Introduction
This final paper discusses a business leader who has developed incredible traits in the area of leadership. The leader in this particular business has shown time after time that his leadership skills have proven anything short of success. Amazon.com is the leading e-commerce companies out there in the worldwide market today. Amazon was established and founded by savvy business man Jeff Bezos in ’95. One of his achievements was in obtaining an honor degree, Bachelor of Science in Engineering in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University in 1986. Successively graduating from Princeton Jeff, had various occupations such as with Wall Street, International Trade a company called Fitel and last but not least, Banker Trust where he became the vice president due to his remarkable computer and Finance skills. Furthermore Amazon.com, was set in motion when Jeff decided to drive cross country from New York City to Seattle Washington, it was during this road trip that Jeff Bezos, put his business plan together for Amazon.com online bookstore. Bezos attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of In 82’; Bezos won an award given by the Miami Harold called the Silver Knight Award, an award that recognizes students for their good grades and being able to apply their skills that are unique to help local schools and communities. Bezos views on leadership in business w...
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...plays courage and confidence in his vision and ideas. Jeff Bezos ability to always make sure his company current
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As well as his fascinating ability to change industries is what paves the way for Amazon to have future success.
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References
(2010) American Academy of Achievement. Retrieved from http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/bez0bio-1 Lagesse, D. (2008). America’s Best Leaders: Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/bestleaders/articles/2008/11/19/americas-best-leaders-jeff-bezos-amazoncom-ceo
Tadjer, R. (1996) “Redefining Inventory” – With 1.1 Million Books for Sale, Amazon.com is
Virtually Unbeatable”. CommunicationsWeek
Looking at Bezos’s business model from an entrepreneurial standpoint is very interesting. He decided to take a very unique approach to business and in doing so he took some big risks to get where he is today. For a company like Amazon that is constantly pushing the boundaries and moving into new territory one could do a SWAT analysis for nearly every year they have been in business and it would look drastically different. For now I want to retrospectively focus on the initial plan that Bezos laid out and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that came with it.
For our business profile project, we focused on Amazon. Amazon.com Inc. was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Amazon was first started in Bezos ' garage and has turned into a billion dollar operation over the course of 22 years (Smith). Amazon is currently headquartered in Seattle, Washington and has branch locations all over the world. Amazon is most known for their kindle, fast shipping, and selling various products (Smith). With Amazon being such a large corporation professionalism, academics, character, and engagement are crucial parts of the success of the company.
Customer service is paramount at Amazon and Bezos consistently reminds employees that their focus needs to consider the impact and feeling of the consumer. He is known to be an outside the box thinking daring to be bold and go against the norm. Utilizing drones to reduce delivery times while minimizing costs display Bezos focus on customers and stakeholders (Amazon Prime Air, n.d.). Bezos is a task-oriented transactional leader, who Brad Stone in his book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon”, described Bezos as a micromanager who does not value the opinion of his employees (Stone, 2013). These individuals excel in achieving goals and positive outcomes but need improvement in human relations. Bezos tends to be bold and brash and not warm and fuzzy, and empathy is a critical component to others buying into your vision (Schwartz, 2015). He often becomes frustrated at his employees and berates them publicly; an unusual approach for an individual who built an amazing company. A company built on fear and stress looks beautiful from the outside but internally could quickly collapse if Bezos does not address his communications approach. Corporate culture is vital to the long-term future of business and Bezos needs to recognize how he leads the internal customer will translate over to the external consumer. Managing through fear and
Jeff Bezo’s began Amazon in his garage in July 1995 with three Sun workstations setting on wooden doors for tables and extension cords running from everywhere (Academy of Achievement, 2010). Right from the beginning he was a visionary leaving his well paying job as a senior vice president with D. E. Shaw to begin Amazon.com (Academy of Achievement, 2010). Being the visionary that he is he saw an opportunity prompted by the huge growth rate of internet use in a single year and ran with it never looking back. Jeff realized that the internet had “no real commerce to speak of” so he began researching possible businesses (Academy of Achievement, 2010). “After reviewing 20 mail order businesses and deciding which could be conducted more efficiently over the internet than by traditional means he decided on books” (Academy of Achievement, 2010). He thought books were perfect because attempting to send huge catalogs for all the available books would be expensive and cumbersome, but an online resource database that was easy to navigate would provide customers with easy access and a single point from which to shop. “In 30 days, with no press, Amazon had sold books in all 50 states and 45 foreign countries, obviously by the success of Amazon he was right (Academy of Achievement, 2010). In a case study written by Javad Kargar called “Amazon.com in 2003” he stated that “Amazon's online store was a big hit, with about $5 million in the first year of operations” (2004). This huge success so quickly would have confirmed for Jeff that his idea was viable and drove him to continue to strive for more. Jeff Bezo’s charismatic-visionary leadership is the key to his and Amazon’s success.
