...MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY B : AMAZON 1- By using Porter’s 5 forces’ framework, describe the forces that affect the core initial market of amazon (the online retailing industry) The power of Suppliers: Suppliers are not concentrated : thousands of publishers throughout the world. The inputs are not necessarily rare. The power of Suppliers: Suppliers are not concentrated : thousands of publishers throughout the world. The inputs are not necessarily rare. The power of Buyers: Buyers have a high bargaining power because of the low switching costs the Internet market allows. Besides, the market is very competitive, and that ensures a high power to consumers. The power of Buyers: Buyers have a high bargaining power because of the low switching costs the Internet market allows. Besides, the market is very competitive, and that ensures a high power to consumers. Potential competitors: Apple, Microsoft, and Google IBM, Sun system, barns and noble. Potential competitors: Apple, Microsoft, and Google IBM, Sun system, barns and noble. The threat of substitutes: Customers could switch to alternatives if traditional web retailers promote a substitute with a higher value such as Wal-mart that becomes more and more competitive on the Internet market. The threat of substitutes: Customers could switch to alternatives if traditional web retailers promote a substitute with a higher value such as Wal-mart that becomes more and more competitive on the Internet market...
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...I have been looking at some of the work of Rob Grant to analyse resources and capabilities, mainly examining work in and around Resource Based Theory of Competitive Advantage and implications for Strategy Formulation. So hopefully have covered some differing aspects to use for Amazon. Strategic Planning Processes. I believe an effect method for Amazon to undertake such an analysis would be to examine: • Value Chain • Resources Based View • Financial Analysis Use of a Value Chain Analysis for Amazon Amazon have developed a value chain analysis of its’ own to internal asses how it can operationally best add value and maintain a competitive advantage. They have used the value chain model from Michael Porter's book, "Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance." [pic](Source: Bua Consulting) Example of a Strategic Plan Model - Amazon Internal Analysis, Strategic Planning Tools, Strategic Planning Models Primary Activities and Support Activities Primary activities are those needed to produce a product or services for the end customers. These activities typically include: • Inbound Logistics: receiving goods from suppliers, and storing and moving those good • Operations: Manufacturing or assembling the product • Outbound Logistics: Sending the goods to wholesalers, retailers or directly to the end customer • Marketing and Sales: Marketing involves understanding customer needs, communicating those needs...
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...Amazon Strategy Analysis The strategic planning processes. Amazon and other large enterprises to build your organization with a view - from the view of the company’s mission, goals and objectives are developed. Many times during the life of an organization is necessary for the organization to redefine the objectives of the organization on the basis of profitability, customer concerns, and the internal, external and international challenges. • Value Chain • Resource Based View • Financial Analysis Using an Analysis of the Value Chain Amazon Amazon has developed an analysis of the value chain of its Competitive Advantage “own internal operationally better assess how you can add value and sustain competitive advantage have used the value chain model of Michael Porter,"Create and maintain superior performance. " Example of a Strategic Plan Model - Amazon Internal Analysis Tools, Strategic Planning, Strategic Planning Models Primary activities and support activities Primary activities are those needed to produce a product or service to the end customers. These activities generally include: • Inbound Logistics: receiving goods from suppliers, and store and move the good • Operations: Manufacturing or assembly of the product • Outbound Logistics: The shipment of goods to wholesalers, retailers or directly to the final customer • Marketing and Sales: Marketing involves customer needs understanding, communicating...
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...Abstract The purpose of this report is to analyse the strategic position of Amazon and determine any competitive advantages held by the company. Beginning with a discussion of Amazon’s industry and review on the political, economic, social, and technological environments in which the company operates, the report than narrows to focus on Michael Porter’s Five Forces: threat of new competition, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers and intensity of competitive rivalry. The report continues with a thorough SWOT analysis of the company and follows on to the analysis of the company’s internal environment. Resource base view together with value chain analysis has been chosen to analyse Amazon’s internal environment. Introduction Company Overview Jeffrey Bezos started Amazon in 1994, after identifying that Internet usage was growing at a rate of 2,300 per cent per year (Emerland, 2002). Working from a 400-square foot office in Seattle, Jeffrey launched Amazon in July 1995. By the end of 1996, Amazon has posted sales of over $16 million and served about 180,000 customer accounts, which made it one of the most successful Web retailers in the world (Galante, 1997). Amazon has continued to expand its customer base, and sales revenues have increased every year. The firm’s revenues increased from $16 million in 1996 to $41.1 billion in 2011 (Bloomberg, 2012). Today, Amazon offers perhaps the broadest range of products worldwide. External...
