AMAZON.COM: GLOBAL STRATEGIC ANALYSIS IN INTERNET AND ONLINE INDUSTRY: THE FUTURE OF ONLINE SHOPPING COMPETITION SYSTEMS.

5/6/2015
Group Global Strategic Analysis Project for MGMT 471 Role of the Global Corporation

Executive Summary
Amazon.com, Inc. is an American electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States.[12] Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, Blue-rays, CDs, video downloads/streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Amazon Kindle e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone — and is a major provider of cloud computing services. Amazon also sells certain low-end products like USB cables under its in-house brand Amazon Basics.
Amazon has separate retail websites for United States, United Kingdom & Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India and Mexico. Amazon also offers international shipping to certain other countries for some of its products.[13] In 2011, it had professed an intention to launch its websites in Poland[14] and Sweden.[15]

Names of All Group Members
Awes Alrefae 8993
Yaman Naqawa 8282
Ahmad Alazmi 11608
Mohammed Alghoul

Amazon.com: Global Strategic Analysis in internet and online industry: The Future of online shopping Competition Systems.

GROUP GLOBAL STRATEGIC ANALYSIS PROJECT FOR MGMT 471 ROLE OF THE GLOBAL CORPORATION
Sections of Your Group Global Strategic Analysis Report Must Include:
Title
Date
Names and GUST IDS of All Group Members
Executive Summary (as Shown on Front Page of Report)
Country Background ***New Section for the Final Report**
Industry Background
Main Company Description (including Global Reach and Financials)
Main Competitor Description (including Global Reach and Financials) ***New Section for the Final Report**
Global Strategic Challenges
Global Strategic Leadership
Key Products or Services (and History of those Products or Services) for Main Company
Counterpart Products or Services of the Main Competitor
Innovation or Imitation: Compare Your Main Company to the Competition in the Innovation or Imitation Level of the Key Products or Services
Essential Differences between your Main Company and the Main Competitor
Threats for the Main Company
Opportunities for the Main Company
Leadership Focus on the Global Strategic Challenges and on the Key Product and Service Challenges Recommendations for Future Global Strategy
What We Have Learned from Our Global Strategic Analysis (Learning about Global Strategy and Learning about Group Dynamics) ***New Section for the Final Report**
References
Please choose your own design style and graphics to reflect your main company, and please be sure to include all the sections of the template in your final report.

COUNTRY BACKGROUND: USA
Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) are both multinational companies headquartered in the US. The US belongs to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) single market, which includes the US, Canada and Mexico as the three countries in North America. The US is the largest economy in the world with a $14 trillion GDP. The main language is English (with Spanish increasingly as a widely spoken language as well), the government is a democracy, and the economy is a liberal market economy. The natural resources include coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, potash, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, and timber. The US participates in cooperative economic and strategic interactions with numerous countries worldwide.

INDUSTRY BACKGROUND: SMARTPHONES
The smartphone industry represents a particular intersection within consumer electronics, software and hardware and also information technology. This niche industry consists of high-end mobile phones combining the functions of a phone, personal digital assistant, media player, browser, camera, video, GPS and more. The products within this industry are overall characterized by advanced computing and connectivity capabilities. Mobile operating systems within the industry include Apple iOS, Google Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile and Windows Phone, Nokia Symbian (now being phased out) and RIM Blackberry OS. The Apple, RIM and Windows systems are proprietary closed systems where the companies do not make the code publicly available. Android (and Symbian) are famously open systems where programmers even from outside the company have relatively easy access to the code for developing modifications and innovations. Whether the mobile operating systems remain open or closed, the companies provide interfaces so that developers can create applications to run on top of the operating systems. For instance, the iBooks electronic reader is such an application (albeit developed by Apple) and Amazon has sponsored the development of a similar Kindle application as well. Apple Inc made a huge leap forward in the smartphone market in part due to the tremendous sustained development of popular third-party applications for the iPhone. The Android operating system has also fostered the development of many apps.
Although smartphones did not become widely popular until the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, versions of the product originated over a decade ago. Early examples of smartphones include the IBM Simon (1992), Nokia Communicator (1996), Ericsson R380 (2000), Palm Kyocera 6035 (2001) and the Palm Treo (2002). RIM had launched the Blackberry in 1999 as a PDA and two-way pager. By 2002, the company had introduced a redesigned Blackberry with integrated phone functionality and a new product positioning. It became the first smartphone optimized for wireless email use and quickly established itself as the favorite high-tech gadget of high-achieving businesspeople worldwide. Then in 2007, Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry with the introduction of the iPhone, a new kind of smartphone with touchscreen and a combination of sophisticated music, camera and web browsing capabilities. Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs also forged effective relationships with wireless service providers such as AT&T and Verizon in the US and Telefonica in Europe. Within less than two years, iPhone sales began to soar, relegating the previously dominant Blackberry to a struggling second-place position and opening the door to competitors with savvy new products such as the Android-based Samsung Galaxy.

