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Table of Contents

1) Introduction of Amazon

2) Vision and Mission

3) Domestic and Global expansion

4) Strategic optimization

5) Competiveness (E-commerce)

6) Challenges

a.) Rapid growth

b.) International Risks/Regulations

c.) Business model change

7) Opportunities for growth

a) CRM system

b) SCM System

8.) Conclusion

Introduction

Business is a vast space that cannot easily be understood or explained in simple terms or a simple glare. None the less, many businesses have been able to capture a good portion of and on what business is. Thus, this study will be looking at one such case scenario, this study will focus more on the Amazon Company which is well known of being an online global retailer. This study will be reviewing the company’s mission, market strengths, some of the probable challenges it might experience as well as some of the possible growth opportunities the company has. From this review, this study will be able to understand a good portion of the online retailer business as well as what Amazon is all about along with the development of a convenient solution that is aimed at resolving some of the challenges facing Amazon.

Amazon

Amazon was founded in 1994 by the owner and CEO Jeff Bezos as an online book selling and renting site. Considering that this was at the start of the internet wave, Bezos further adjusted to accommodate the selling of other items from videos, music, games to furniture to technology. Amazon is also well known as the largest cloud computing company in the world that also has branched into Artificial Intelligence as well as the Internet of Things business that is vastly growing. The company is based in Seattle, Washington (Garner, 2018). Amazon is also well known as the largest and greatest internet retail company based of the revenues the company makes through its online businesses.

The company launched the Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002 which was used to monitor website activities (Bernstein, 2015). This service became very popular with a number of companies as they were able to regulate and understand the traffic as well as number of new visits their sites would have, thus, this offered room for better decision making. As a result of this, Amazon has end up acquiring Kiva Systems Company with the sole purpose of further expanding its technology franchise. As for the retail business Amazon is well known for, Bezos lead the company in the purchasing of the Whole Foods Market which is a leading American chain of supermarkets (Turner, Wang & Soper, 2017).

Vision and Mission

Amazon is a company that has always been known for its online customer client’s care and prime focus that allows customers to have a great experience while interacting with the website as well with the customer. None the less, according to the co-founder and CEO Bezos, the company’s mission and vision statements are more than words as they are more like guiding lines for the company as any decision that is made must align itself to the mission and vision as those are the main goals of the company in the long run. Amazon runs by the mission statement; ‘We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection,’ and the utmost convenience (Gregory, 2017).

This mission statement has resulted in Amazon developing its own in house delivery services and price comparison services that allow the customer to attain a high quality good at a price closer to home. ‘the company also runs under the vision statement; to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.’ (Gregory, 2017).This is basically the main vision that has made Amazon dive into the various businesses that it has along with offering different services and commodities on an online and free platform.

Market and Business expansion

Amazon is the largest and most globally spread online retail shop in the world and happens to be the second largest employer in the United States of America. However, the company fails to have any strong or significant physical presence as it is mostly an online business. None the less, Amazon happens to be ranked as the largest online retailer as well as business in the world as it grosses a total minimum of $232.9 billion (Garner, 2018).

Amazon has also managed to have an outstanding market capitalization status in the United States which is a clear representation of the value of the Amazon trade mark. The company happens to have attained a total of $802.3 billion in market capitalization making it the most traded retailer ever. On the global front, Amazon sells to more than 10 countries as it has fulfillment stations across 13 countries and operational call centers across 5 countries. This shows the global stretch in which the company has managed to attain (Garner, 2018).

However, the online retail business is slowly becoming thin as many new entrants are coming it not the line of business that Amazon has been milking. Competition from Alibaba, looming developments from Walmart, eBay and Google are making it a bit challenging for Amazon to ensure its continued successful runs. Thus, as a contingency and expansion plan, Amazon has been digging through its bag of tricks to develop new ways of holding and retaining its position in the online retail business. As a result of this, the company has developed the following expansion plans and strategies (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015):

1. Prime services: The prime services offered by Amazon are services that are meant to allow clients to have unlimited access to purchasing items on the Amazon website as well as being able to attain premium privileges such as being able to try out clothes or other commodities for a full week before paying for them.