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...INDUSTRY COMPETITION: Amazon exists in a highly competitive e-commerce industry with tough competitors like Apple, Barnes and Noble, E-Bay. However Amazon has competitive advantage in the following aspects: i) Pioneer Advantage: Amazon established its niche as the first online book seller in the year 1997. Today Amazon is the nation’s biggest book seller and world’s largest online retailer (New York Times, 2012). Amazon has managed to keep up with technology by investing in cloud computing and bringing to market mobile devices like Kindle e-reader. The recently announced Kindle Fire is another strategic differentiator in Amazon product portfolio. Kindle Fire facilitates delivery of Amazon’s services and content to customers, and provides them the mobile-device experience. It has established itself as the leading Android tablet with a 54.4 percent market share (comScore, 2012). ii) Amazon’s main focus on customer satisfaction has ensured their position in the on-line retail market. Amazon is highly invested in providing customers convenience, selection, prices and personalized services (Mirow, 2005). Amazon’s e-commerce platforms with highly granular array of choices and mobile shopping apps, have vastly improved the shopping experience for the customers. According to a recent online retail customer satisfaction survey, Amazon topped the list, outdoing competitors like Apple, eBay, Netflix, Best Buy, Walmart (techcrunch, 2012). iii) Amazon has been experiencing marked...
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...disseminating of information from internal and external environments to key people within the corporation is called environmental scanning. (Wheelen and Hunger. 2010) Environmental scanning helps an organization identify relevant factors and use those factors to obtain a competitive advantage within the environment. The author will discuss how an organization creates value and sustains a competitive advantage through strategies. How an organization measures success to identify the effectiveness of a strategy. The author will identify the strategies of various companies and identify tactics that make the company successful. Competitive Advantage An organization that has a strategic advantage over its competitors that enables the organization to have greater sales and retain more customers is believed to have a competitive advantage. Many organizations have a competitive advantage within technological industries to include: Google, Apple, and Amazon. Each organization creates value in its products and services to stay ahead of the competition. Google is considered the industry leader when it comes to search and has 65% of the search market, according to Hit Wise. The company maintains its competitive advantage by developing a diversified infrastructure that gives them the ability to provide high-speed searches and branch out into other industries. Goggles infrastructure is made up of hardware, bandwidth, storage systems and servers. The company has access to all kinds of information...
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...Amazon is an American international electronic commerce company formed by Jeff Bezos in 1994. It is one the largest online retailer in the world.[1] Below is the analysis for the market valuation of Amazon. PORTER’S FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS [8] Threat of New Entrants When it is easy to enter the industry, the threat would be big. A bigger threat will lower the potential profitability in the industry. Regarding the industry, the market entry barrier is low because the technology requirement is not high. However, economic of scale enables Amazon to provide services and products at a competitive low price. Also it has built up its reputation and accumulated a certain amount of loyalty customers. It is difficult for a new startup company to compete with Amazon. Profitability of Amazon is high due to the small threat of new entrants. Threat of Substitute Products/ Service When there are more substitute products or services, the threat would be larger and the profitability of Amazon would be lower. Amazon is an online retailer selling various products. It is an innovative service and hence has a high brand recognition. Compared with substitute service such as service of buying on customer’s behalf, Amazon can provide more confidence to customers. Also, traditional retailers are also a substitute service to Amazon. However, there would not be a big conflict between Amazon and the traditional retailers because of the consumer behavior. This means some consumers would insist in shopping...
