Preview

Amazon - Strategic Capability

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
5324 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Amazon - Strategic Capability
Executive Summary
This report has been designed to identify Amazon's strategy between 2007-2010 and also to pinpoint the company's strategic capabilities. Internal and External analysis reveals Amazon's position against its competitors as well as sources of value creation and cost reduction in its value chain.
Amazon.com is a leading e-retailer and is a globally recognized brand, but is facing increasing competition from bricks and mortar companies setting up an online presence and current e-retailers increasing their geographical and product scope. Amazon.com also faces strong rivalry in its Web Services Business where more specialized web services companies are able to offer more products and have a broader geographical presence.
The report finds that Amazon's weakness as an e-retailer arises from the cost of delivery and its reliance on outsourced firms to fulfill its product delivery. To improve the customer experience that Amazon is focused on, this report suggests that Amazon enters into a joint venture with delivery companies to have better control over delivery costs and delivery service levels.

Amazon.com founded by Jeff Bezos in 1995, is the top E-commerce store worldwide in terms of revenue. Amazon.com has a market capitalization of US$29.4 billion, an operating income of $1.406 billion and employs 33,700 employees across the globe. It started out as an online bookstore but has expanded and diversified its services and products to cater to a diverse customer base ranging from retail customers to business customers through two strategic business units, its retail strategic business unit and its software business unit. Amazon.com has established itself as a global company and has websites catering to foreign customers in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and China. Foreign sales contribute 47 per cent of the company’s consolidated sales. Amazon’s early growth came from its ability to redefine the way bookstores sell its books to



References: Vranesevic, T. et al (2006), Marketing and Retailing Strategy Johnson, G., Scholes, K Porter, M.E. (1980) Competitive Strategy Collis, David and Cynthia A Amit, R. & Schoemaker, P. (1993). Strategic assets and organizational rent. Strategic Management Journal, vol. 14 Conner and C.K.Prahalad: 1996 A Resource Based Theory of the Firm Higgins, R.C. and L.D. Schall, “Corporate Bankruptcy and Conglomerate Merger,” Journal of Finance 30, 1975 Lewellen, W.G., “A Pure Financial Rationale for the Conglomerate Merger activity,” Journal of Finance 26, 1971, Teece, D. (1982), "Towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm", Journal of Economic Behavior and organization Bhide, A.v (1993) ""The Hidden Costs of Stock Market Liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics C. Markides and C. Ittner (1994), "Shareholder benefits from Corporate International Diversification: Evidence from US International Acquisitions," Journal of Laseter, T., et al. (2001). "The Last Mile to Somewhere" strategy+business

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Amazon.com is a publicly traded worldwide online retail company founded by Jeff Bezos on July 5, 1995 in Seattle, Washington. The company originally began as an online bookstore as Bezos felt there was a high demand for literature, and books had a low price point and a huge selection of titles available in print. Technological innovation drives the growth of Amazon.com to offer customers more types of products, more conveniently and at lower prices. Since 1995, Amazon has significantly expanded its product selection, international retail websites, and worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers. Today, Amazon retail websites offer everything from toys and video games to MP3 downloads and collectible items (amazon.com, 2014). Amazons business model is fairly simple; to sell various products and goods online at an affordable cost to consumers. Amazon has managed to not only achieve this business model but they have also managed to consistently expand and become the largest online retailer to date. To keep up with global demand, Amazon had to expand its products and services offered while continuing to forecast consumer’s needs. “In 2000, Amazon.com began to offer its best-of-breed e-commerce platform to other retailers and to individual sellers. Today, hundreds of thousands of world-class retail brands and individual sellers increase their sales and reach new customers by leveraging the power of the Amazon.com e-commerce platform. Partners 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 leverage Amazon.com as an incremental sales channel for their new merchandise. Over 2 million third-party sellers participate in Amazon where they offer new, used, and…

    • 891 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In planning their business, Amazon had to take into account all internal and external factors to avoid catastrophic troubles while beginning their company. The same concept holds true, even today. Internal and external factors affect the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (four functions of management) functions of management involved in the successful and continual growth of Amazon’s company. Their company began as a planned rival to Google and Microsoft, for lead in the online retail industry. With their original focus, Amazon used four different key values to help their business off-the-ground, and stay focused on their personalized progress. Their ability to zone-in on customers, dynamic pricing, personalized service, and brand variety was their plan for success (Amazon, 2011). It became a primary goal for Amazon to make their customers’ online shopping experience easier and more enjoyable while supplying dynamic pricing options and the convenience of a ‘one-stop’ retail ordering system. The business model of Amazon included selling books, compact discs, movies, electronics, and games. Currently, Amazon has the largest online retail selection because it extends its inventory out to offer home goods,…

    • 1179 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Capstone Project Bus599

    • 2781 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Amazon.com is an organization that offers a broad range of services to consumers and is considered an online leader of pure-plays - pure online merchants. Amazon.com was founded in July of 1995 with a mission to fully utilize the Internet to make book buying fast, easy, and all in all, a very enjoyable experience. They currently have 29 million customers in 160 different countries, making Amazon.com one of the leading online merchants. It is rated third in business-to-consumer online revenue as of June 20, 2000. Amazon.com represents the ideal e-Commerce company. It was one of the first to demonstrate the potential for "virtual" upstarts and turned the market on end - even leading the "bricks and mortar" companies.…

    • 2781 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Amazon.com, from a strategic approach, is dominating the world-wide-web. They have become the world leader in online sales of books, music, videos, movies and other products and services. Amazon knew that the Internet could be used as a distribution channel, thus reducing their supply chain relations. By making these strategic advances, Amazon was able to achieve and sustain their competitive advantage.…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Amazon Ceo Strategy Project

