...Amazon.com Describe their business model and explain their supply chain strategy. Amazon is one of the leading online retailers in the world. From foundation, Amazon was an online book retailer. Their online success allowed them to move into other areas including e-books, music and other products. Jeff Bezos, Founder, started the business in his garage and has built the company on an unconventional business model that in my opinion gives Amazon a competitive advantage. Amazons business model consists of a combination of logistical processes and information services that work together to provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Amazon provides shopping convenience to consumers, products can be ordered at the click of a button without the hassle of the retail store experience. Consumers experience an easy purchasing experience with a variety of payment methods such as paypal, bill me later, and credit card payments. As an added convenience consumers can set up accounts and save payment information for future purchases. Amazon has a very fast turn-around time for items fulfilled in Amazon fulfillment centers. In many cases consumers can expect their products to be shipped within a 24 hour period. As an additional service to consumers, Amazon provides what they call “decision enabling information”. Amazon compares products and pricing, provides consumer product reviews and ratings, and provides detailed product descriptions to aid consumers in making the best product...
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...• Describe their business model and explain their supply chain strategy. Amazon’s business model is based around customer satisfaction. Customers want three things, according to Bezos: the best selection, the lowest prices and the cheapest delivery. (Amazon, 2012) It strives to obtain efficient customer fulfillment, while cutting sales and operating costs. The company first began selling just books; today Amazon is known to be the biggest online retail store in world. Amazon makes its profits from a few customer sets. The area they focus on the most is the consumers. They provide millions of products that can be purchased quickly and hassle free by the customers. They try to provide the best shopping experience possible for consumers. They have developed new tools such as recently viewed history, recommendations based on past purchases and one-click check out to improve the customer’s shopping experience. Another area that is creating profits for the company is their services. Amazon has become a platform for others to sell and advertise their products. For a fee, Amazon will allow other companies and individuals to sell their products through Amazon’s website. They also provide fulfillment services, for those who want to store and ship their products through Amazon. A few years ago, Amazon began an IT infrastructure service to Developers called cloud computing. Today, this service powers hundreds of businesses in 190 countries. Amazon has also introduced their product,...
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...its business model, what do you see as some of the key revenue drivers for Amazon.com (as defined by your text)? On pg 43 of the text, Applegate defines a business model as a model that “defines how an organization interacts with its environment to define a unique strategy, attract the resources, and build the capabilities required to execute the strategy, and create value for all stakeholders.” She further goes on to explain that a business model “defines the linkages among key strategy, capability, and value drivers of business performance.” Amazon chose a unique approach to their business model that allowed for an evolving model focused on ensuring that they could capitalize on their key revenue drivers (their product line, their IT infrastructure/supply chain management, and their customer base). Amazon started as an online bookstore and then moved into product expansion. It then added components of a marketplace and an online auction and went into equity partnerships. They then added the infrastructure services. On pages 124 and 125 of the text, Applegate presents a chart that provides some examples of revenue drivers within the core business model components of strategy, capability, and value. According to Applegate, strategy revenue drivers include product differentiation and effectiveness of demand channels. Amazon’s product line is a key revenue driver that fits within the strategy component of a business model driver. By evolving their business model to include enhancements...
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...European Distribution Strategy In January 2003, Tom Taylor, Amazon.com’s Director of European Supply Chain Operations, sat in his office in Slough, United Kingdom, and pondered what changes Amazon needed to make to sustain its growth in Europe. Established in the fall of 1998 through the acquisitions of two on-line Logistics Planning & Modelling Techniques booksellers, Bookpages.co.uk in Britain and Telebuch.de in Germany, Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy International, comprising Amazon Europe and Amazon Japan, now Amazon Europe had developed into three strong, independently run, country-based organizations in the UK, Germany, and France. Amazon represented 35% of Amazon revenues and was the fastest growing segment of the company (see Exhibit 1). Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy To sustain its growth, Amazon Europe faced multiple expansion Taylor felt that a lot had been accomplished since his arrival six months options: it could replicate the broad array of product lines Amazon earlier. His team had managed to standardize and improve supply offered in the US, launch new Marketplacea activities, or expand into chain processes across Europe in the areas of vendor management, other European countries. In addition, Amazon Europe had to decide sales and operations...