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...Foreword…………………………………………………………...............3 Methodology………………………………………………………………….4 Referencing..………………………………………………………………5-6 Task 1 - question 1.……………….……………………………………….7 Question 2………….……………….…………………………………….....8 Question 3…………………………………………………………………….9 Question 4…………………………………………………………………..10 Question 5…………………………………………………………………..11 Task 2 – question 1………………………………………………....12-13 Question 2…………………………………………………………………..14 Question 3…………………………………………………………………..15 2 Foreword This assignment has been commissioned by Fatima Bagherian. In order to do this assignment student must study the Unit 4 marketing principles. The goal of this assignment is that the student is able to: Explain how products are developed to sustain competitive advantage Explain how distribution is arranged to provide customer convenience Explain how prices are set to reflect an organization’s objectives and market conditions Illustrate how promotional activity is integrated to achieve marketing objectives Analyse the additional elements of the extended marketing mix Plan marketing mixes for two different segments in consumer markets Illustrate differences in marketing products and services to businesses rather than consumers Show how and why international marketing differs from domestic marketing 3 Methodology Method used in gathering useful information for this assignments was done mainly by using data provided on internet. Some parts were cited from a book which...
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...Strategic Management: Principles and Practice Case Study B: Amazon 1) Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1995. By 2008, Amazon had truly become a global company with a market capitalization of some US$29.4 billion and 20,700 employees. Its success has been based on a critical success factor consisting of constant technological innovation. This strong sustainable competitive advantage has been placed side by side with a continual effort in catering for the needs of Amazon’s different customer groups. Barriers to Entry If we analyze the online retailing industry according to Porter’s five forces framework, we can state that the industry presents high barriers of entry in terms of technological knowledge/experience and distribution channels. More specifically, the expensive start-up (or switching) and maintenance costs of equipment and expertise often deter new entrants in e-retail business. In terms of government regulation, the online retailing industry may face some issues with national authority restrictions, as is the case of China with the social networking site Facebook, as well as compliance issues on data protection and privacy. On the other hand, the industry presents low barriers in terms of the ease with which an online retailing store can differentiate their products and services offered to a new market. Nonetheless, if the start-up company lacks the technical capabilities and proprietary resources in establishing itself, penetration in such a market is more difficult than...
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...Amazon Evolution Amazon is a Fortune 500 company and is the global leader in e-commerce. They have expanded significantly their product offerings, international sites, worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers. Amazon offers everything from books and electronics to tennis rackets and diamond jewelry. Technological innovation has driven the growth of Amazon, offering customers more types of products, the luxury of convenience, and even lower prices. Big-name retailers 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 also leverage Amazon as an incremental sales channel for their new merchandise; enabling to find products from top retailers across the Amazon site. Amazon has come along way from its humble beginning; their evolving with a mission to create new technologies, expand into more geographies and continue to improve the lives of shoppers and sellers around the world. With evolution within a company comes change; these changes generally stem from the company’s core platform, competition, and business in general. Amazon has been very successful in all of their accomplishments; with all of these accomplishments Amazon is trying to evolve. Amazon is expanding the possibilities in a variety of businesses ventures; Amazon is venturing toward a more a web-based search engine and service provider instead...
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...1. Introduction Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is an e-commerce company founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, a former vice-president of a Wall Street firm and also a graduate from Princeton University. The company is currently the largest online retailer in the US and also the world’s biggest retailer by market value. Under the leadership of Jeff Bezos, the company that started as a website that sold only books, Amazon.com would eventually grow to become a retailer that sells over 200 million products, categorised into 35 departments. The company is now seen as one of the most innovative and valuable brands in the world. (Forbes, 2015) 2. Measurement of Amazon.com Success For a business, the best way of measuring success would be to analyse the company’s financial status. Profitability might be the most important measurement of corporate success as it greatly affects the organisation’s competiveness and continuance of the organisation. But in this age of doing business, companies can no longer measure themselves based only on financial perspective. For this report, we will take a more qualitative view and also track the company’s non-financial measures such as brand image, market share, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction to better analyse the success of Amazon.com. 2.1 The Balanced Scorecard Balanced scorecard methodology is an analysis technique designed to translate an organization's mission statement and overall business strategy into specific, quantifiable goals...