2. Physical stores: Amazon aims at modernizing how physical stores operate by reducing the hustle of lines, mugging or other inconveniences by automating the art of buying and selling. This is done through the induction of the Internet of Things where ones, online bank account via their phones or smart devices can be able to make quick purchases through detecting which item has been picked of the shelf and the consumer can simply walk out of the supermarket. First and foremost, Amazon has been able to purchase the Whole Foods Market chain of stores in order to expand the customer reach.

3. Anytime by Amazon: Amazon has been developing an artificial intelligent messaging software that can be able to interact with the human interface as a fellow interface and be able to sway emotion and choices made.

4. The food sector: Considering that the food sector I one that Is highly not going to end any time soon, Amazon looks at tapping into the market needs of the rising cooks, chefs and many individuals who would want to try out new methods of cooking or forms of preparing a meal. This will allow Amazon to be able to deliver a complete selection of the different amenities and ingredients that are needed by an individual to make any time of meal they end up choosing (Romani, de São Pedro Filho, da Silva, de Melo & Patil-Dake, 2017).

5. Major partnerships: over the years, the mental capacity of many consumers has only been able to identify with that which is well known, represented, advertised or recommended. This is consequently as a result of trust and unquestionable trademarks that are close to the hearts and minds of many. Therefore, as an expansion strategy, Amazon aims at partnering up with such companions and their products which will be old and promoted via the Amazon line of business. Not only will Amazon be able to tap into the market spaces of the different brands such as Nike, Amazon will be able to have enough capital to support physical stores and the many technically advanced features it is developing.

Strategic Optimization

There are two main strategic optimization that can be used by Amazon to better its returns with minimal expenses and minimal changes to its current system. Considering that Amazon is a technology based company, the first strategic optimization method would be tapping into the social networking services which is more so of a free digital marketing space. From this, the company will be able to connect to more clients as well as be able to minimize the costs on advertisements which can be inversed into improving the chain of supply. The second strategy would be further improving on the currently offered search engine optimization strategies by inclusion of high end image qualities as well as video demonstrations (John, 2018).

Competitiveness

Competition as mentioned before is a new matter that is slowly on the rise, however, Amazon is still far ahead from its competitors as it has already managed to established an online platform that is broadcasting it on a global level and hat is diverse where by it is offering all the needed commodities. Some of its competition comes from Alibaba and eBay, however, the trust levels have been dropping from the two competitors as many of the items being sold tend to be generic and this offers breathing space for Amazon to further grow (Cherkesova, Breusova, Savchishkina & Demidova, 2016).

Challenges

Below is a collection of some of the core challenges that Amazon is facing on a daily basis as well as the potential risks that they pose in the long run (Daniel Kline, 2017):

a) Rapid Growth

Amazon is said to be growing at a 13% rate per annum and this is not a small number as the company is continually having more than 13 million people registering and more than 30 million going on Amazon on a daily basis in search of products and services as well as price consultation and an estimate 65 million rime subscribers across the globe. As a result of this, the company might end up losing focus on its attention to quality and detailing on the website such as price regulation and keeping track of traffic going into the site.

Not only this but rapid growth is also posing as a challenging as the company now requires to have more management levels and distributions which further increase the company’s expenditure. As the business further grows into new regions of the earth, the company is faced with the challenge of shipping costs which have always ben key to why Amazon is successful. This is as a result of the company’s ability to regulate and govern as well as coordinate its own shipping manifesto. However, this might pose as a problem when it moves on to other regions of the world.

b) International Risks/Regulations

The international scope is one that can offer unending market for a business but can also be a major dilemma if a single nation opts to publicly maim any company. Thus, Amazon faces the risks of locking out some of the trades and products on its website in particular nations as a result of political instability or as a result of cultural indifference. This is such a heavy duty task as it requires a well dedicated team that will be regulating the products being uploaded and being offered for show in a particular nation which further means that Amazon requires a local grasp of the region it is operation in.

However, considering that Amazon is more of an online dealer, it does not entirely adhere to the many stipulations, however it becomes a major risk when it comes to distribution of products and services in hostile territories.as the company scales new heights and regions on the international market, Amazon runs a great risk in being hacked, or having a large amount of data being lost. This is a risk that will always be on the rise as the company grows as well as interacts with other international entities such as shipping companies or continuously take in more traffic which can easily lead to undetected intrusions.

c) Business model change

Amazon business model is one that is highly focused on diversification of revenue, resources and labor as well as technology with the aim of developing several financial streams. By having over 20 different independent yet connected businesses across different industries, Amazon has become an ecosystem in terms of business and revenue development.