Launched by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com website started in 1995 and is today considered as one of the most prominent retail website on the internet with a record turnover of US$ 14.87 billion in 2007. Jeff Bezos’s intention was to create an internet based company with the most dedicated product portfolio on the internet where customers could find anything they might want. Amazon’s success is based on technology, services and products (Jens et al., 2003).
In chapter eleven case study, we were asked, What special qualities of Steve Jobs seem to have contributed to his leadership success as Apple’s CEO? We think Steve Jobs was a successful leader because he was imaginative; passionate about his job, he had the ability to push employees to create new things, had confidence, and believed
For everyone in the business world, Mark Zuckerberg is a well-known name to them. He is an undeniably young, successful businessman. However, Zuckerberg is also a very successful leader in his own company as well as in the world. His impact from creating Facebook is more than just impressive. Zuckerberg created the social media website where people get connected virtually and led the company to incredible success. Zuckerberg’s leadership style can be seen with inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and idealized influence. With all the aforementioned components, Mark Zuckerberg is a great example of transformational leadership.
Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns many different companies, is one of the most successful business leaders of our time. According to Howard (2014), he is the second richest American, coming in at a net worth of over $70 billion. Besides his personal net worth, Berkshire Hathaway is the fifth-most valuable public company in the United States at $350 billion (Howard, 2014). While he is clearly a very wise investor, Warren Buffett is also a successful leader. As stated by Spindler (2010), leadership is a crucial part of any successful business, and good leadership is what Mr. Buffett portrays. The analysis given in this paper will show Warren Buffett’s values and leadership qualities, his leadership style, as well as looking into his influence he has on his followers.
Technology has played a huge role in how companies today conduct business with their consumers. Over the past few decades there has been a shift in business models and strategies because of the emerging innovation in technology. One of these innovation are e-commerce, businesses that use e-commerce can now see a major difference in sales and revenue. Amazon has taken the idea of e-commerce and turned it into a successful and profitable business. Amazon Company developed a brilliant strategy for emerging into an already competitive market. This entails the revision of an existing concept. Unlike major companies like Apple, Microsoft that invented new products and services, Amazon did not need to create a whole new product but to create a better business model system that can be used in the future. This helped their rise to fame by taking over an existing idea but improving it to match consumer needs and wants. Overall companies will need to develop better business strategies to be able to evolve into e-commerce industry moving forward.
Jeffrey Bezos, the founder and current CEO of Amazon.com, initially started the company as an online bookstore in 1994. Within several months, Amazon spread its operation to all 50 states and abroad. Presently, customers from over 45 countries buy at Amazon. Over a short period of time, the company expanded sales to electronics, video games, software, CDs, DVDs, MP3 downloads, food, furniture, apparel, jewelry, and toys. Today, the company even produces its own products such as the Kindle series. Also, Amazon.com is one of the major providers of cloud computing services. Currently, the company is the largest global online retailer responsible for 20% of online retail market share.
When Amazon.com first began in 1995, as strictly a book retailer, Bezos knew he had discovered an excellent company. After all, a physical bookstore cannot stock anywhere close to the number of books Amazon can offer online. Within a year, the company had a customer base of approximately 340,000 consumers and daily site visits were huge as well. But Bezos wanted to expand the company to offer music and DVDs, because he realized there was little or no barrier of entry. In the next years Amazon would emerge as a marketplace, expanding the company globally offering products from toys to kitchenware. Because of the relatively cheap prices Amazon was offering and also the growing number of online shoppers, the company was doing tremendous amounts of sales and creating profits.
Amazon is one of the largest brands in the world, reporting $23.18 billion in sales last quarter. They operate with a customer-first mentality. This is clear in their mission statement, which is as follows: “We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators (Amazon).” Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos seeks to bring the highest quality products and most efficient services to their customers. According to critics of Amazon, Bezos’ goals have lent themselves to a
Amazon.com, Inc Company started in 1994 and featured online in 1995. The company has done extremely well in the market achieving remarkable success. Initially, Amazon was known as Cadabra. Inc. however, the name of the company changes when the owners of the company knew that people confused the name for cadaver. Jeff Bezos is credited for founding the company. The company has its base in the United States of America as a multinational e-commerce company. Its headquarters are in Seattle, Washington. It has been rated as the largest online retailing company, in the entire world. It has close to three times the sales revenue that staples, Inc made as a runner up, in January 2010 (Shire, 2008).
Deutschman, A. (2004, August). Inside The Mind Of Jeff Bezos. Fast Company, 85, 52-58. Retrieved from: http://www.fastcompany.com/50106/inside-mind-jeff-bezos
As it is written in the text he is also a good leader and he knows what he wants for his business, how to keep his employees and how to run his business for high profit.