Summary
Amazon, the world’s biggest e-commerce brand established by Jeff Bezos, was founded in Washington in 1994 and again in Delaware in 1996. Its website was launched for the first time in 1995. In addition to being a worldwide e-commerce brand, Amazon is also a prominent cloud player and is strengthening its position in the cloud business. Clients have always been at the center of Amazon’s corporate strategy, and this strategy has led the company to success. The E-commerce sector has become increasingly competitive, and Amazon has maintained its consumer focus in order to remain competitive. Moreover, the company has increased its involvement in innovation and research in order to give clients a better overall experience.
Amazon’s Vision, Mission, And Strategy
Customer Service
Amazon has worked hard to achieve its vision and mission objectives through improving customer service. The business offers a diverse range of things from which customers may choose, including apparel, books, music, cuisine, robots, and a movie database, among others (Lincoln & Andrew, 2018). Amazon restructured its online stores to cater to each customer’s choice by introducing the “your store service,” which has been crucial in easily offering services at affordable prices by leveraging economies of scale (Sadq et al., 2018). In addition, Amazon created the A9 ranking system, which gives customers an easier product search experience. Furthermore, the organization uses a large pool of reviews and ratings. The reviews are an important part of the Amazon purchasing experience. Through participative labor, they instill a shared approach to purchasing, resulting in a social group that provides end customers with a sense of belonging.
Ethical Standards Towards Customers and Employees
Additionally, Amazon uses ethical standards for its consumers and staff in order to fulfill its objective and mission. According to the first guiding guideline, “Employees must follow applicable laws, rules, and regulations at all times” (Williamson et al., 2022). Furthermore, the group opposes sexual harassment and discrimination. Amazon requires vendors to offer accurate product information to customers while also respecting the reviews and ratings of other sellers. Moreover, vendors should erase consumer data after transactions and prevent sending unwanted messages to customers. Amazon workers are also subject to conflict of interest, insider trading, bribery, and price-fixing standards. The organization offers a secure, healthy, and clean working environment (Williamson et al., 2022). Workers are responsible for ensuring such circumstances by adhering to the organization’s safety guidelines.
Amazons Competitive Advantage
Amazon has three main strategies which lead to competitive advantage firstly, cost-leadership, customer differentiation, and focus strategy. The first approach centers on providing products of the same quality at a lower price than the market. The second revolves around delivering more options than rivals, while the third one is targeted at niche clients by combining the two methods. In addition, Amazon’s values have a positive impact on competitive advantages. The company has two strong values: customer satisfaction and operational frugality (Jain, 2021). These two elements support Amazon’s operational strategy to obtain and maintain an effective competitive advantage while enhancing the performance of its staff and the business. Due to its cost-effective strategy of paying its staff a lower basic income than its rivals, it spends significantly more on company growth and branding with the money it saves.
The corporation, on the other hand, keeps its employees loyal by distributing company stock to them. By doing so, it hopes to signal to workers that when the firm benefits or earns a profit, the staff will also benefit or earn a profit through the shares. Amazon’s strategic objective is to target numerous categories using technology and information. It employs segregation, novelty, and expansion via alliances. It emphasizes increasing sales volume while reducing expenses internally. Amazon has created an organization that is more difficult to assault. If Amazon is successful, other e-commerce companies may follow suit in the future. Amazon’s ambition was to be the world’s largest bookshop, but it has now evolved into the world’s largest collection. It is the world’s first and most successful internet retailer.
Amazons Competitors
One company stands out above the others when it comes to e-commerce and online retail behemoths: Amazon. It is reasonable to wonder if Amazon’s competitors are still rivals, given its unmatched advantage in logistics, transport, distribution, and general technology advancement. Despite its complete control, Amazon only sold roughly half of all items purchased online in the US last year (Sadq et al., 2018). Amazon is up against a plethora of other online businesses that are vying for even a little slice of the vast and expanding e-commerce pie. Companies like Google, eBay, Apple, Walmart, Alibaba Group, and Costco Wholesale are some of these rivals (Sadq et al., 2018). These rivals are the driving force behind the fierce market competition.
Strategic Thinking
Amazon is an example of a large corporation that has never shied away from strategic thinking. Instead of just selling currently accessible items, the internet empire invests in the future of fledgling enterprises through technology on a regular basis. For example, the Amazon Web Services Pro-Rata Program, which was established in March, connects companies with investment possibilities from family offices and venture capitalists (Hashemipour & Ali, 2020). Lyft and Slack are among the program’s success stories now that it is more than a decade old.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company behind this introductory program, is more than a decade old and delivers on-demand cloud computing platforms to people, businesses, and governments on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. Companies may wish to follow Amazon’s lead and commit to long-term initiatives as well. Of course, this path is not always sunny: such businesses may confront organizational and, in some cases, governmental pressure. However, the potential rewards for these daring renegades are huge. With large corporations such as Blockbuster and Polaroid closing their doors – either permanently or temporarily – due to an inability to prepare for the long term, being strategically driven rather than tactically driven may be what finally keeps their doors open.
What Next for Amazon
Over the previous 15 years, Amazon has grown into quite the behemoth, and it shows no indications of slowing down. AWS is unrivaled in the cloud, with $12.2 billion in revenue and more than $3 billion in profit in 2016 (Hashemipour & Ali, 2020). While CB Insights expects that AI will be Amazon’s next big move, it also warns that the corporation will face stiff competition from IBM and Google, both of whom are rapidly progressing in the field (Hashemipour & Ali, 2020). IBM has developed an entire industry around its Watson platform, which uses cognitive technology to drive analytics across several industries. Nevertheless, if innovation continues, Amazon will become one of the most valuable firms in America. According to BrandFinance’s recent U.S. 500 2017 research, the corporation is the third most valuable brand in the United States (Hashemipour & Ali, 2020). Amazon’s brand worth increased by 53% year on year, showing that the company is on the rise and might soon give Apple and Google a run for their money.
Amazon has been the world’s largest e-commerce platform for more than a decade now. However, the company has also faced strong competition from firms like Alibaba Group and eBay. Therefore, to ensure that it maintains its competitive advantage, the organization emphasizes the implementation of its mission and vision statements along with the strategic plan and thinking in its daily activities. This has been achieved through strategies such as customer reviews, product differentiation, and improved customer experience.
References
Hashemipour, S., & Ali, M. (2020). Amazon web services (AWS)–an overview of the on-demand cloud computing platform. In International Conference for Emerging Technologies in Computing (pp. 40-47). Springer, Cham.
Jain, R. (2021). Competitive advantages and competition issues: analysis of the e-pharmacy market in India. Issue 1 Int’l JL Mgmt. & Human., 4, 962.
Lincoln, I. V., & Andrew, C. E. (2018). Porter analysis: A business strategy of amazon. com through a value chain and comparative advantage analysis of amazon’s trademarks and intangibles. Com Through a Value Chain and Comparative Advantage Analysis of Amazon’s Trademarks and Intangibles (2018). Practical Guide to US Transfer Pricing.
Sadq, Z. M., Sabir, H. N., & Saeed, V. S. H. (2018). Analyzing the Amazon success strategies. Journal of Process Management and New Technologies, 6(4).
Williamson, B., Gulson, K. N., Perrotta, C., & Witzenberger, K. (2022). Amazon and the new global connective architectures of education governance. Harvard Educational Review, 92(2), 231-256.