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...ACTIVITY –BASED COSTING (ABC) IN SERVICE INDUSTRIES Name: Ira Suri Date: April 23, 2016 Class Name: ACC 560: Managerial Accounting Professor Name: Professor Jones Olajide Abstract This paper explores Activity- based costing in Amazon Company, which is predominantly considered to be a forerunner in online retailing. It offers comprehensive range of products like books, CDs, videos, DVDs, electronics, toys, tools, home furnishings and housewares, apparel, and kitchen gadgets. It has evolved over the years and through this paper we shall evaluate how a time driven ABC cost system can be implemented in Amazon and how will it provide a competitive edge to the company in the market space it maneuvers in and subsequent impact of the business performance. Also, the paper will assess the latent impact of time- driven ABC costing on services provided online with those delivered through traditional channels. Amazon.com Amazon is one of the biggest online retailing companies, which deals in an innumerable collection of products like books, Cd.s, Dvd’s, shoes, clothing, home furnishings, hardware, music and what not. Amazon’s vision is to be globe's supreme consumer centric business; to construct an abode where individuals can uncover and discern everything they might desire to acquire online.” Amazon.com also retails goods from renowned dealers involving Virgin Wines, Hotwire, Toysrus.com Inc., Target, The Borders group, Circuit City Stores Inc., Waterstones, Expedia...
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...Amazon case study analysis ---- Jiachuang Sun 1. Review of Amazon’s strategy between 2007 and 2009 Strategic analysis Profiling the business: ➢ Mission: Amazon’s mission is 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 price[1]. ➢ Product/service analysis: Since the establishment of Amazon, new products has been kept adding into the original book category and Amazon has moved further to provide service. There are three product categories in Amazon, media category, electronic and general merchandise category and other category like Amazon web service and Amazon Enterprise Solution. This means you can buy almost everything from Amazon. ➢ Sales and gross profit analysis: The net sales growth of Amazon in year 2007 and 2008 was in average 30% and the total sales in 2008 was $19166m. In the same time, the gross profit grew from $3353m in 2007 to $4270 in 2008. Actually, both the sales and profits grew quickly since 2001 and they seemed to grow at a quicker way. External environment analysis ➢ Opportunities and threats: • Opportunities: to further improve the speed of delivery; international expansion in emerging markets such as China and India; extension of brands into new areas; through acquisitions and partnership to consolidate Amazon’s technological capability...
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...which services and goods move from the vendor to the consumer. As we have learned in class, the channel can be direct, directly from the vendor to the consumer, or there can be intermediaries and several connections, such as wholesaler, distributor, agents, and retailers. The distribution channel is also referred to as the marketing channel. Michael Porter defines competitive advantage as the ability of one firm to outperform its rivals by establishing a difference and preserving it. The results of having an advantage over other firms in the market are more customers which lead to higher sales and more profits. Product offered, firm’s cost structure, consumer support and distribution network are examples of ways in gaining competitive advantage in the market. Rosenbloom define sustainable competitive advantage as “a competitive edge that cannot be quickly or easily copied by competitors. In recent years, it has become far more difficult for companies to attain such an advantage through product, price, and promotion strategies” (Rosenbloom, 2004). Another way for firms to gain competitive advantage is through their distribution channel by using Porter’s Five Forces (rivalry, threat of substitutes, buyer power, supplier power, and threat of new entrants and entry barriers). We will be focusing on strategic alliance and direct channel. Strategic alliance is defined as the relationship created between firms where their knowledge is combined to increase sales and reduce...
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...organization. These companies face large risks by doing this, but the payout can be vastly beneficial to the brick and mortar side of business. One company that has taken advantage of the internet to conduct business is Amazon.com. Through the use of the E-commerce, Amazon.com has positioned itself to becoming a household name. To gain an understanding at how Amazon.com has managed to accomplish this, their history should be understood, the regulations, issues and opportunities should be reviewed and the website experiences should also be explored. Once these are done, the phenomenon that Amazon.com is today can be grasped and understood. History of Amazon Amazon is the largest online e-business in America founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Bezos. Amazon original worked as an online bookstore branching into clothing, gourmet food, watches, jewelry, baby product, apparel, and many other products by 1999. To keep up with changing times and competition Amazon developed their prime service. Amazon prime released in 2005 gave customers the option of fast delivery by paying on flat rate each month. America was the birth place of Amazon, but Amazon has now spread too many markets like Japan, France, The United Kingdom, and Germany with plans to expand to other markets in the future. According to "The History of Amazon" (2016), “Amazon also experimented with online auctioning forging an unsuccessful partnership with Sotheby’s but was unable to break eBay’s stranglehold on this...
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