In: Operations Management
Select a foreign country that Amazon currently does not operate and perform a CAGE Distance framework between USA and the selected foreign country
The semi-globalized state of the real world, in which frontiers are still relevant. The more apparent part of the answer is that there are wide gaps at borders. The less clear part is about how to think about those differences. Rather of using ab-solute terminology to describe differences and similarities, this chapter allows for degrees of variation. It does so by modelling distance variations between countries along with a range of dimensions of Cultural, Administrative/Political, Geographic and Economic (CAGE). As a result, the CAGE structure not only helps to define the key differences in specific settings; it also offers insight into differences by providing a basis for separating countries that are relatively similar, along the main dimensions, from those relatively far apart. It then sums up systematic proof that many dimensions of distance still matter a lot. The systemic evidence is expanded and developed into the CAGE structure for understanding the disparities between nations and demonstrated as seen from the United States with a study of China versus India. The chapter goes on to explain how the effects of various forms of the distance between countries are affected by the characteristics of the industry, indicating that the CAGE structure typically needs to be implemented at industry rather than cross-industry.
With 12 global sites covering some of the world's largest eCommerce markets, Amazon is a great selling network if you're trying to reach an international audience and expand your company around the world. But in what the number of countries is Amazon present? To address this, we mentioned below each of Amazon's global marketplaces, along with key country and information requirements for each! It's worth explaining how Amazon supports international sales and more importantly. However, it is worth pointing out that, simply by making your domestic listings available for sale, you do have the option to enter the global customer base of Amazon. While this is a fantastic way to explore new international markets without wasting massive amounts of time and money, if you are thinking of listing directly on Amazon's international marketplaces, it's worth knowing how their centralized accounts operate.
A cage on the wheel for staff. It sounds like Science Fiction material. This is not. Amazon filed a patent in 2016 for a product described as a "system and method of transportation of staff in an active workplace." Actually it is a cage large enough to accommodate a person. It is mounted on top of an electric trolley. A robotic arm faces towards the outside. The worker cage was built by robotic engineers from Amazon. Via the careful investigation of two researchers, Amazon's worker cage was secretly patented and then received global exposure. When the cage of staff started appearing in newspaper reports, Amazon executives called it a bad idea.
The plans may have been scrapped by Amazon but this does not come as a shock. To jobs, the organization does not need a robotic cage-it already has one of the most all-pervasive control systems in history. Workers carry hand-held computers in their huge warehouses which control their movements. A wristband patented by the firm can use haptic feedback to guide the movement of workers' hands. Cameras are watching stock pickers in Amazon warehouses, and staff have allegedly been reduced to urinating in bottles to meet their quotas, and their productivity levels are constantly being recalled. Investigations by journalists have also revealed Amazon warehouses in the UK to a worryingly high number of emergency call-outs. Delivery drivers employed on the firm's contract are closely supervised and tracked by a program that sets stringent deadlines that staff must meet. Reportingly, aggressive deadlines have contributed to reckless driving. Others claim they had to defecate in bags which they kept in their delivery vans to keep pace.
Staff are also under unrelenting power at Amazon headquarters. A New York Times report found that executives were supposed to be available by email all the time. All their co-workers and their supervisors supervised office staff by means of a special program that allowed employees to judge each other employee anonymously. This input was taken into account when the firm determined who should hold their job and who should let go. The consequence was a permanently working workforce attached to the company. One employee spent her entire holiday in a Starbucks only so that she could accommodate endless requests coming in from headquarters. Another employee claims that after taking time off to look after her dying father, she was told she was a concern and was blocked from transferring to a less pressurized workplace.
Amazon defends this extreme worker management scheme on the basis that customers win. I just had a fascinating seminar about the global economic transition. One panellist explained how cool it was that he could ask Alexa – the virtual assistant to Amazon – to order food for his dog, and that would come the next day. Although Alexa's support may have satisfied him, it ignores the fact that there are several people who are obviously harmed. In warehouses, there is the tired staff, the speeding delivery drivers, the executives on the verge of a mental breakdown that runs the entire operation.
But Amazon's supply chain also includes businesses that rely entirely on it for profit. That ensures that Amazon will control the terms and conditions for those firms. There are many thousands of small and large businesses that Amazon has chased out of service. And the U.S. government is helping businesses like Amazon by providing food stamps to some of its workers to top up low salaries. But I think the happy dog owner is also potentially affected by the fact that a company can track and listen to his entire home life, whose ability to perform monitoring operations far surpasses anything that the Stasi might ever have dared to dream of.
The problem with Amazon isn't that it has been considering patenting a wheeled cage for workers; the real issue is the extremely close grip of the business on whole economic sectors. Consumers can benefit but many others lose out. Of that reason, some call for a radical overhaul about how "internet companies" like Amazon are governed.