Amazon services inc.: Using knowledge to drive customer growth

Résumé du document

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American Company founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos at Seattle. The company started as an online bookstore. In 1995, books were shipped to 50 states and 40 countries but soon the company expanded. It started selling a wider range of products. Its range of products doesn't include only books but also apparels and accessories, electronics, sporting goods, gourmet food, computers, kitchens, toys and so on. It is spread geographically with its websites in the UK, France, Germany, Canada and Japan.
The company went public in 1997. Today Amazon.com, Inc is "the largest retailer on the web, selling almost anything from A to Z" with 35 million customers around the world. To highlight its presence, Amazon changed its logo with an arrow leading from A to Z, showing the desire to sell a variety of products. Amazon.com attracted at least 615 million of visitors annually by 2008, according to a survey. We can consider three main steps in the development of Amazon.com: Creation of Amazon.com, real library with a round the clock access on all days of the week, and reach of the brand. From a simple library it became a real supermarket, thanks to an important personalization and customer loyalty. Also, Amazon launched Amazon Web services, Inc in 2003, which is a consulting subsidiary offering e-commerce expertise to merchant retailers.

Extraits

[...] The strategic service vision attempts to integrate operative and marketing functions at all levels of customer contact. There are 4 important elements: 1. target market segment 2. service concept 3. operating strategy 4. service delivery system As explained before, Amazon offers two services so two different strategic service visions: a. Amazon as a E-retailer b. Amazon as a web service provider Let see the different strategic service visions in details Target market segment The goal is create groups of people on the market who have common characteristics to better serve their needs. [...]

[...] Amazon as a web service provider 3. Codify an operating strategy 4. Service delivery system III. What are the pros and cons for Amazon in selling its technology and know how to third parties-many of whom are competitors? Conclusion and recommendations The Company Amazon.com, Inc. is an American Company founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos at Seatlle (USA). The company started as an on-line bookstore. In 1995, books were shipped to 50 states and 40 countries but soon the company expanded: - First with a wider range of products. [...]

[...] So the technology expertise business for Amazon is good opportunity for it to grow the business further. Conclusion & recommendations A lot of factors let think that in the futur Amazon will still be successful. First of all, they have a long term profit approach. Even if Amazon was found in 1994, the company had their first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001 with 5 millions. While many companies have failed trying to get profit in a short time, Amazon invested in a long term vision building the basis of their success. [...]

[...] Amazon doesn't profile by attitudes or psychographics, they just want to know what do you like. Consequently, we can say that in the same time, Amazon personalized the segmentation. This can be summarized by this sentence of Bezos: we have million customers, we should have 4,5 million stores” b. Amazon as a web service provider One this other hand, Amazon as a web service provider, clearly target merchant retailer who want to create or improve their on-line sales offerings. Either they have already an e-commerce website but failed in some points or they want to create one but they don't have the technology to do it. [...]

[...] There is a debate about Amazon selling its technology and know how to retailers many of whom are competitors. On one hand some people think that Amazon should confine itself to selling books and CDs on-line and should not sell its services to other competitors. Indeed first, they think that merchant retailers could steal the technology. By using technology of Amazon, retailers may learn how to do it by they own after and they would not need Amazon services. So as a consequence, at a long term Amazon could loose its technology and know-how because too many competitors would use it and Amazon would not benefit anymore of this unique advantage that had put it ahead of its competitors. [...]