yet Amazon's ability to dominate the online marketplace has not resulted in significant income -- at least not from this particular eBay-like niche. (Minus the platform, the two are not even similar in terms of how products are sold: eBay offers bidding and direct correspondence…
Amazon, and whether the company should approve the project or not. There are a number of different steps leading to this decision, and it is those steps that make up the bulk of this paper. The first step is that the capital structure of the company needs to be determined. This is going to contribute to a weighted average cost of capital calculation later on. There are two different ways of calculating capital structure, the book value method and the market value method. Both are calculated, but eventually it is the book value method that is used.
The next step is to calculate the weighted average cost of capital. In this section, we already have the weights, but we need the cost of debt and the cost of equity. These are both analyzed using market information for debt and equity alike. Three different methods of calculating the cost of equity…
Works Cited:
Investopedia. (2013). Optimal capital structure. Investopedia. Retrieved April 21, 2013
from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/optimal-capital-structure.asp
MSN Moneycentral. (2013). Amazon.com Retrieved April 21, 2013 from http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-balance-sheet/?symbol=us%3AAMZN&stmtView=Ann
No author. (2013). How to determine your WACC. Structuring Finance. Retrieved April 21, 2013 from http://www.structuringfinance.com/capital-structure/how-to-determine-your-wacc
Amazon could follow in order to be socially responsible in marketing its Kindle fire family of tablets. This demand for such social responsibility has been coming for sometime for the secretive Amazon to reveal long-awaited information about its environmental compliance in the case of the new Kindle tablet.
Amazon has long been seemingly more secret than that CIA about facets of the company and the Kindle has been no exception to this rule. equests for this information have been repeatedly denied requests for information about the Kindle. Examples of this included an attempt by Joe Hutsko of the New York Times who tried to learn more Kindle's carbon footprint and reported that "phone calls and e-mail messages to Amazon inquiring about the materials in the popular Kindle device have thus far gone unanswered (Godelnik, 2011)." Also, Emma itch of the Cleantech Group wrote that "Amazon declined to provide information about…
References
Amazon.com. (2011). FAQs. Available: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-.
Godelnik, R. (2011). Why amazon needs to come clean about its carbon footprint. Retrieved from http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/amazon-carbon-footprint/ .
Google, mcdonalds and amazon dodge carbon disclosure. (2009, November 25). Retrieved from http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/369379/google_mcdonalds_and_amazon_dodge_carbon_disclosure.html .
Kaye, L. (2011, July 1). Amazon resists pressure to participate in carbon footprint disclosure project.
There is little information with respect to adherence to copyright protections. Overall, Borders offers the most formal set of information to its customers, which seems to cause them to leave out important ethical and security information that the other sites provide.
Amazon uses a wide range of communication tools. The busy-looking website combines text and ample images. The core of Amazon communication, however, is interaction. Cookies and other tools are used to help target ads based on location and past purchase information. These recommendations are supplemented with an interactive component built around user reviews, resulting in a communications program where information comes from Amazon, third parties and fellow customers. Barnes & Noble's communication style is less friendly, but has some nice touches. One is the "most popular search terms" on the bottom of the home page, where the most popular search terms are largest. The communication style is in general…
Works Cited:
Amazon.com website. Retrieved July 15, 2009 from http://www.amazon.com
Borders website. Retrieved July 15, 2009 from http://www.borders.com
Barnes & Noble website. Retrieved July 15, 2009 from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
Amazon's cash cycle so much shorter than that of competitor Barnes & Noble? How does this comparison affect financial management decisions of other retailers?
There are several reasons which explain why the Amazon Company has a shorter cash cycle than its competitor Barnes & Noble. First and foremost, Amazon is a much bigger company than Barnes & Noble both in terms of income and in the number of products that it sells. hile Barnes & Noble sells some things besides book and ebooks, this is their primary product. Amazon sells everything including books, although this is a very small portion of their income. Another reason for this is that Amazon is doing better financially than Barnes & Noble. The ebook trend has bitten into Barnes & Noble's income, which they tried to combat by creating their own ereader, the Nook but this was far less successful than the Amazon ereader,…
Works Cited
Ross, S., Westerfield, R. & Jordan, B. (2012). Fundamentals of Corporate Finance. 10th ed.
McGraw-Hill.