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...amazon continue with its current online business model, or diversify by opening retail locations. Situation Analysis – mission, objectives, background, forecast * One of the first online shopping places, launched in 1995. The first online market place to focus exclusively on books. * Ranked as one of the most visited sites online, with one of the highest unique visitor rates * Aside from the original amazon.com for US Customers, the company has 5 additional websites to serve particular countries including sites for Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany and France. * Unique features include: One click purchase option with receipt delivered to email with email verification, extensive database of customer reviews, and market leadership in establishing eBooks with instant deliveries to Kindle. * Initial model was centered around Amazon being the middle supplier, and not holding on to any inventory. The vendor would ship the item directly to the end customer, thus amazon would benefit from not having to take on any inventory costs. However due to various issues, such as vendor inability to honor shipment times, Amazon had to change its model and acquire warehouses and become an actual distributor. * Amazon currently has 10 large scale warehouses, with over 1 Million square footage dedicated to warehousing activities. * The warehousing is supplemented by an state of the art automated supply chain management system with automatic ordering and procurement...
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...Running Head: Amazon Global Organization Amazon Global Organization Supply Chain Management Instructor - Adrian Martin January 10, 2015 Tericka Cameron INTRODUCTION As a start-up company in the garage, Amazon Supply Chain has made a giant leap that revolutionized many aspects of overall supply chain management. With more than 130 million stocking keeping units to manage and millions of transactions to control. E-commerce has revolutionized the world of retail, opening new channels and opportunities for retailers of all sizes. You can take advantage of the phenomenal growth in retail sales conducted over the Internet by expanding your business globally with Amazon. Amazon has marketplaces around the world—United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, China, and Japan—and the services and tools to help guide you through the global selling process. Evolution of Amazon’s Global Supply Chain Amazon care so much about customers and holds employees to a high level of customer service requirements. In many internal meetings, Jeff Bezos (founder) leaves one empty chair next to him and tell people that they should also think on behalf of one important customer who can't manage to be there. Then the word "empty chair" becomes a symbol of customer centric business practices inside Amazon. Also, many senior executives have to attend call center training so they can know customer's feedback, good or bad, firsthand. Many companies focus on benchmarking...
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...of Amazon Inc. In Relation to Information Technology Systems Table of Contents History page 3 Management page 4 Competitive Advantage page 5 Five Forces Model page 6 IT Strategy page 8 Value Chain page 9 E-Business page 13 Operating Systems page 15 Risk Assessment page 16 SWOT Analysis page 17 Supply Chain Management page 19 Customer Relationship Management page 19 Current Issues page 21 Recommendations and Conclusion page 22 Exhibits page 24 History Amazon.com, Inc. is a multicultural electronic commerce company founded in America by Jeffrey P. Bezos in 1994. It was originally named Cadabra, but was renamed after the Amazon River to bring into the picture a more powerful meaning (mashable). Amazon, since its release in 1995, has since become one of the Fortune 500 e-commerce company. In the business world, Amazon is currently the largest online retailer in the world. It manufactures consumer electronics, most widely known is the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, and has an extensive cloud computing service. Amazon’s start-up was initially only an online bookstore, giving Amazon an advantage of having more and readily available books than any long-established brick-and-mortar book store. By the last 1990’s, Amazon’s success had enabled an expansion from an online bookstore to a wide variety of other products including, but not...
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...SYSTEMS, BUSINESS STRATEGIES AND e-CRM MD. ABDULLAH AL IMRAN DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE & ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL ARTS BANGLADESH rasel1292@gmail.com 2014 Table of content Background 3 Part 1- Information Systems utilized for internet activity 3 1. Information System 3 2. Transaction Processing System 4 3. 1-click purchase 4 4. Secure C/debit card payment 4 5. Recommendation System 5 6. Interactive searching System 5 7. Supply Chain Management (SCM) 5 8. Enterprise Resource Management (ERP System) 5 9. Customer Relation Management (CRM) 5 Part 2-Business strategies applied for internet activity 6 1. Smart Innovation Strategy 6 2. Customer Relation Management Strategy 7 3. Jeff Bezos 3 big idea 7 Page-1 A. Limitless inventory 7 B. Customer Care 8 C. High margin, lowest price. 8 4. Marketing and Promotion Strategy 8 5. Associate Program 8 Part 3- eCRM cycle Conducted for internet Activity 9 1. Customer Relationship Management 9 2. Electronic Customer Relationship Management 9 3. How amazon implement CRM 9 4. Customer Selection 10 5. Customer Acquisition 10 A. Customer account 10 B. Wish List, review system 10 6. Customer Retention 11 7. Customer Extension 11 Part 4-Recommendation for Amazon.com 11 1. Competing in the market 11 2. Innovation of new Product 12 3. Integration of New Technology 12 4. Customer Loyalty 12 5. Global Expansion 12 REFERENCES 13 Page-2 Background: For the last...
