...Amazon Evolution Amazon is a Fortune 500 company and is the global leader in e-commerce. They have expanded significantly their product offerings, international sites, worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers. Amazon offers everything from books and electronics to tennis rackets and diamond jewelry. Technological innovation has driven the growth of Amazon, offering customers more types of products, the luxury of convenience, and even lower prices. Big-name retailers work with Amazon Services to power their e-commerce offerings from end-to-end, including technology services, merchandising, customer service, and order fulfillment. Other branded merchants also leverage Amazon as an incremental sales channel for their new merchandise; enabling to find products from top retailers across the Amazon site. Amazon has come along way from its humble beginning; their evolving with a mission to create new technologies, expand into more geographies and continue to improve the lives of shoppers and sellers around the world. With evolution within a company comes change; these changes generally stem from the company’s core platform, competition, and business in general. Amazon has been very successful in all of their accomplishments; with all of these accomplishments Amazon is trying to evolve. Amazon is expanding the possibilities in a variety of businesses ventures; Amazon is venturing toward a more a web-based search engine and service provider instead...
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...fortify in the tablet market as new entrants such as Amazon, Samsung, Motorola and Google battle to overrule the already dominant and established Apples, iPad. Jeff Bezos, creator of amazon chose to step out of his area of comfort, away from the online bookstore in attempt to overthrow the tablet industry, he did so an was able to capture half of the non-Apple tablet market. It can be said that Amazon were the one who introduced e-books because of Jeff Bezos innovation and urge to simplify the everyday lives of individuals. Despite the success the Kindle Fire experienced as it entered this market, amazon was moving further away from what they had originally specialized in, and closer to a market which was already established long before they decided to enter. A detailed analysis of Amazons internal and external environment is needed in order to be able to fully understand the condition of the issue and to be able to formulate a successful recommendation that will align with the corporations goals. The internal analysis includes the companies features while the external analysis was conducted using Porters five forces study. The three alternatives that amazon could pursue were: to continue to compete in the tablet market, to step away from this industry and focus on the companies strong areas, and to partner with universities in order to stay close to their comfort zone while still expanding. In the long run, Amazon should work towards satisfying their current consumers...
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...Amazon.com’s E-Business Model Donna Lowther Dr. Kitoko Contemporary Business July 30, 2011 1. Discuss whether or not Amazon has lost its identity by expanding into markets well beyond books. According to Sandoval (2001) Amazon is losing its original identity because it is losing ground in the book selling department, for which it was created and because Amazon may have diverted its attention from books or, worse, spread the company too thin to compete effectively in any single area, by expanding into other areas. Though I do no ever remember a time when Amazon was just strictly books I would have to agree with Sandoval, since Amazon now sells items such as video games DVDs, toys, electronics, software, and home-improvement products as stated by Quittner (1999). Quittner (1999) also states that Bezos has further expansion plans such as: “washing machines, cars, rubber gaskets, Prozac, exercise machines, marmalade, model airplanes, everything but firearms and certain live animals.” Looking at this shows that Amazon has definitely lost its identity as strictly a bookseller. I think Amazon’s identity is becoming close to that of e-bay, in so far as the fact that Hof (1999) states that Amazon now has daily auctions. In their annual report for 2010 Amazon (2010) states “this expansion increases the complexity of our business and places significant strain on our management, personnel, operations, systems, technical performance, financial resources, and internal financial...
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...Amazon.com Evolution Amazon starts as a book distributor that is currently competing with a number of Internet companies throughout the world. CEO, Jeff Bezos, has a vision of Amazon.com being a place where anything, can be located on the website. Amazon is gaining significant ground in its ambition to take over the entire e-commerce e-tailing sector, according to the recent successes. Since 1996, the company has taken the lead, introducing venues for electronic shopping (Pearlson, Saunders 2005). Amazon.com is the largest online retailers in the world, Amazon develops it core competency by striving with the competition. In order for Amazon.com to remain the leading online retail, it is essential to expand the vision of the company. As the customers grow, the customer’s needs expand and the availability of product and services. To augment the number the number of shoppers that use its site, Amazon.com created a program, which awards other sites a percentage of a sale when customers are link to them from another site to make a suggested purchase. Competition is increasing with other websites becoming the favored first stop on the Web. Google has taken the place of such retail sites as Amazon, the resource used by a number of people to start their shopping. Amazon services thousands of companies. Whether Amazon services will contribute to the company’s bottom line is still unknown. Amazon is in direct competition with Google to create a Web-based, worldwide computing platform...