Amazon
Change is a continuing process that is unavoidable and organizations no longer have an alternative and for that reason they have to change so as to live on and avoid being archaic. Leaders have an important role to play as they have a great say as to the direction in which the organization is heading. Therefore, managers of organizations have to understand how to manage change. All organizations face several different forces for change that are internal, emanating from within the organization and external, which emanate outside the organization. However, such organizational change does face resistance, as majority of members within the organization prefer maintaining status quo. Organizational resistance is delineated as a manifestation of reservation that usually emanates as a reaction to change. Resistance to change has long been acknowledged as a disparagingly significant factor that can impact the achievement of any organizational change determination and endeavor (Toribiotoribio…
history of amazon and a comparison to its major rival eBay.
History of Amazon
tarted by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon is a multinational electronic commerce company that is headquartered In eattle, Washington DC, UA. The company also provides cloud computing servicers and produced the widely popular Amazon Kindle e-book reader and Kindle Fire tablet computer. It has separate retail websites for United tates, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, pain, Japan, and China, and plans to open other sites for further countries that include Poland, Brazil, Netherlands and weden.
Amazon.com was called after the largest river -- the Amazon River and after the Amazon gods for a purpose: it planned to become to the largest online retailer -- and succeeded (Jopson, 2011). Bezos, too, chose a name that would appear as first of the alphabet in order to make it easy to track in a web search (Byers, 2006).…
Sources
Byers, A (2006). Jeff Bezos: the founder of Amazon.com, The Rosen Publishing Group
Jopson, Barney (July 12, 2011). "Amazon urges California referendum on online tax." FT.com. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/61828252-ac1d-11e0-b85c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1RxkefD8m
Time Magazine. (December 27, 1999). "Person of the Year -- Jeffrey P. Bezos." http://web.archive.org/web/20000408032804/http://www.time.com/time/poy/bezos5.html
Spector, R (2002). Amazon.com: Get Big Fast. USA: The Rosen Publishing Group
There are many firms that exist and operate within the capital management realm. Some companies operate and expand via their internal income and operations. There are other firms that are not currently self-solvent. However, the latter is commonly able to expand through capital investment and fundraising. The goal with such firms, of course, is to ramp up business levels, pricing structures and so forth so as to get to a profit at some point, even if it takes a few years. Indeed, many firms start off relying on capital investment and resource allocation at first and then become able to expand organically with no outside support, budgeting or investment. While firms like Amazon are a behemoth right now, there was a time where their operations and capital structures were quite thin internally and thus they needed a lot of investment and support through the capital investment and budgeting process.
Analysis…
Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com are two of the most popular American-based online book vendors. While Amazon.com is by far more entrenched in the international book selling market, within North America, these two huge online retailers offer competitive prices and similar services. A direct comparison of ten best sellers can illustrate how these two major vendors: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon; I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe; The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth; The Broker by John Grisham; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides; Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata; French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano; Blink by Malcolm Gladwell; and God's Politics by Jim Wallace. These books are not based on the New York Times best seller list. Therefore, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com list different titles as being best sellers. The reason for different books selling faster…
Cyber Monday came and went this week in America—and it was the biggest shopping day of the year. More people logged onto their computers to make purchases than went out on Black Friday, the traditional day for shop-til-you-drop purchasing. The torch was passed: online retailer Amazon’s stock soared, as reported by Durden at ZeroHedge, with the report that the online retailer had trounced its bricks and mortar competition. Bricks and mortar store traffic fell by 1% from the previous year. Online purchasing rose by 17% (Durden). If anyone had any doubts about it, bricks and mortar retail is on the ropes and the online giant Amazon is perched to defeat its competition with a stunning KO.
The specific problems plaguing traditional bricks and mortar stores are that it is simply easier for consumers to log on and check out with the click of a button. Amazon Prime has enabled consumers…
External and Internal Environments for Amazon
External and Internal Environments
Two segments of the general environment
Everything being equal, it is the primary objective of any company or business to gain a bigger market share, grow, affect its bottom line, and be successful. In order for the business to accomplish its goals, the business should deal with all its stakeholders who include suppliers, employees, shareholders, customers, competitors, and society. A business will encounter stiff competition in all its market be it locally or internationally for it to achieve its objectives and goals. For a business to gain competitive advantages over its rivals within the industry, it must be able to understand the present and predict future trends. The business should also take into consideration the internal and external environments of the business industry, which will impact the business activities directly and indirectly. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, which is the world's…
References
Chu, C.-P., Guo, W.-C., & Lai, F.-C. (2012). On the competition between an online bookstore and a physical bookstore. NETNOMICS: Economic Research and Electronic Networking, 13(3), 141-154.