MAIN COMPANY DESCRIPTION: APPLE
Apple was founded in the US in 1977 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and a third less-well known contributor named Ronald Wayne. The company is currently a large MNC designing and marketing consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. Examples of products include the iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes, iLife (multimedia and creativity software), iWork (productivity software), MacBooks and other Mac computers, Aperture software (photography), Final Cut Studio (professional audio and film industry software), Logic Studio (music production), Safari (web browser), OS X (operating system for the MacBook personal computers) and iOS (mobile operating system for the iPhone). The company presently operates 357 retail stores in twelve countries as well as an online store. Apple products are sold worldwide and have attained unprecedented popularity even in countries such as China, where Apple has the unusual distinction of achieving top sales both under its own genuine products and in rampant knock-off versions. In 2011 the company notched some of the most outstanding financial performance results ever realized by a publicly traded corporation: $65 billion revenues, $145 billion profits, and $353 billion market capitalization. In the third quarter of 2011, the market capitalization of Apple exceeded that of Exxon Mobil alone or Microsoft and Intel combined. The stock during the past year has typically traded at over $400 per share. Apple has 46,600 full-time and 2,800 temporary full-time employees worldwide (compare to 209,000 full-time employees for GM).

MAIN COMPETITOR DESCRIPTION: GOOGLE/ ANDROID
[Pick the company you decide from your research to be the main competitor and provide background and financials on that company in this section.]
The concept for Google originated in 2006 with two Stanford University PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who incorporated the company in 1998, had a very successful IPO (initial public offering) in 2004, and acquired a small software company Android in 2005. The main impetus for the Android acquisition was the recognition by Google of the expansion of advertising on mobile devices. Google wanted to increase its advertising revenues by offering a mobile operating system through which advertisers could gain sales, and therefore profits from the sale of advertising space would accrue to Google as the owner of these new platforms. In particular to facilitate the inflow of advertising revenues, Google wanted its search engine and other branded applications (e.g., Gmail, Google Earth, Google Chat, Google Scholar) available on mobile devices.
Android is a mobile operating system based on open source Linux (open systems are available for coding access by any developers in contrast to proprietary closed systems such as Apple OS). Distribution of Android began in 2007 with the simultaneous announcement of the founding of the Open Handset Alliance. The initial alliance was a consortium of 79 hardware, software and telecom companies pledged to promoting open standards for mobile devices. The Open Handset members now include, for instance, Google, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Android OS now appears on mobile phones and tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy, Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note. In 2011 Google ranked 325 on the Fortune Global 500 with $29 billion revenues, $8.5 billion profits, and $164B market capitalization. The stock price most recently has been about $640.33 per share (more recently around $850 per share). Google is now run by CEO and founder Larry Page and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, with founder Sergey Brin also still involved in an executive leadership position.

GLOBAL STRATEGIC CHALLENGES
[Provide the global strategic challenges identified by your group on the relevant assignment.]