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...excitement starts to wavier once they open their e-mail and there lies the deal of the day from Amazon and the product they just bought is much cheaper. As they look in awe at the deal and think to themselves, why didn’t I just go to Amazon and spend less? Were these prices really the cheapest out there? The employee’s at Best Buy said they had the best computer deals around and now they see the same product on Amazon for $100 less. When shopping consumers will shop anywhere and everywhere for the “great” deal of the day no matter if, it’s online or in a local store. The world’s largest retailer Walmart is not immune to the effects of this online shopping revolution. The one thing that Walmart could always count on was having the lowest price and up until the last decade it did but then something happened, Amazon. A company called BrandIndex that specializes in the tracking of brand perception among consumer’s scores retailers on their business. The scores are based on customer feedback, positive and negative, which can range from -100 to 100. They looked at the prototypical Walmart shopper, someone who earns $50,000 or less and compared Amazon to Walmart. Up through 2009 Amazon and Walmart ran neck and neck both with scores of 10s to 50s, but then in 2010 Walmart stared getting consistent scores in the 20s and 30s while Amazon was looking at 50s and 60s with their scores. Amazons latest score in April was a staggering 71, but the analysts who look at these...
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...Industry Analysis Case Best Buy’s Turn-Around Strategy GBA 525 September 30, 2014 The consumer electronic industry has experienced a number of ups and downs during the past few years. In the beginning, the consumer electronic industry was taking off because of the emergence of suburban retail stores after WWII. With the decreasing cost in technology, the increase in the demand for consumers electronics particularly televisions came about. During this time, the consumers were usually more price sensitive, and were willing to accept low customer service in exchange for lower prices. This lead to the rapid growth of the discount stores. Because there are not many substitutes for consumer electronics, the sales for these products continue to increase over time. Consumers can decide which retailer that they want to purchase their electronics from. They have the option of purchasing it directly from that particular retailer or even just ordering it online. Because of the high exit barriers, increasing buyer demand, and increasing sales, it is recommended that Best Buy continues to try to change its strategy to be able to gain its past sales trend again in the consumer electronics industry. In the beginning, Best Buy started off strong with increasing sales and profits, but over time this trend started to change. As shown in Exhibit 7, Best Buy is the only competitor within the consumer electronics industry that has experienced a recent trend of decreasing sales. Some of this...
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...Amazon Inc. SeifAllah Marzouk – Ahmed Fadel – Mohamed Hajaij Introduction Amazon is the global leader in ecommerce. It directly sells a huge range of diverse products. Ranging from books to music to other physical goods and, their specialized asset, Kindle e-book. The company attains their high value-added differentiation by customer-focused information services such as holding online customers’ preferences and providing customization. One of the main competitive advantages of the company is unique bundling of several recourses such as service and distribution. Amazon was initially an online bookseller that directly shipped orders to customers; however, the company grew substantially and soon established a distribution network through which it could ship millions of items to customers all over the world at the lowest costs possible. Operating 10 websites in more than 45 countries now gives Amazon a strategic advantage in its diversity. Amazon was founded in 1994 in the state of Washington DC, USA. It strategically competes internationally by attaining the lowest prices amongst its competitors. With regards to book selling, Amazon’s biggest competitor is Barnes and Noble. While Barnes and Noble enjoys the spoils of selling in the physical world and online, Amazon is stuck in the cyber world (which evidently keeps costs down but doesn’t help with the sales)...