Hitt, M., Ireland, R.D., & Hoskisson, R. (2012). Strategic management cases: competitiveness and globalization. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Ritala, P., Golnam, A., & Wegmann, A. (2014). Coopetition-based business models: The case of Amazon. com. Industrial marketing management, 43(2), 236-249.
Rothaermel, F.T. (2013). Strategic Management: Concepts: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
AMZN
Key Partners
Thousands of partners
Work with thousands of direct suppliers
Work with thousands of third party vendors
Key shipping partner -- UPS and USPS
Payment partners -- the credit card companies, banks, PayPal
Has to partner with unions in Germany, much to the company's dismay
Key Activities
Amazon sells goods and sometimes services, mostly to consumers
It also provides a marketplace for third-party sellers
Amazon will offer sponsored search and other advertising products to retailers
All of its business is online
Warehousing and distribution are critical processes for the company
Shipping is done by third parties that pick up at the AMZN warehouse
Value Propositions
Large array of goods for sale adds value -- one-stop shopping
apid delivery
Free shipping if the order is large enough
Prime memberships
Best selection, ease of use are key value propositions
Make shopping easier, solves customer problems
Bundling products creates value for…
Amazon as a Model for a Business Plan
Marketing Plan: Amazon.com
'Obsession' is the term that perhaps best describes Amazon's fervor to serve its shareholders and customers to utmost fulfillment. Growing from a flourishing dot-com enterprise in the 1990s into a 21st century multinational giant, a king in every sense - in the internet retail area, Amazon provides an exemplary marketing model for budding businesses. Its marketing manual is near legendary, pegged on the fundamental 'customers first' foundation, and a bizarre business philosophy to listen to the customer and not only work, but also invent towards their comfort, and on their behalf.
The company was founded under the tagline 'Earth's Biggest Bookstore', but as it turns out, books were only the starting point for Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO. It went online in 1995, a year after its inception, expanding into other media including MP3s, CDs, VHS, and DVDs; and…
Amazon has long had a turnover problem. This is often attributed to the relationship that management has to its employees. Management at Amazon tends to be hard-driving, demanding very high performance standards of its workers. In part, this is because the company wants to compete better. If employees are more efficient, such as in its warehouses, then customers receive their goods faster. That in turn is good for business, but it is not good for employees, and high turnover is a natural result. The company's management practices have been described as "digital Taylorism," based on principles of scientific management where tasks are clearly defined and measured. This leads to jobs, ultimately, that are unsatisfactory (Stefanova, 2015). As a result, Amazon has the second-highest turnover of any Fortune 500 company (Mahapatra, 2013).
In order to address, this problem, Kotter's eight steps can be applied. The eight steps are to create urgency,…
Amazon is the world's largest e-tailer, and a technological leader in the field. This paper will outline the ways in which Amazon has built out its technological leadership, and how its different technology strategies help to support its overall business strategy. Ultimately, Amazon excels on the basis of the strong customer focus in its use of IT, as it recognizes that meeting customer needs is a critical component to growing its business in the long run.
Overview of the Company
Amazon was founded in July 1994 and came online in 1995. The company sold books initially, and its first book was sold in July 1995. This made the company an early adopter in terms of online retailing, and it soon began to leverage that position by plowing back the early revenues into technological innovation. The company responded to the reality of an increasingly competitive market with innovations such as the…
References
Amazon.com (2015). History of innovation. Amazon.com. Retrieved October 5, 2015 from http://www.amazon.jobs/history/2001-2005
Baldacci, K. (2013). 7 customer service lessons from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Salesforce. Retrieved October 5, 2015 from https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/06/jeff-bezos-lessons.html
Bishop, T. (2014). 15,000 robots and counting: Inside Amazon's new fulfillment centers. GeekWire. Retrieved October 5, 2015 from http://www.geekwire.com/2014/video-amazons-robot-future-arrived-new-distribution-centers/
Chen, H., Chiang, R. & Storey, V. (2012). Business intelligence and analytics: From big data to big impact. MIS Quarterly. Vol. 36 (4) 1165-1188.
