Amazon Managerial Report Case Problem

It was founded in 1993 by creator Jeff Benzos, it started as an online bookstore. Initially, Amazon’s growth was very slow, but however in less than 25 years Amazon has morphed from a fledgling start-up into one of the world’s most valuable companies, active in far-flung businesses from e-commerce, and cloud computing to media entertainment. As of December 31, 2016, Amazon employed more than 341,000 employees. Today, Amazon sells products in over forty categories. Amazon has everything from books, digital downloads, health care products, to jewelry, computers, and automobiles, you name it, Amazon carries it. In order for Amazon to remain successful, they must identify resolutions to these problems. To relieve such issues, Amazon must continue to do what has separated them from their competition, and remain “customer centric”. By putting customers first, Amazon will be forced to innovate ways to keep costs low for customers through economic recessions, and relieve issues surrounding control over emerging digital ecosystems, and come up with ways to fit all its innovation in its product mix.

DESCRIPTION OF AMAZON’S BUSINESS MODEL As of the end of the case, spring 2017, Amazon’s business model entailed the following in its attempt to expand its consumer base as well as maintain a competitive edge with the competitors the likes of Microsoft, Alphabet, Walmart, and Alibaba. To start with, Amazon utilized a customer-centric approach by putting their customers first, with their main areas of focus being low prices, availability, selection, and convenience. Next in line, Amazon deployed a pilot program of using robotic sorting in several of the company’s fulfilment warehouses during the busy holiday season, inorder to better support online retailing’s competition with brick and mortar retailing. This initiative was the culmination of Amazon’s acquisition of Kiva systems and was aimed at helping Amazon reduce the time taken to sort and park goods towards guaranteeing same day or overnight deliveries of packages.

In addition, in support to online retailing Amazon opened several brick and mortar stores in the United States. These physical retail stores serve as a way of enhancing and improving the customer experience. These retail locations enable next day delivery, pick up for online order, and exchange and return of purchases. Secondly, effective supply chain management. This help to maintain and uphold Amazon’s logistics such as overnight and same day delivery of packages. Effective supply chain management allows Amazon to deliver quickly and on time. Amazon’s geographical diversification allow it to deliver products quicker and easily to their customers. Amazon has adopted e-auctions which are simple, cheap and quick. In other words, Effective provision of e-commerce services by effectively utilizing technology such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) which provide online shopping platform for customers all over the world.

In addition, to offering online shopping services Amazon has also engaged e-commerce facilities through selling and development of applications and softwares. This shows that e-commerce has been attained through massive internal investment, and hence significant contribution to profit increases and revenue (Jaewon, 2016). Amazon has leveraged technological competencies for business excellence through online shopping experience of customer. Amazon has wide range of products in their portfolio worldwide. Walmart. com allows customers to order products online, view availability at the nearest stores, and get same day pick up from the stores. Walmart’s shipping pass competes effectively with Amazon Prime by providing free shipping on products with a $49 annual membership fee. It also provides free two day shipping to all customers on qualifying orders of at least $35, Walmart dropped the membership fee for all existing customer to boost its competitive edge.

With jet. Microsoft provide competition to Amazon in cloud computing, and in software and application development. Microsoft produces a wide range of hardware and software products ranging from its search engine (Bing), to tablet computers (Microsoft Surface), and video game consoles (Xbox, Xbox one, and Xbox 360). As a direct competitor to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure has transformed itself into an open infrastructure service for enterprise and subscription services. Azure’s key differentiator of providing software as a service (SAAS) and platform as a service (PAAS) help keep Microsoft at par with Amazon’s AWS. Lastly, another main competitor of Amazon is Alphabet. Now that it has the drone based delivery program, opened up brick and mortar stores, as well as the one hour delivery system up and running efficiently.

Continued success in the emerging markets will ensure that Amazon has a bright and better tomorrow for instance by coming up with ways to fit all its innovation in its product mix, and ensuring customers’ acceptance of the new innovations and differentiation. APPENDICES Case Problem "Amazon. com, Inc.  Case MH0053, May 25, 2017 https://learn.