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...Amazon Case The first question I saw when I opened this case study was in the title of the article. “Can Wal-Mart Clerks Ship as Fast as Amazon Robots?” After I read the case, the simple answer is, no. The reason that Wal-Mart, Macy’s and Target find it difficult to keep up with Amazon is because of their current state of business. Amazon has formed its competitive advantage around the idea of speed and online ordering. Brick and mortar stores like Wal-Mart simply cannot compete as well in the online market because they are only reacting to this trend. In the article it was clear that the retail giants could not just open up hundreds of DCs around America, so they are using their physical stores to their advantage. In this article, one of the methods retailers are using is shipping from store locations directly to the customer. This means that customers near certain store locations are placing orders, and that store is taking items from their inventory and shipping those items to the customer. This is different from a DC because individual stores will be holding the product in-store before shipping it out to customers. A DC, like in Amazon’s model, will receive products directly from vendors to its DC and ship them from there. From an Amazon drone’s perspective, you will be receiving your package by air. Amazon claims that using these drones can cut delivery time down to just 30 minutes, depending on destination. This puts the number of Amazon’s DCs in...
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...largest customer base over 30 million people. Besides selling books, Amazon diversifies itself by selling movies, electronics, toys, and groceries. Amazon also generates some of revenue from other marketing such as online advertising and credit card agreement. Amazon has organized systems in two segments, which are North America and International. Websites are also being individually focused for UK, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, China, and Italy. Other than those countries, Amazon also provides them internationally shipping for some products. Amazon succeeds in its online business, and gains more net incomes than some competitor on ground such as Barnes and Noble, and Borders. Amazon’s e-business strategy is a combination of products. The company started with online books then other products to gain customers in a wide range. However, offering a large product variety, Amazon has still maintained its strong brand. 1. Discuss the pros and cons of Amazon’s growth and diversification of business and specialization, and make recommendations about what Amazon could have done differently. Amazon plays strategy planning on the growth and diversification which objects to provide a “One Stop Shopping” for its customers. Amazon serves customers through the website focusing on selection, price, and convenience. There are million of unique products across 12 categories to be sold by Amazon and third parties. Amazon also manufactures and sells the Kindle E-book, which so far is the...
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...market, competitors such as Barnes and Noble ad Borders and what has separated Amazon.com from them. Has the diversification of Amazon.com helped them gained global recognition? Or has a solid understanding of the market and customer needs propelled them to where they are today? The Pros and Cons Amazon.com jumped into the market in 1995 with an effective business tactic of online book sales. Not only did the company launch an English version of the website, but they also launched a Chinese, French, German and Japanese version to gain a global audience quickly. Amazon also receives about 615 million visitors annually according to a survey by complete.com (History of Amazon). Some dare to believe that Amazon.com has the “ideal” business plan for success but what baggage comes along with this success? Does Amazon.com break the mold with no downfall to an online-based company? Below are some Pros and Cons that Amazon has had to endure as the leader in the new E-business approach. Pros Cons Innovation Keeping up with new Markets Infrastructure Managing Growth...
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...Amazon started in 1994, as an online retailer for books. Founder Jeff Bezos believed that e-commerce was the future of retail and the low price per piece and many number of titles made books an attractive starting point (Textbook, 319). Today Amazon has grown into one of the world’s largest companies with revenues in excess of $30 billion per quarter, as customers are able to purchase almost anything they like, delivered to their doorstep with the click of a button (Textbook, 321). Although the case study only mentions Amazon Go, Amazon has recently acquired Whole Foods to further immerse themselves in the grocery industry. Since the inception of Amazon.com, the online retail giant has diversified into multiple different sectors....