Amazon
The systems development life cycle is a means by which the life cycle of software can be understood. There are a number of different conceptions of the systems development life cycle, such as the waterfall, the build and fix, rapid prototyping and more. The concept has been around for over a decade, so doubtless Amazon already is quite aware of it, and utilizes it. The benefits of understanding this life cycle include that it allows for more effective project planning -- knowing what will need to be done when, based on life cycle analysis. Systems design can also take into account the expected life cycle of the system in question, while resources can be made available at the right times for things like implementation, integration, testing and installation (Kay, 2002). This is especially the case when there are resource requirements that the firm needs to acquire.
This process would…
References
Heinrich, C. (2005). RFID and beyond: How real world awareness improves the supply chain. SAP. Retrieved June 26, 2015 from http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frederic_Thiesse/publication/36382783_RFID_and_beyond/links/00463525cee5168239000000.pdf
Kay, R. (2002). System development life cycle. Computerworld. Retrieved June 26, 2015 from http://www.computerworld.com/article/2576450/app-development/app-development-system-development-life-cycle.html
Amazon (2015). AWS cloud security. Amazon.com. Retrieved June 26, 2015 from http://aws.amazon.com/security/
Botha, J. & Solms, R. (2004). A cyclic approach to business continuity planning. Retrieved June 26, 2015 from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.108.5058&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Amazon.com
Identification/Description -- Amazon.com, as of 2009, was the world's largest book retailer in the world. However, the company is far more than a bookstore in 2012 -- it is a retail giant, handling almost $50 billion in multinational electronic commerce, making it the world's largest online retailer. The company was created in 1994 as a bookstore, but soon diversified so that today it sells music, books, software, apparel, furniture, food, toys, electronics, and its own proprietary reading and tablet device, the Amazon Kindle (Investor Information, 2012). Amazon transformed itself from a specialty retailer into an online shopping portal, taking a cue from auctioneer eBay, which set itself up as a mediator between buyer and seller. Amazon's marketing strategy has been to provide a sophisticated website that cross-promotes products; materials at a significantly lower price, and an ability for the consumer to personalize their "store," receive updates about products they…
Works Cited
Investor Information. (2012, February). Retrieved from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com
Spector, R. (2000). Amazon.com - Get Big Fast: Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World. New York: Harper Collins.
Amazon was incorporated in the year 1996 and has grown to become the most valuable retailer, surpassing, Walmart, in the United States with a $250 billion worth of market valuation. Amazon offers a wide range of products and services by means of its websites. In particular, Amazon offers its own products together with third-party products in different categories by means of mobile applications and websites as well as retail websites. egardless of its incessant growth and advancement in the industry, in recent periods, the company has been faced with numerous complaints and negative perspectives, regarding the management practices being employed within the company. This paper will analyze some of the effective and ineffective management practices at Amazon and thereafter offer some recommendations to these practices.
Disdain for Employee Work-Life Balance
One of the ineffective management practices is the lack of a proper work-life balance for the employees at Amazon. As…
References
Jones, G., George, J. (2008). Introduction to Organizational Behavior. New York: Prentice Hall Publications.
Kantor, J., Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. New York Times. Retrieved 21 February, 2015 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0
Rosain, T. (2015). 9 key issues with Amazon's corporate culture. Becker's Hospital Review. Retrieved 21 February, 2015 from: http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/9-key-issues-with-amazon-s-corporate-culture.html
Amazon is the largest internet-based company in America with headquarters located in Washington and Seattle in the United States. The company was founded in 1995 by Jeffrey Bezos and it started as online bookstores then diversified to selling videos, CDs, MP3 and DVDs. Today, Amazon offers about 4.7 million books, computer games, DVD and a wide variety of items of all kids. Ever since Bezos opened the doors of Amazon, online retailing has been defined and redefined for the rest of the Internet retail worldwide, and today it offers the customers a superior shopping experience through the provision of a high level of customer service. This research paper will discuss the impact of the Amazon's mission, vision and primary stakeholders' overall success, while analyzing different forces of competition and how they impact the business of the company. SWOT analysis will also be performed to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and…
References
Amazon.com. (2014). Digication e-Portfolio. Retrieved October 21, 2014, from https://stonybrook.digication.com/gilbert_
Bensoussan, B.E., & Fleisher, C.S. (2008). Analysis without paralysis: 10 tools to make better strategic decisions. London: FT Press.
