Social and technological forces are the final two components of macroeconomics and the two external influences affecting industry (Parnell, 2014). Thus, social forces include: societal values, trends, traditions, religious practices, and concern for the environment (Bethel, 2016). Whereas, technological forces primary factor is the internet, but focuses on scientific improvements and innovations too (Bethel, 2016). While all four forces affect industry, the social and technological factors seem to hold the greatest influence on products and services offered by organizations. Another key tool used by many organizations is environmental scanning. Virtually, there are dozens, if not more, industry media, which collects and analyzes information …show more content…
A better question would be, what did we do before Amazon? Funny, the answer is you went shopping! Yes, each of us got into the car, went to the mall, library, or other venue to obtain the product of our desire. To some, that probably sounds so antiquated, but that was the practice for the last 50 or so years. Now, traditional retailers are plagued with the concept of online shopping and how to gain impulse sales from consumers online. This year, for the first time, Amazon held Black Friday shopping a full week ahead of the traditional sale day, which put other retailers at a serious disadvantage (Alba, 2015). According to Steve Shure, Vice President of Consumer Marketing, “Customers can truly sit back and relax with their family and friends this holiday season knowing that they will be notified as soon as the products they’ve had their eye on are about to go on sale” (Alba, 2015, para. 4). Undoubtedly, Amazon.com is a direct result of social …show more content…
Clearly, “Amazon is poised to integrate itself in Americans ' lives in ways that no other company is capable” (Matthews, 2012, para. 1). Notably, Amazon has been heavily ingrained in technology, innovation, and retail for years; they developed and expanded their business based on getting the products from the person who wants to sell to the person who wants to buy (Matthews, 2012). Comparatively, Amazon is the 56th largest company in America, the 15th biggest retailer in America by revenue, and by far the largest Internet retailer (Matthews, 2012). In 2014, their revenue topped at $89 million (Amazon.com, 2015). Technological factors and environmental scanning are evident and thriving at Amazon. “In rapidly changing environments, one rule of thumb applies: If you don 't adapt, you don 't endure” (Dalton, 2011, para. 2). Last year, Amazon surpassed Wal-Mart as a retailer. Recently, Amazon has responded to productivity trends, such as: a tool to continuously measure individual performance, a tool to measure relationships between employers and employees, and a tool to measure global competition (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015). However, a huge negative for Amazon is their lack of ability to maintain stable relationships with their employees. A must read article in the New York Times was quite verbose concerning the ruthlessness and uncaring relationship Amazon has with its greatest asset,
History”, n.d.). But the unbelievable pace at which Amazon added new products and new customers proved to be a formidable barrier for any competitors. Within the first 10 years Amazon accomplished an unbelievable feat; it had 49 million customers and 6.9 billion dollars in revenue, and it had done so by selling some products at a loss to build market share (Rivlin, 2005). At times it was difficult leveraging so much capital to grow market share, but Jeff Bezos’ focus on the customer and long term growth of the company proved to be the real reason Amazon didn’t fall prey to the .com bust like so many other internet
Amazon has Corporate Governance, which includes a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. This code addresses twelve different aspects of their business including, compliance with laws, rules, and regulations, conflicts of interest, insider trading policy, discrimination and harassment, health and safety, price fixing, bribery, recordkeeping, and financial integrity, questions, periodic certification, board of directors, and waivers. Basic guiding principles of how their employees should conduct business in reference to these aspects are included in the descriptions. While these guidelines are kept quite brief, extra emphasis is placed on Conflicts of Interest. A heightened sense of concern is placed on whether employees use their personal benefits on family members or affiliates and if position in the company or relationships with outside affiliates interferes with employee’s objective business judgment. A common theme found throughout this code is an emphasis on cautionary business, including many laws that employees are expected to comply with to ensure that they do not interfere...
Amazon.com operates in the Online Retail Industry. The sector is one of the fastest growing globally and is outperforming the ordinary retail marketplace. It was created after 1995 and it was only the Internet that made it possible for such an industry not only to be established but to become one of the most flourishing sectors in the business environment. What is interesting is that Amazon.com, together with eBay is the pioneer in the field. Both companies were launched in 1995 and are still extremely successful. The creation of e-mail in 1996 had a huge impact on the development of online retail by introducing a fast and easy way to communicate with customers. For this two-year period Internet usage doubled annually, thus, allowing for the expansion of the industry. Google is launched a year later, in 1998, only to become the most used search engine in the world and an essential partner for the online retailers by helping them tailor their websites to customer’s personal preferences and by advertising. After that, more and more people see the opportunity in the growing industry and enter it. By 2001 there are more than 513 million Internet users globally, which calls for action in terms of creating regulations and laws to protect the users and personal property. In 2003, Apple launches iTunes, and provides a platform for low-cost digital downloads. Another major change is the appearance of social media from 2004, which is one of the biggest influencer on the state of the industry. With the launch of iPhone in 2007, this trend strengthens as people get to enjoy the Internet anywhere they want to. From then on, technological advancements have made it extremely easy and fun to shop online, making it ...