Opportunities for growth

a) CRM systems

Amazon has a great advantage over its upcoming competition as well as the physically available competition as it has a larger and resourceful digital and technologically advanced space. Therefore, Amazon can be able to develop a smart Customer Relationship Management system that can be able to keep track of all consumer needs, wants, suggestions and desirable aspects. This piece of system can be interlinked with the currently available anytime by Amazon which is a messaging app that conducts a digital survey on customers’ preferences (Ahmed, Amroush & Maati, 2019).

However, the system further compiles the data and presents a digital print out of the final remarks instead of storing big data that can prove to be challenging to understand in later times. Thus, from the digital survey, Amazon can be able to improve on its decision making in terms of supply and marketing keying in all the findings made in order to improve the consumer experiences. The system can also further be linked to various search engines and under a well-developed SEO, Amazon can easily track its trend across different platforms where all the data can be compiled under the CRM systems.

b) SCM SYSTEMS

As mentioned before, expansion is proving to be a major migraine for the largest online retailer in the world as it seems to be applying its old supply chain model in its ever expanding business. The business still offers free shipping to some of its products and reduces the high prices of shipping on many other products as well with the aim of making the customers view the services and products as pocket friendly. However, this is not proving to be the case as Amazon has to cater for the remaining balance in shipping.

Therefore, the best move Amazon has is investing in Supply Chain Management system. Basically, with the vast resources Amazon has, it has the ability of acquiring its own supply chain company that will be tailored to the supply of the products from the company. By managing the supply chain, Amazon will be able to regulate the supply prices as it may as it will have the right management strategy at hand as well as the ability to supply that which is needed (Nettsträter, Geißen, Witthaut, Ebel & Schoneboom, 2015).

Conclusion

In conclusion, Amazon needs to set up a number of departments that will be able to manage and coordinate the ever developing sectors of the business especially the supply sector. This also requires the company to further improve its international relations so as to be able to ship commodities across different borders and regions. None the less, Amazon is a well-developed company that has not yet reached its full growth rate as it still has more room left for improvement, but only if it reduces on its many diversification strategies and combining most of its businesses in order to reduce the hustle of management and coordination.

References

Ahmed, B. S., Amroush, F., & Maati, M. B. (2019). The Intelligence of E-CRM Applications and Approaches on Online Shopping Industry. In Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship (pp. 70-82). IGI Global.

Amazon, E. C. (2015). Amazon web services. Available in: http://aws. amazon. com/es/ec2/(November 2012).

Bernstein, D. (2015). Is Amazon Becoming the New Cool Software Company for Developers?. IEEE Cloud Computing, 2(1), 69-71.

Cherkesova, E. Y., Breusova, E. A., Savchishkina, E. P., & Demidova, N. E. (2016). Competitiveness of the human capital as strategic resource of innovational economy functioning. Journal of Advanced Research in Law and Economics, 7(7 (21)), 1662-1667.

Daniel B. Kline, (2017). The Motley Fool. Retrieved 5 April, 2019, from https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/24/this-is-what-amazon-worries-about.aspx

Garner, B. A. (2018). Amazon in the Global Market. Journal of Marketing and Management, 9(2), 63-73.

Gregory, L. (2017). Amazon. com Inc.'s Vision Statement & Mission Statement (An Analysis). Panmore Institute, 12.

John, R. R. (2018). Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. By Jonathan Taplin. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2017. 321 pp. Figures, notes, index. Cloth, $19.72. ISBN: 978-0-316-27577-4. Business History Review, 92(1), 191-193.

Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace. New York Times, 15, 74-80.

Nettsträter, A., Geißen, T., Witthaut, M., Ebel, D., & Schoneboom, J. (2015). Logistics software systems and functions: an overview of ERP, WMS, TMS and SCM systems. In Cloud Computing for Logistics (pp. 1-11). Springer, Cham.

Romani, A. R., de São Pedro Filho, F., da Silva, J. B., de Melo, J. V., & Patil-Dake, J. (2017). Family Farming in Amazon: Solution to Food and Regional Competitiveness. In Inequality, Poverty and Development in India (pp. 407-422). Springer, Singapore.

Turner, N., Wang, S., & Soper, S. (2017). Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 Billion. Bloomberg Technology.