Bruce, M. (2008). SWOT analysis: a tool for making better business decisions.. London: U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture, Risk Management Agency.
Jurevicius, O. (2013). SWOT analysis of Amazon. Amazon SWOT analysis 2013. Retrieved October 19, 2014, from http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/SWOT-analyses/amazon-SWOT-analysis.html
Another popular section seemed to be accessories for mobile devices, although this section seemed to be most popular with young people.
I noticed that a lot of shoppers physically examine the products prior to purchase. They read the back of video games and Blu-Rays, and they play with computers and cameras before they purchase. Yet, you cannot really do that much with either of those devices in comparison with how much you would use them in the real world. So there is only limited benefit in playing with those things before purchase. As a marketer, however, that people are willing to handle just about anything prior to purchase indicates that perhaps they like to see and feel things just to give them some comfort in their minds.
4. The idea that Best Buy is Amazon's showroom is hyperbole. Best Buy sells $50 billion a year, and almost all of that…
Strategic Management of Amazon and Yahoo.com
The recent advancements in technology, computing, and Internet technologies have seen a rapid rise in the number of online businesses. Cases in point are the Amazon.com and Yahoo.com that took the globe by storm at the end of the 20th the century. Broadly speaking, e-commerce has become one of the most lucrative platforms to conduct businesses (Nabi, & Luthria, 2002). In this paper, two relating Amazon and Yahoo are reviewed. First, I seek to find out the source of Amazons success as a leading online retailer in 2011. The study will also establish whether Yahoo's business model functionally geared for success during the same year. In addition, the distinct business strategies of each of these entities and the way the strategies resulted in comparative advantages are also analyzed.
Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer, is an American company that was established in 1995 by…
References
Canzer, B. (2006). E-Business: Strategic Thinking and Practice: Strategic Thinking and Practice. Cengage Learning
Hill, C.W.L., & Jones, G.R. (2012). Strategic Management. Cengage Learning.
Hitt, M.A., Hoskisson, R.E., & Ireland, R.D. (2013). Strategic management: Competitiveness & globalization: cases. Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning.
Kasabov, E. & Warlow A. (2012). The Compliance Business and Its Customers: Gaining Competitive Advantage by Controlling Your Customers. Palgrave Macmillan
Over last five years, the government has begun to change focus in regards to its policies towards the Amazon. Where, it has designated a number of different areas as protected national parks. Currently, there are nearly 201 million hectares that are protected from development. Then, in 2006, a law was passed creating an agency to manage the forests and protect them. With the law stating, that all protected forests should remain public land and that these areas should maintain their forest cover. This is significant because it would reduce the total amounts of destruction that was occurring. A good example of this can be seen by looking no further than the State Acre. Where, deforestation decreased by over 50% since 1998. The main reason for the drop was: the enforcement of the new laws by razilian official and increased funding for social development in the area. According to the state's…
Bibliography
"Amazon Deforestation Rate has Tripled." Fox News. 29 September 2008. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430401,00.html
"Land Use and Rural Development in the Brazilian Amazon." Wilson Center. 24 Feb. 2010. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
Cochrane, Mark. "Priority Areas for Establishing National Forrest in the Brazilian Amazon." Conservation Ecology. 6 (41) (2002).4. Print.
Hallowell, Christopher, and Walter Levy. Listening to Earth. Longman, 2004. 210-211. Print.
Amazon may have to also stock books and literature that pertains to the country and the education-based books both in Spanish and English. There may also be some online payment hassles with banks and these problems have to be solved and can be solved by Amazon. The delivery of books to the place may also create logistics problems though it is not a great issue as far as Chile is concerned. It cannot be assessed how the reader in Chile will take to the Kindle, and high cost of the device may be a deterrent. However the books online can be sold irrespective of the sale of the ebook reader.
Conclusion:
The entry of Apple and Google and other ebook companies in the market necessarily makes it necessary for Amazon to expand its sales in all possible markets. Amazon must therefore not only create a physical presence in Chile for…
References
Deibert, Ronald. Access denied: the practice and policy of global Internet filtering.
MIT Press, 2008.
Lardinois, Frederic. As the EBook Market Matures, Amazon Will Face Stiff Competition.
Hacker News, August 3, 2009.