    • 4794 Words
    • 20 Pages

    Amazon is rapidly evolving and it is intensely competitive, and competitors in different industries are attempting to break into this business. These competitors include retail, e-commerce services , digital content and digital media devices, and web services. Many of Amazon’s current and potential competitors have far greater resources, longer histories, more customers, and greater brand recognition. This is a challenge to Amazon’s operation where competitors might have more viable abilities to aggressively…

    • 4794 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1994, Jeff Bezos was a 30-year-old hedge fund analyst with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering from Princeton University. It was at this time Bezos decided to put his business plan in play. Jeff pulled up a file that had the business model he intended to use, which had been write in early that year in the passenger seat of a 1988 Chevy Blazer (A Retail Revolution Turns 10, 2005). Amazon.com opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. The company seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. Amazon.com is now a digital strip mall branching beyond books into music, DVDs, electronics and toys (Penenberg, 2000). Many people wonder how Amazon became on of the few dot-com companies to survive the dot-com bubble burst that took effect during 1997-2000. One of the best ways to evaluate Amazon’s performance is to complete a thorough review of its financial statement, pro forma financial statements, ratio analysis, return on equity, its calculated economic value added projects, and its financial policies.…

    • 2357 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Comparing Two Businesses

    • 2306 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) with a +$100 billion market capitalization is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and China. It may also launch websites in Netherlands, Sweden, and India. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and the site went online in 1995. It is named after the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. Amazon uses the internet as the sole method for selling goods to its consumers. Amazon's competitors, such as Barnes and Noble, and Borders use brick and mortar as their main distribution channel. This method of using many store fronts is extremely costly. Stores such as Borders and Barnes and Noble have very high overheads because they pay premium rents to be in central locations, and must pay salaries to sales representatives. Amazon does not share this same high overhead, which gives Amazon a competitive advantage. This advantage is a result of the fact that Amazon's business model allows for a central distribution center in an area where the rent is low. As a result, they are able to sell their products for a…

    • 2306 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Amazon 5

    • 5773 Words
    • 24 Pages

    The competitive forces of Amazon include the threat of new entrants into online retail and IT solution business. Amazon does have significant barriers against this force, including patented technologies and unique distribution centers. Amazon also faces rivalry among existing companies…

    • 5773 Words
    • 24 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Strategic Lens

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Strategic Lens Amazon: Grouping: With a mission “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices,” . There are three things that can be inferred form Amazon’s mission statement, one is their extremely consumer centric business strategy, secondly to strive to enter into new markets and thirdly to achieve it through the least amount of resources. However there are two more aspects to Amazon’s strategy, which are absent from the mission statement – focus on Innovation and Operational excellence. The Strategic Grouping at Amazon is by Expertise/Function.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Executive Summary of Amazon

    • 3297 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Amazon.com till date has gone through many ups and downs. It has been registered as the largest customer base with yearly sales of billions of dollars. Now Amazon.com offers very wide variety of products. Anyone can buy any products of almost any brand. Their company went through a tough time in between when they were trying to compete with competitors like Wal-Mart and eBay. But they were able to come out of it but improving their services according to customer experiences. They improved on their strengths and worked on weaknesses so as to make the customers experience more enjoyable and interesting.…

    • 3297 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    Value Chain Analysis

    • 2679 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The company was founded in 1994 by Jeffery P. Bezos. In the early years of Amazon they were mostly known for selling books. The idea behind it was that traditional brick-and-mortar stores could not hold more than a few hundred thousand books, whereas Amazon being an online store could hold an infinite amount of books (“History of amazon.com,”). Since its early days of being an online book store Amazon as grown to become a fortune 500 company with a global reach. Amazon operates in over 10 countries worldwide with over 88,000 employees (“Inside amazon,”). Amazon is one of the most visited sites in the world, with over 500,000,000 monthly visitors, and over 100 million active members (“Top 15 most popular websites”, 2014).…

    • 2679 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amazon.Com Case Study 5

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Amazon has proven to be a successful industry to date in terms of growth. Thus it possesses many strengths. It has managed to form alliences with many major Internet Players such as Yahoo, excite etc. In addition it has acquired many well established online companies to assist its expansion into different products. It is a well known service provider to Customers and is renowed for its outstanding customer service. It has the advantage of an experienced and highly skilled management team to assist them to adapt to change and have powerful, innovative and flexivle electronic business designs to enable them to react quickly to competitors needs.…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    BP of suppliers is high: Although there are about 85,000 book publishers in America, there are only a few dominant publishers in the industry. Based on the website bookstatictics.com (Poynter, 2004), there are only 6 large publishers in New York and the rest are the small or medium-sized publishers. This means that the book supplying industry is considered quite concentrated and hence, suppliers have high bargaining power.…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amazon.Com Case Study

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are many particular aspect of e business that has successfully implemented by Amazon.com. Beside sale books online, Amazon has steadily branched into retail sales of the music industry, electronic products, home improvement tools, food, jewelries and more. So customer has a lot of choices of goods to buy online. This can increase company's revenue and turnover. To retain customer's loyalty, Amazon.com has improved distribution and order fulfillment. It can allow million of customers around the world to access their website to purchase via online. Shipping delivery will also be done within 24 hours. They also provide fast and easy payment to supplier after their product has sold. For services, the support team will be available 7 days a week. To increase user's trustiness, Amazon.com use of…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Amazon.com Case study

    • 2804 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Amazon transformed itself from a specialty retailer into an online shopping portal, taking a cue from auctioneer eBay, which set itself up as a mediator between buyer and seller. It started selling products from companies such as Toys "R" Us and Target on its Web site. It added merchandise from smaller retailers in its zShops. And it competed directly with eBay through its Amazon Auctions.…

    • 2804 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays