Question

introduce and talk about the company and there’s business work

write about 5000 words

Answer 1

Finding 5000 words was a tedious task.

Amazon
Founding  
The company was founded as a result of what Jeff Bezos called his "regret minimization framework", which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the Internet business boom during that time. In 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D. E. Shaw & Co., a Wall Street firm, and moved to Seattle, Washington, where he began to work on a business plan for what would become Amazon.com.

On July 5, 1994, Bezos initially incorporated the company in Washington state with the name Cadabra, Inc. After a few months he changed the name to Amazon.com, Inc because a lawyer misheard its original name as "cadaver". In its early days, the company was operated out of the garage of Bezos's house on Northeast 28th Street in Bellevue, Washington. In September 1994, Bezos purchased the domain name relentless.com and briefly considered naming his online store Relentless, but friends told him the name sounded a bit sinister. The domain is still owned by Bezos and still redirects to the retailer.

Choosing a name  
Bezos selected the name Amazon by looking through a dictionary; he settled on "Amazon" because it was a place that was "exotic and different", just as he had envisioned for his Internet enterprise. The Amazon River, he noted, was the biggest river in the world, and he planned to make his store the biggest bookstore in the world. Additionally, a name that began with "A" was preferred because it would probably be at the top of an alphabetized list. Bezos placed a premium on his head start in building a brand and told a reporter, "There's nothing about our model that can't be copied over time. But you know, McDonald's got copied. And it's still built a huge, multibillion-dollar company. A lot of it comes down to the brand name. Brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world."

Online bookstore and IPO  
After reading a report about the future of the Internet that projected annual web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20 products that could be marketed online. He narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products, which included: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos, and books. Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, because of the large worldwide demand for literature, the low unit price for books, and the huge number of titles available in print. Amazon was founded in the garage of Bezos' rented home in Bellevue, Washington. Bezos' parents invested almost $250,000 in the start-up.

In July 1995, the company began service as an online bookstore. The first book sold on Amazon.com was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. In the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries. Within two months, Amazon's sales were up to $20,000/week. In October 1995, the company announced itself to the public. In 1996, it was reincorporated in Delaware. Amazon issued its initial public offering of stock on May 15, 1997, at $18 per share, trading under the NASDAQ stock exchange symbol AMZN.

Barnes & Noble sued Amazon on May 12, 1997, alleging that Amazon's claim to be "the world's largest bookstore" was false because it "...isn't a bookstore at all. It's a book broker." The suit was later settled out of court and Amazon continued to make the same claim. Walmart sued Amazon on October 16, 1998, alleging that Amazon had stolen Walmart's trade secrets by hiring former Walmart executives. Although this suit was also settled out of court, it caused Amazon to implement internal restrictions and the reassignment of the former Walmart executives.

In 1999, Amazon first attempted to enter the publishing business by buying a defunct imprint, "Weathervane", and publishing some books "selected with no apparent thought", according to The New Yorker. The imprint quickly vanished again, and as of 2014 Amazon representatives said that they had never heard of it. Also in 1999, Time magazine named Bezos the Person of the Year when it recognized the company's success in popularizing online shopping.

Amazon Toys Team employees circa 2000 during a summer Amazon party. Jeff Bezos is wearing the black shirt.
2000s  
Since June 19, 2000, Amazon's logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, representing that the company carries every product from A to Z, with the arrow-shaped like a smile.

According to sources, Amazon did not expect to make a profit for four to five years. This comparatively slow growth caused stockholders to complain that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough to justify their investment or even survive in the long-term. In 2001, the dot-com bubble burst destroyed many e-companies in the process, but Amazon survived and moved forward beyond the tech crash to become a huge player in online sales. The company finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $0.01 (i.e., 1¢ per share), on revenues of more than $1 billion. This profit margin, though extremely modest, proved to skeptics that Bezos' unconventional business model could succeed.

2010s to present  
In 2011, Amazon had 30,000 full-time employees in the US, and by the end of 2016, it had 180,000 employees.[citation needed]

In 2014, Amazon launched the Fire Phone. The Fire Phone was meant to deliver media streaming options but the venture failed, resulting in Amazon registering a $170 million loss. This would also lead to the Fire Phone production being stopped the following year. In August of the same year, Amazon would finalize the acquisition of Twitch, a social video gaming streaming site for $970 million. This new acquisition would be integrated into the game production division of Amazon.

