Amazon Company on a Global Platform
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Organization Description
Amazon began just as a website selling electronic books and later upgraded into a global business entity (Robischon 2017). Today it is an enormous e-commerce enterprise dealing with almost every kind of products and services offered through the internet. Such products include movies, housewares, toys, electronics, and many more goods. They also act as intermediary retailers between other globalized companies to other retailers or customers directly. The company serves millions of customers whom they provide a variety of services, mainly cloud computing services for storage and renting of resources. Cloud computing services are offered through the internet and nowhere else. Internet is the main reason why Amazon.com showed its prowess of serving a larger population; it serves all the customers in every continent of the globe because of the global platform (Robischon 2017). The journey towards globalization began when the Amazon became a platform for 1 percent of the North American population, and popularity sailed to all countries in Europe, the rest of the American continent, Africa and Asia. The company has well been considered a leader in the sales of kindle e-book. The devices’ promotion caused massive growth due to the demand for e-books; thus, it became the biggest publisher for e-books. Even though Amazon began as a bookselling enterprise, according to the founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon was merely a technology company whose aims were to enhance online transactions. The company’s strategy was met with skepticism because critics believed that the company would be a loser in the end. Today, Amazon is beyond retailing. The brand image is on the global customers’ view; globalization began after Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched cloud-computing services (Robischon 2017).
Amazon as a Differentiator in the global market
Amazon’s exceptional and outstanding products and services make it a differentiator in the market. The launching of AWS was not a justification for a simple global cloud-computing platform but of different paradigms such as Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2), which was specifically designed for the sale of computer processing power –software as a service (SaaS) functionality (Jacquemart et al. 2019). In the same year when EC2 was launched, the company strategized for data storage paradigm; simple storage service (S3), which enable users to get data storage services over the cloud –Infrastructure as a service (IaaS). The construction of S3 and EC2 caused the company to popularize its brand image because, with advanced technology, cloud computing is a major contribution to the digital world (Jacquemart et al., 2019). This is a pure indication that Amazon enlarged its territory from selling mere products to advanced computer services. Through cloud computing, users of the services realized that they do not need to permanently buy computer services when they can only rent at affordable prices. Other companies also use Amazon Web Services to sell their products; for example, Netflix uses both EC2 and S3 to sell movies since they offer efficient video streaming services. Despite expansion beyond online retailing, Amazon’s bigger revenue comes from sales of online products, but most of the profits are generated from the AWS; much of the company’s investment targets AWS (Cho 2019). Many e-books are sold online, but Amazon.com uniquely focused on selling Kindle e-readers that target young children. They perfectly segmented the global market to popularize the company and, at the same time, maximize profits.
Amazon Company Resources
The common resources are the human resources, individuals employed by the company; they include sales and marketing team, sales intermediaries, information and technology team, the executives and management team, the quality control and assurance resources. Besides human resources, Amazon also has its key physical resources such as the warehouses (the fulfillment centers) and resources for the supply chain automation (Cho 2019). The technological and cloud-computing AWS infrastructure is the most important physical resource because it cannot run without them. To lay more emphasis on human resources, Amazon has its software engineers that design, build, maintain, and upgrade the online infrastructure to succeed in the e-commerce business (Cho 2019). Other very important resources of the Amazon Company are the transport and logistic resources such as freights, cargo carriers, couriers, and flight services. Computer servers also serve as key resources for communication and transaction purposes.
Amazon Operational Excellence
Amazon’s operational excellence is achieved through its design principles and best practices. Operation of performance as code is a design principle, especially for cloud computing services (Jacquemart et al., 2019). For example, Amazon application codes can as well be used in cloud infrastructure engineering. Amazon workers are advised to make changes, whether small, frequent, or reversible. To make online services efficient, it is advisable to refine operation procedures as frequently as possible. Failure anticipation will enable service and online product providers to prevent mistakes during operations, and finally, they learn from operational mistakes. The company’s best practices, such as sharing business goals, ensure the business’s success (Robischon 2017). Business defined priorities enable Amazon to maximize profits.
References
Robischon, N. O. A. H. (2017). Why Amazon is the world’s most innovative company of 2017. Fast Company Magazine, 2.
Cho, J. (2019). Amazon. Com, Inc.
Jacquemart, Q., Vitali, A., & Urvoy-Keller, G. (2019). Measuring the Amazon Web Services (AWS) WAN Infrastructure