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...from their original strategy by implementing new programs and services. The people behind Amazon.com are hoping that these new programs and services will help them compete with the biggest names in the industry, such as Google and Microsoft. In this paper we will discuss why Amazon.com is moving away from its original strategy, discuss areas in which Amazon.com is competing with other top companies, address issues with the database, and describe how Amazon.com uses e-business and e-commerce for business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) transactions. Amazon.com is not moving away from its core competency of being a leading online retailer; they are simply competing with a business strategy to survive. Stretching their wings by evolving into bigger and better services for their consumers is one way to keep up and compete with Google and Microsoft. Amazon’s make-to-order strategy of producing customized products and services is a business strategy to keep them amongst the leaders in online retailing. Their goal is simple, “To be Earth's most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online" (Layton, 2006). Amazon.com is attempting to compete with the biggest names in the information technology industry. They are focusing on a few key areas in which to compete, mostly in terms of computing and storage. Amazon.com has developed several new programs that are available to other businesses, Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic...
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...Strategy 1 Amazon STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF AMAZON Submitted for: MBA IN MS (MANAGING STRATEGY) TUTOR: PAUL ANDERSON SUBMITTED BY: C0411672 Managing Strategy 2 Amazon CONTENTS Title..................................................................01 Contents....................................................... 02 Introduction.................................................03 Section 1 Current strategic position......................04 Macro environment.................................... 04 Micro environment......................................07 Strategic Capabilities................................10 Section 2 Current and Future strategy..................13 Bowman’s strategy clock.........................13 Section 3 Implementation issues............................... 16 Cultural web................................................16 Kotters 8 step theory................................18 Conclusion....................................................21 Reference list..............................................22 Appendix..........................................................30 Managing Strategy 3 Amazon INTRODUCTION Amazon is an e-commerce platform based organisation established in 1995 by Jeffrey P. Bezos. Amazon.com is based in Washington, United States. Amazon is recognised as customer centric e-commerce organisation giving wide varieties, low price offers and convenience to its customers by offering services virtually. Amazon provides...
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...Ebay vs Amazon (Porters 5 Force) Porters 5 Force Rivalry in the Industry Amazon: Rivalry among competitors is high. Since Amazon offers such an extensive selection there are more companies competing with its products and services. They have direct competition from EBay and Barnes & Nobles. EBay: Just like Amazon, EBay faces high competitions. Like eBay number of companies offer the same service and products to the market. Threat of New entry Amazon: Threat of new entrants is low. It would be virtually impossible for a new company to reach the magnitude of inventory and status that Amazon maintains. Amazon has been in the market for over 15 years now and it would be extremely difficult for a startup company in the industry to raise enough capital to compete with Amazon even on a lower level. EBay: Compared to Amazon, the threat is relatively high because any company can act as a third party just like EBay to help people sell and buy the products. But when compared to other companies the threat is low because of the brand value or the trust people have when they buy or sell the product. Threat of Substitutes Amazon: One would expect substitutes to be high but, Amazon offers good products at low prices, provides fast shipping and excellent customer service. Given these advantages, I would believe that threat of substitutes is reduced from high to medium EBay: Faces threats from Amazon. But, due to strong brand value the threat from other companies...
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...1-25-16 SWOT Analysis Amazon.com is a world wide online retailing company that is the largest in the U.S. Amazon started out as an online bookstore that later started selling movies, music, audio books, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and now has its own line of consumer electronics. It is a company that has rapidly grown and will steadily grow each year. A companies SWOT analysis is a tool that defines the companiess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT helps a company asses what the organization can and can not do as well as potential opportunities and threats. A SWOT analysis determines what will help a company accomplish its objectives and what obstacles the company needs to overcome to reach the desired results. Amazon has many strengths such as cost leadership strategy, quality products and services, strategic acquisitions, and efficient distribution. These strengths are what help the company keep returning customers as well as creating new ones. Amazons cost leadership strategy is a strength because this means that Amazon produces their products and services at a lower cost than its competitors. Amazon is a reliable, convenient, and know for its low prices and fastest shipping as well the great reputation for customer service. This is why quality products and services are among the companies strengths. Another strength Amazon has is the companies strategic acquisitions. This means whatever the years the company has been adding new services...
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