Day 1 building in Seattle
In June 2017, Amazon announced that it would acquire Whole Foods, a high-end supermarket chain with over 400 stores, for $13.4 billion. The acquisition was seen by media experts as a move to strengthen its physical holdings and challenge Walmart's supremacy as a brick and mortar retailer. This sentiment was heightened by the fact that the announcement coincided with Walmart's purchase of men's apparel company Bonobos. On August 23, 2017, Whole Foods shareholders, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, approved the deal.

In September 2017, Amazon announced plans to locate a second headquarters in a metropolitan area with at least a million people. Cities needed to submit their presentations by October 19, 2017 for the project called HQ2. The $5 billion second headquarters, starting with 500,000 square feet and eventually expanding to as much as 8 million square feet, may have as many as 50,000 employees. In 2017, Amazon announced it would build a new downtown Seattle building with space for Mary's Place, a local charity in 2020.

As 2017 came to a close, Amazon had over 566,000 employees worldwide.

According to an August 8, 2018 story in Bloomberg Businessweek, Amazon has about a 5 percent share of US retail spending (excluding cars and car parts and visits to restaurants and bars), and a 43.5 share of American online spending in 2018. The forecast is for Amazon to own 49 percent of the total American online spending in 2018, with two-thirds of Amazon's revenue coming from the US.

Amazon launched the last-mile delivery program and ordered 20,000 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Vans for the service in September 2018.

To make data transfers from space cheaper and easier Amazon added 12 antennas for the satellite data in November 2018.

Amazon will generate $258.22 billion in US retail ecommerce sales this year,[when?] up 29.2% over last year. Amazon's Marketplace sales will represent an increasingly dominant portion of its ecommerce business—68.0% this year, compared with 32.0% for Amazon direct sales. By the end of 2018, sales generated from Amazon's Marketplace will be more than double that of Amazon's direct sales in the US.

HQ2  
In November 2018, Amazon announced it would open its highly sought-after new headquarters, known as (HQ2) in Long Island City, Queens, New York City, and in the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. On February 14, 2019, Amazon announced it was not moving forward with plans to build HQ2 in Queens but would instead focus solely on the Arlington location. The company plans to locate at least 25,000 employees at HQ2 by 2030 and will invest more than US$2.5 billion to establish its new headquarters in Crystal City as well as neighboring Pentagon City and Potomac Yard, an area jointly marketed as "National Landing." The announcement also created a new partnership with Virginia Tech to develop a revolutionary Innovation Campus to fill demand for high-tech talent in National Landing and beyond.

COVID-19 walkout  
At the end of March 2020, some workers of the Staten Island warehouse staged a walkout in protest the poor health situation at their workplace amidst the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. One of the organizers, Chris Smalls, was first put on quarantine without anybody else being quarantined, and soon afterwards fired from the company.

Amazon Go  
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On January 22, 2018, Amazon Go, a store that uses cameras and sensors to detect items that a shopper grabs off shelves and automatically charges a shopper's Amazon account, was opened to the general public in Seattle. Customers scan their Amazon Go app as they enter, and are required to have an Amazon Go app installed on their smartphone and a linked Amazon account to be able to enter. The technology is meant to eliminate the need for checkout lines. Amazon Go was initially opened for Amazon employees in December 2016. By the end of 2018, there will be 8 total Amazon Go stores located in Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. Amazon has plans to open as many as 3,000 Amazon Go locations across the United States by 2021.. Amazon later enabled "Just Walk Out Technology" that automatically detects when a shopper removes a product from the shelf, automatically charging their Amazon account upon leaving the store.

Amazon 4-Star  
Amazon announced to debut the Amazon 4-star in New York, Soho neighborhood Spring Street between Crosby and Lafayette on 27 September 2018. The store carries the 4-star and above rated products from around New York. The Amazon website searches for the most rated, highly demanded, frequently bought and most wished for products which are then sold in the new Amazon store under separate categories. Along with the paper price tags, the online-review cards will also be available for the customers to read before buying the product.

Mergers and acquisitions  
Amazon has grown through a number of mergers and acquisitions.
The company has also invested in a number of growing firms, both in the United States and internationally. In 2014, Amazon purchased top level domain .buy in auction for over $4 million. The company has invested in brands that offer a wide range of services and products, including Engine Yard, a Ruby-on-Rails platform as a service company, and Living Social, a local deal site.

Core Competency:

The core competencies for Amazon has been identified as customer convenience and accessibility, unlimited options for selection, custom-made services, the superiority of the content of the web site, the efficient and good quality search tool to find the items of one’s choice and price. Amazon is building the core competencies through online market development and based on customer needs, also they use internet technology for financial issues and make easy for their customers. Using its Core Competency Agenda, the core competencies of Amazon are used in every segment of its matrix, excluding one. The competencies are being built in the new markets of live auctions, electronics items, greeting cards and tailoring of customer needs; the new core competencies are also being developed in the markets of e-commerce by financially collaborating themselves with internet technology companies such as Exchange.com, Accept.com and Alexa.com, which are emerging tools for the internet marketplace. They are continuously getting advantage by growing their services and selections they offer such as readers, game players, and music listeners. The firm is not presently molting any out-dated competencies and not be at the position in the development cycle to have any disused competencies.