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...INNOVATION AGILITY DECISIONS INVESTMENT SUPPLY Want to Innovate? The supply chain discipline is replete with rules that most managers live by. But in certain cases, true innovation and breakthroughs come only when those conventional rules are broken. By clearly understanding the nature of the rules and the details of your supply chain, you can better determine where and when rule-breaking makes sense. By Robert Sabath and Richard Sherman Robert Sabath and Richard Sherman are Supply Chain Discipline Experts at Trissential, a management consultancy focused on business improvement. They can be reached at bsabath@trissential.com and rsherman@trissential.com. F rom college courses to on-the-job training to professional seminars, we’re taught that supply chain is a complex set of processes that follows specific rules to achieve the best results. Yet most supply chain innovations and breakthroughs evolve from situations where the basic rules were actually broken or changed. Is there a disconnect? Breaking the rules has to do with knowing when it’s beneficial to make an exception to accepted practice or to challenge the conventional answer. It entails scanning the horizon for new technologies, best practices, or approaches that change the paradigm of how we do things. Winning companies often excel because they saw a situation differently and were willing to take the risk and the initiative to break with the accepted logic. Innovation is all about breaking the...
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...over the web. After researching a host of items that could sell online, he settled on books. Almost every book was already catalogued electronically, yet no physical bookstore could carry them all. … The beauty of the model, Bezos thought, was that it would give customers access to a giant selection yet he wouldn't have to go through the time, expense, and hassle of opening stores and warehouses and dealing with inventory. It didn't work out that way. Bezos quickly discovered that the only way to make sure customers get a good experience and that Amazon gets inventory at good prices was to operate his own warehouses so he could control the transaction from start to finish. Building warehouses was a gutsy decision. At about $50 million apiece, they were expensive to set up and even more expensive to operate. … The Fernley, Nev., site sits about 35 miles east of Reno and hundreds of miles from just about anything else. It doesn't look like much at first. Just three million books, CDs, toys, and housewares in a building a quarter-mile long by 200 yards wide. But here's where the Bezos commitment to numbers and technology pays off: The place is completely computerized. Amazon's warehouses are so high tech that they require as many lines of code to run as Amazon's website does. Computers start the process by sending signals to workers' wireless receivers, telling them what items to pick off the shelves; then they crunch everything, from which item gets plucked first to whether the...
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...Amazon has started its business by selling books and music, soon after it incorporated online auctions for airlines tickets and hotel rooms, computer hardware, pet food and pet accessories, electronic cards, toys and consumer electronics. Whereas Amazon has achieved very high volume of sales and gained important market shares in the book industry, the company has never been profitable. As a result, in this essay, in order to determine if Amazon’s decision to diversify so extensively was a wise decision, we will firstly describe the firm business model and the reasons for its success. We will then try to determine if this business model is applicable to Amazon’s diversification strategy as well as the limit of diversification. And finally we will try to evaluate the limit of such strategy in an international context. I Is the business model designed for selling book on internet apply for different category of products? The success of Amazon Business Model In e-tailing, one can identify four kinds of business models: the channel supporter, the vertical portal and the category killer such as Amazon. In this regard, Calkins, Farello and Smith Shi (2000) identify three fundamentals of on-line...
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...OPER/023 ICMR Center for Management Research Amazon.com's Inventory Management This case was written by Purnima Pillai, under the direction of Sanjib Dutta, ICMR Center for Management Research (ICMR). It was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. Licensed for use by the students of the Executive MBA Program, The ICFAI University. Not to be reproduced. 2004, ICMR. All rights reserved. To order copies, call 0091-40-2343-0462/63 or write to ICMR, Plot # 49, Nagarjuna Hills, Hyderabad 500 082, India or email info@icmrindia.org. www.icmrindia.org Abstract The case provides an overview of Amazon.com’s inventory management. Jeffrey Preston Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, launched the company when he realized that Internet provided immense scope for online trading. Although the site was originally launched as an online bookstore it eventually offered several other products to keep abreast of the competition. The case takes a look at the different products and features offered on the site. The case also discusses Amazon's value propositions and its criteria for choosing strategic partners. It then elaborates on the strategies adopted by Amazon for managing its inventory. It also explains Amazon’s decision to outsource inventory management to distributors. The case takes a look at Amazon’s decision to sell the products...