Treanor, T.. (2010). Amazon: Love Them? Hate Them? Let's Follow the Money. Publishing Research Quarterly, 26(2), 119-128. Retrieved February 24, 2012, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry. (Document ID: 2377177581).
In the article “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Ideas in a Bruising Workplace” by Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld, both authors noted Amazon’s business and work strategy as harsh and strict but rewarding and life-changing at the same time. Apparently, Amazon’s business model focuses on harsh and strict regulations to keep employees more motivated, productive, and innovative. In comparison to other companies who values benefits and positive reinforcement for their workers, Amazon values constant productivity for improvement and growth and compensation as a competitive aspect in workplace. Many people may see this business strategy and the company as harsh and a horrifying experience; however, I believe and agree that this strategy
Amazon’s macro-environment is made up of six external factors: political, economic, environmental, technological, social, and legal conditions. These factors are important because they shape how the company operates and you must know each piece to be able to compete within the retail and eCommerce industry. An evolving political factor are the efforts the government has made toward punishing offenders of cyber-crime. This kind of thief wasn’t walking into your store, but hacking into your computer. This type of crime wasn’t possible before the internet. The government has started to take these crimes more serious as technology evolves. Technology is a factor that Amazon.com must invest heavily in. They are reliant on having top of the line technology to survive against cyber-crime and to stay relevant in the tech world. ECommerce is everywhere now and competition is very high. This brings in legal conditions; Amazon must know what laws exist in which countries because they are a
If an employee is not accessible, it could lead to negative ramifications from the management team, no matter the toll, physical or emotional. The scathing article was shared with Amazon employees and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, which denies these allegations. In a memo shared with his staff, Bezos encourages employees to read the negative report. Any type of behavior describing these abusive actions were encourage to be reported to Human Resources or directly to the CEO (Cook, 2015). How can this damaging reputation be remedied? The purpose of this case study, through business analysis, will provide recommendations how to improve the employee culture at Amazon.com.
A usual work day at Amazon is busy with non-stop problem-solving and process improvement. The pace is quick and the work challenging. Organizational discipline, time-management skills and the ability to dive into something without a clear solution, in order to determine the best way forward are necessary qualities for a successful employee. Bezos has often been criticized for his unusual leadership style but more often praised on his ingenuity in the growth of Amazon. His leadership style is said to be unconventional, and sometimes ruthless. With a clear focus on where he is going, he micromanages his team. He has a history of managing his team in an autocratic manner within a closed systems approach. Open systems theory
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).
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.com was a venture into an emerging market of internet and had to face hidden and unexpected hurdles in order to survive and excel in the market. Therefore, Amazon.com kept modifying its strategies with their focus on enhancing customer experience of online shopping and to delivery exceptional services with complete convenience to their customers. One of the major strategic decisions was to compromise on cost saving stragegy when Amazon.com started to maintain its own warehouses in different countries in order to ensure timely and accurate delivery to their customers
Amazon’s also tried to spearhead the industry by introducing the customer-pleasing traits in terms of the technology, order fulfillment and retailing strategies categori...
Amazon is best 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. Professionalism: Amazon has grown to become the largest internet-based retailer in the world by total sales. It began as primarily an online bookstore and soon began to sell more and more electronics and then over time began to sell pretty much anything. In 1998, Amazon earned about $0.6 billion, which held steady growth from 1998-2006 (“Amazon.com”).
Amazon has recorded a magnificent success in its business throughout the years that it has been in operation. It has attracted almost all people to use it when necessary. Amazon has built its success in business methodically and slowly. Amazon has made much success because of its ability to read market trends and diversify its operations. It started as an online book selling company. However, it changed its operations and started selling other products. Currently, many large retail shops use Amazon to host and power their websites, for instance, sears and virgin megastores. Amazon now attracts over fifty million visitors in a period of one month. Amazon has tried to make their services fit each individual user. It has based its services on the end user. It has shipping discounts, customer product reviews and a credit card with bonuses. It also has prime membership, product forums and 1-click ordering system among other services. The company has tried to make a remarkable experience for customers and visitors (Thomas, 2006).
Part 1: Introduction The purpose of this assignment is to explain how environmental factors influence the marketing decisions of Amazon.com Inc. We will examine the SWOT and PESTLE analysis, segmentation, targeting, cost and benefits, and positioning strategies implemented by the company. Amazon is the world's largest online retailer, founded in 1994 as an online bookstore. It quickly expanded its catalog to include software, video games, electronics, furniture, food, toys, and more. 2.1 Macro and Micro Environmental Factors There are two types of environmental factors that can influence a business's marketing decisions: macro and micro.