Strategic/Competitive and First Mover Advantages:

Amazon has three main strategies which lead to competitive advantage, firstly cost-leadership, customer differentiation and focus strategy. The first strategy based on offer produces same quality with lower price than the market, the second strategy related to the bigger amount of selection than competitors, and the third one is focus on niche customer through applying one of the two strategies. Also Amazon values affect positively to competitive advantages, the company has two strong values: customer satisfaction and operational frugality, these two factors complement Amazon.com’s operational approach in obtaining and sustaining an efficient competitive benefit and bolstering employees and firm’s performance. Because of its economical approach towards paying less base salary to its employees with respect to its competitors it focuses much more on its business expansion and branding with its saved cost.

However, the company maintains its employees’ loyalty through the distribution of the company shares among the employees. By doing so, it wants to convey the message to the employees that when the company is going to be benefitted or earn profit, the employees are also going to be the part of this profit through the shares. The strategic initiatives for Amazon is target multiple categories through technology and information. It applies segregation, novelty, and growth through alliances. It highlights building sales volume externally while minimizing cost internally. Amazon has built organization which is more difficult for competitors to attack. To the extent Amazon is successful; it may be followed by the other e-commerce firms in the future. The Amazon’s vision was to be the earth’s largest bookstore, but now it has changed to the earth’s largest selection. It is the first successful online retailers in the U.S. and in the world.

The competitive advantage is the number of selection from the world which in a one site that is easy to comprehend and pilot, and a good reputation for reliability and the main resource for that is technology advancement and innovation .Amazon has developed infrastructure by investing huge amount of money to make exploration easy for customers to buy any product. Amazon seems to have the first mover advantage; in terms of the first major company to move into a new market of electronic commerce, most of the resources think that Amazon is the first but some think it is not (Anders ,2000), however Amazon gained the advantage and position because of being the first company of its type in the world to provide the services through internet. It keeps the first-mover advantage in two different ways; through partnership with borders and offering more and more products. This annulled any customer predilection for purchasing from Barnes & Noble by becoming a much bigger, one-stop-shopping destination.

The internet business of Amazon is a very positive and growing business for the company also because the major selling items like books, CDs are such belongings which do not intensify the customers’ desires to go and personally touch and feel the product before going for it. The sufficient and required information is enough to get the objects of consumers’ choice. The other problem of making the products are also handled by the company very efficiently and made the product available as early as possible enhances the trust and loyalty of the consumers towards the firm. Amazon.com has gained its wide popularity because of its perfect quality, quick services, and wide verities of products which lured consumes towards going for its products. Its unique way of doing marketing through the internet also came at such time when the graph of dot com bubble was on its peak. There was a huge opportunity for businesses also to go for such purchasing through internet. The consumers also got a new way of going for this market of books, and CDs. So, the company quickly spread its wings and captured the whole market as a part of first mover advantage in this business.

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths:

Amazon makes profit and it has become a profitable organization after large losses and it reduces the cost of delivery for customers

Amazon business strategy has supported by the management of customer relationship and information technology, they have the data of buyer’s behavior which helps Amazon to suggest items for customers

Amazon is a massive global brand which is recognizable because of the 30 millions Amazon’s customers and the early joined of e-commerce

They are the foremost on-line retailer.

Growing business offers additional product (than book and CDs) that attracts new customers.

The online facility to sell customers items increase Amazon competing and loyalty.

Weaknesses:

Confusing customer by adding new categories and influence the brand as book retailer.

Amazon can’t offer free shipping everywhere which can lead customer to buy from local seller.

The dependent of delivery services may cause uncontrolled on problems and cost.

Opportunities:

The company is now gradually more cashing on its identification as an online retail pioneer by selling its know-how to key store groups. Amazon’s new Luxembourg-based unit intends to offer customized services to vendors as a technology service provider in Europe. Coordinate with the public sector like deal with the British Library.

Moving to new market through buying famous online retails like what Amazon did in Chain in 2004 or by getting control on other online services like their share in LoveFilm.com.

Build strong relationship with some famous publisher to have exclusive books, so that influence stimulated growth and new customers.