GLOBAL STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
Two of the most important top leadership roles are the CEO/ president and chairman of a company. Sometimes the CEO and chair role are combined and sometimes they are separate. Steve Jobs was one of the founders and the longest-running CEO of Apple Inc (originally named Apple Computer) and in the second part of his CEO tenure, he held the chairman position as well. After his early demise in October 2011, he was succeeded by his colleague who had been COO, Tim Cook. The present global top management team includes:
Tim Cook, CEO
Arthur Levinson, Chairman of the Board (Levinson is also the past CEO and present chair of Genentech)
Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President, Internet Software and Services
Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President, iOS Software
Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President, Industrial Design
Bob Mansfield, Senior Vice President, Hardware Engineering
Peter Oppenheimer, Senior Vice President and CFO
Philip W. Schiller, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing
Bruce Sewell, Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Jeff Williams, Senior Vice President, Operations

The next level of leadership at Apple Inc consists of:
Craig Federighi, Software Engineering Jill Tan, Communication, Asia Pacific
John Brandon, Americas & Asia Regions Takashi Takebayashi, Communication, Japan
Katie Cotton, Global Communication Christina Caballero, Comm, Latin America
Betsy Rafael, Control Steve Dowling, Corporate Communication
DF Novotnev, iPad Michelle Brown, Global Outsourcing
Michael Tchao, iPad Marketing Jennifer Bailey, Apple Online Store
John Couch, Education Greg Gilley, Consumer & Pro Application
Greg Joswiak, iPhone & iPod Marketing Susan Gallagher, AppleCare
Brian Croll, Software Engineering Pascal Cagni, EMEAI Region
Alan Hely, Communication, EMEA Michael Fenger, Global iPhone Sales
Note: EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa regions), EMEAI (Europe, Middle East, Africa and India regions)
KEY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES (AND HISTORY OF THOSE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES) FOR MAIN COMPANY
[Provide the key products or services and history for the main company.]

COUNTERPART PRODUCTS OR SERVICES OF THE MAIN COMPETITOR
[Explain the counterpart products or service of the main competitor and overall competition, analyzed in your previous assignment.]

INNOVATION OR IMITATION: COMPARE YOUR MAIN COMPANY TO THE COMPETITION IN THE INNOVATION OR IMITATION LEVEL OF THE KEY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
[Use the analysis from your previous assignment of the innovation or imitation levels of the products or services for your main company relative to the competition.]

ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUR MAIN COMPANY AND THE MAIN COMPETITOR
[Use the response from your previous assignment and remember that the essential differences can cover many areas, such as production, marketing, distribution, globalization, leadership, etc]

THREATS FOR THE MAIN COMPANY
[Analyze the threats facing your main company as analyzed in the previous assignment.]

OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE MAIN COMPANY
[Analyze the opportunities facing your main company as analyzed in the previous assignment.]

LEADERSHIP FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL STRATEGIC CHALLENGES AND ON THE KEY PRODUCT AND SERVICE CHALLENGES
This project has a particular interest in the global strategic leadership of MNCs. Because we are focused on the globalization and competitive advantage of Apple in the core smartphone product category, we are addressing a corporate headquarters level of strategic challenge for which the CEO and top management team are the key leaders. In particular, we concentrate on Tim Cook as the leadership heir of Steve Jobs.
The top corporate leadership sets the corporate strategy in various ways. As CEO, Tim Cook has the responsibility for formulating the strategic direction of the firm. In this effort he may be assisted by other members of the top management team and the next leadership level, but as CEO he ultimately bears responsibility for the success or failure of major strategic initiatives. As a new CEO following in the footsteps of an iconic business innovator and leader, he has been cautious regarding the initiatives articulated to the media. In fact, he has so far not made public any specific strategic directives for his tenure as CEO. When he does formulate and articulate his strategic direction for the firm, he must be prepared to deploy the appropriate resources such as design expertise, globally integrated manufacturing, and the existing worldwide distribution channels for the i-products and other parts of the total product portfolio. He will need to control the quality and image of the products and overall ensure excellent execution of the strategic plan.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE GLOBAL STRATEGY
[Provide 5-10 specific strategic actions as recommendations for your MNC]