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...Table of Contents Page | Title | 2 -4 | 1.0 Positioning in Relation to Porters GenericStrategies * Strategic Models * Stakeholder Analysis.....continued on page 5 | 5 | Value Chain Analysis | 6 | 2.0 Business & Corporate level strategy | 7&8 | 3.0 Alternate strategy * Critical reflection | 9 & 10 | Bibliography/Harvard referencing | 11 & 16 | Supporting Appendices | Total word count : 2725 Inc titles/subtitles. Amazon’s Strategic Positioning. 1.0 Introduction This assignment is to establish Amazon’s strategic positioning in Europe in correlation with value innovations that may have contributed to Amazon’s success from 1995 to 2012. About Amazon Amazon is an eCommerce business based in the U.S and was started back in 1995 selling books, CD’s and other media. However Amazon’s profits were only noted in 2002 and to this day have annual sales equal to or more than $40billion with a customer base of nearly 144 million in purchase accounts and over 2 million market seller accounts. In 1998 Amazon also extended their market to the UK with an agreed takeover of Bookpage.co.uk and has since managed to establish their second biggest and most successful market overseas. Value Innovations. Since reporting profits in 2002 Amazon has invested in innovations that add value to the customer, keeps interest and encourages ease of purchasing. Some innovations that have aided in the success of Amazon tend to allow ease of use...
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...the retailer to reach customers who don't have stores nearby, but, more importantly, the online customer is a significantly better customer than one that only shops at a store. “Wal-Mart believes eCommerce Brings Access to Customers Anytime, Anywhere (eCommerce 1)”. As customers not only do we expect to have great prices; we have grown to consumers who want products anytime no matter where we are. Can Wal-Mart successfully adapt their model online to challenge Amazon? While Wal-Mart’s total revenue is projected to be over five times greater than Amazon’s, the e-commerce return for Amazon’s all revenue is over seven times greater than Wal-Mart’s e-commerce revenue. Wal-Mart has gone as far as establishing Wal-Mart labs in California in order to prepare to challenge the online retail king, Amazon. These labs are designed to primarily compete against tech companies by taking pages out of each of their books. “Wal-Mart has revolutionized supply chain management by using a “pull” model where customer demands drive the suppliers (Supply 1)”. Inventory control is finely honed and purchasing trends are available to suppliers, whom now must be able to quickly respond to the needs of millions of customers. The business decision to decentralize the procurement...
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...••• THE HIDDEN EMPIRE Three digital engines to reshape and dominate retail mazon.com Amazon.com: a digital shop around the corner… … and a digital colossus. Did you know: all these companies belong to Amazon… Did you know: Amazon is also… AmazonBasics Amazon-branded electronic products AmazonFresh sells and delivers groceries in Seattle AmazonStudios online social movie studio Amazon WarehouseDeals offers discounts on refurbished products Did you know: Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the Internet’s history… Revenues reached within first 5 years $2,8 bn $1,5 bn $0,4 bn eBay Google Amazon Amazon and eBay results from 1995 to 2000, Google from 1998 to 2003. Even though Zynga and Groupon appear to have an even quicker growth, they haven’t been compared because 1- sales have not been officially disclosed 2- they haven’t reach their fifth year Did you know: Amazon Web Services drives these companies… Did you know: Amazon.com is a giant… Y/Y growth for Q2 2012 +29% Market cap $105 bn Customers 152 m Employees 51,300 Annual revenue $48 bn Internet traffic rank 11th Retail brand 1st Paid out $1.2 bn Paid out $775 m Source: Amazon.com, Alexa, Brandz. Market capitalization as of the 5th of November 2012 2 × growth of 1,7 × market cap 4 × # customers 13 × more than 27% more than before before to buy to buy E-commerce market Why? A vision… From 1994, Jeff Bezos knew he could create a retail website...
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