Venture in accomplishment will provide an enhanced level of actual customer service meeting consumer prospects. Consumer hopes are banked upon by Amazon.com to make sure reiterated business and permanence.

A facility of membership has been incorporated to facilitate customers the major delivery niche during the important seasonal times and advantages for members can pilot to provide a distinction under consumer service prospects around seasonal times which may result in trade through this facility.

Threats:

Online business attracts more competitors, Amazon offers a big numbers of products, otherwise it may affect by price competition.

Losing the high position in other markets because of the international competition.

Different seasons in different cultures can not afford.

Increasing on-line conveniences from high street brands with conditionally better economies of scale proposes Amazon may not be able to contend on resembling service and product price. Thus, with no explicit differential to the competition the prospective customer sales will migrate.

The cost increase on transportation which is paid for the third party will impact customer view negatively Amazon.

The universal economic circumstances force the trade prices down and consumer potential for promotional agreement will be the focus area for all the products, with undersized economies of scale and purchasing power of consumers may not be that strong to carry such offers.

Limitations of SWOT:

Although SWOT analysis is used as a company’s strategic model by analyzing the internal factors such as strengths, and weaknesses and external factors like opportunities and threats, it has some limitations as well attached with it. One of the major disadvantages of SWOT analysis is that it does not provide managers the guidance to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The actual boundary between opportunity and threats also looks blurred at times. Depending upon the type of the organization, opportunity looks like threats for it sometimes and vice versa. Apart from this there are few more limitations of SWOT which are not in control of the management. These limitations have been categorized into internal and external limitations. The internal limitations include lack of research and development activities, defective products because of underprivileged quality control, poor relations with the partner industries, lack of expert and proficient work force. Whereas external limitations comprise of increase in price, raw materials, government policy, economical environment, searching of a new market overseas. Amazon also needs to look forward to overcome the not clearly defined SWOT and analyze it with a different perspective to remain the market leader of online business.

Things Managed Badly:

Amazon online site may be down because of its complex IT setup, this problem occurred for two hours in June 2008, and they pointed the reason for this as their complicated computing infrastructure, but as Shawn White, director of operations it was most likely caused by the human error. Some engineers might have made the mistake by making a particular change without knowing the after effect. The network attack is also one of possibilities like “distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack” that struck Amazon and other secure sites in the year 2000. Traffic issue causes slowing down and may be one of the potential causes of Amazon’s security related problem.

Future Prospects of the Company:

The smart cell phones influence companies directions, online retailers have started to work on software for the phone. Amazon has offered an application for iPhone and blackberry, but that is just a small stuff. Amazon need to create a program for e-book readers and offers the titles through it. Amazon sells digital CDs both music and movies, it should focus on selling mobile-software which is growing very fast, the expectation of the mobile application would be $ 25 billions by 2014 whereas it was less than $1 billion two years ago. Amazon can make mobile bookstore software for different types of smart phones (Kharif,2009). Amazon has no plan to open a physical store for picking items. The future strategy for Amazon is to maintain the customers through increase privacy and convenience.

Interpretation of Strategic Advantages:

Amazon’s innovative approach of online marketing undoubtedly put it in the fore-front in terms of cost leadership. But, the company needs to look for other ways of obtaining the competitive advantages as well. The competitors are also finding the ways to achieve the cost optimization to compete with it. Even this technology is not that defendable in the long run seeing the adoption of advanced technology by many other competitors. Amazon needs to look for not only maintaining its existing customer base but also needs to look for market niche by constantly analyzing the threats of its close competitors. The other most important part of the company is to keep its skill work force and not let them go out. The company needs to revise and upgrade the salary based on the regular period of time with respect to the performance of its employees, as the current salary of its employees may not be at par with its competitors. This is the reason company gives certain share to its employees to fulfill the deficit of the salary. Finally, the constant innovation should be the key focus for the firm. If Amazon adopts the changes as per the quickly pace of the global market and its competitors it will definitely remain as the market leader of the online business.

Conclusion:

Amazon has developed an unprecedented customer support only in the span of last 15 years with its unique business model of online business. This not only allows the company to have a cutting edge advantages over the competitors but also makes it a cost leader in its business. It overpasses all the supply chains to reach to the consumers through it innovative e-commerce approach. This allows the company to have a control over its distribution channel and so is able to cut down the prices of its products. The company hires the distribution channels and warehouses in the areas where the cost of dumping inventory is extremely low and forward it’s saving to the consumers in the form of the competitive prices. But, Amazon needs to keep focusing on the research and development of better and more innovative way of serving to the customer, which will not only maintains its market leadership in the online business but also allows it to be all time favorite to millions of its loyal customers around the globe.