Amazon And Starbucks Management Systems

Amazon is an electronic commerce company. Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos who is still acting CEO of Amazon. Its headquarters is based in the Seattle, Washington. Amazon has expanded its reach from the United States to all over the world. Amazon has separate retail sites, and distribution centers in the United Kingdom,France, Italy, Spain, China, and Brazil. Amazon sells everything from books, houseware, electronics, and clothing. In the recent years Amazon has expanded into the world of live streaming music, television shows and movies. Amazon creates its own consumer products like Amazon Kindle, or Amazon FireTV and its new product Echo.

Jeff leadership style motivated his employees during the early years when the company was expanding and not bringing in profits. Robbins and Coulter stated “Jeff Bezos has demonstrated an ability to inspire his employees through the ups and downs of a rapidly growing company” (2012, p. 208). How did he manage to motivate his employees? He did so through building a strong culture of customer satisfaction and innovation. Jeff wanted Amazon to be "Earth's biggest anything store," and consistently reinforced that desire throughout the years (Academy of Achievement, 2010). Jeff was determined to succeed and increase market share. He truly felt that not only was Amazon going to succeed but stay the market leaders through innovation. He incorporated how he wanted to reach his objectives through Amazon’s “Six Core Values” and by building a strong

The Amazon.com mission is one that has a centric value to hold very close for all operations involved, the Amazon.com online customer is first and foremost. Amazon has a clear focus and a solid mission that has imprinted since the beginning. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has multiple times referred to the Amazon mission statement as the force that guides his powerful leadership decisions multiple times within the Amazon.com history. The success of Amazon is confirmed as one of the top internet retail companies in the world is due in part of the commitment to their mission and the way top leadership executes. The mission and vision of Amazon is, “Our vision is to be earth 's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has an autocratic leadership style. He has surrounded himself with lower level leaders that do not question his decisions or authority. Additionally, he is a micromanager that has implemented rigorous standards. Further, individual performance is continuously measured and employees ranked against each other. This has created a very competitive atmosphere. Notably, employees that meet his high demands are often called “Amabots.”

Market Basket opened the first store in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1916, and almost one hundred years later, the family owned and operated company has expanded its chain to seventy one supermarkets across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. By all accounts, the grocery store chain has been very successful, generating four billion dollars in revenue in 2012, and making a profit of over 200 million. (Kohn, S. 8/1/2014 Market Basket Workers are Right; Retrieved from: www.wcvb.com) However, a change in leadership has brought on a temporary demise of the company, providing evidence that a great leader is the backbone upon which an organization thrives.

Amazon.com is a customer centric company. They put more effort in improving their system to make the experience of customer more comfortable so that he keeps on returning to the website. Jeffery Bezos who is the founder of the Amazon.com started this company after seeing the use of internet increasing rapidly.

Amazon.com has had a clear focus and a solitary mission since it began. Founder Jeff Bezos has publicly referred to the Amazon.com mission statement as the guiding force behind his leadership decisions many times in the company 's history. It can be concluded that the success of Amazon.com as the top Internet retailing company in the world is due at least in part to their unwavering commitment to this mission and the daily execution of it. Amazon is continued to grow and continues to include one of its most important asset in its continued growth. It continued investment in human capital. The Amazon mission statements is followed by all their locations and it is not only a statement but a way of life.

Jeff Bezos is the fifty two year old Chief Executive Officer and founder Amazon, the largest United States based online retailer. A critical and innovative thinker, he created his online book sales company in his garage and has led Amazon to absolute market domination, technological innovation, and has become the third riches person in the world (BBC.com, 2016). His innovative ideas, demonstrated hard work and discipline, coupled with his ability to envision the future of online retail operations, positions his company at the forefront of the market. And behind the technology, the innovation and the drive to convert cash flows into opportunity, is the underlying commitment to the customer. Jeff Bezos demonstrates the leadership practices described by James Kouzes and Barry Posner’s as the five practices of exemplary leadership, model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart (Kouzes & Posner, 2012).

Much like Apple and founder Steve Jobs, Amazon success factors are closely tied to Jeff Bezos. His innovation and desire to keep moving forward has pushed the company further than early critics believed possible. No matter how you look at it, Amazon has grown up from a little online bookstore to an industry giant. You could

Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, the company went online on the World Wide Web in July 1995.Amazon focuses on increasing its market share and revenues in the long term and maintaining competitive costs of profit margins and dividends paid to its shareholders in the short term. Amazon’s sound business fundamentals include its core business and essential revenue sector of e-commerce, a new focus on media independent of Kindle, improved profit margins from Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) as well as the management of a negative cash conversion cycle (Samonas, 2015).

Amazon, a powerful company, has challenged many of its competitors and nearly causing them to go bankrupt. Jeff Bezos has taken amazon through changes and seemingly all for the better.

The presence of strong as well as effective leadership in today’s organization imposes a great responsibility to the organization’s team and management networks as leadership implies the overall capacity of the organization’s performance like for instance, in terms of operations and research development. It can be said that Amazon’s resources and capabilities can be divided in the management of the company specifically their leader which is Bezos, the ability of the management to effectively use strategic supply chain management and aligning it with their business process and information technology, their competitive advantage in the online market, and the financial resources that it gains through its successful approaches.

The corporate culture at Amazon can be described as a task culture according to Charles Handy’s theories of corporate culture, where the main focus is on getting results from the work done. Individuals and teams are empowered to take responsibility and make a contribution. As a result, formal job titles are of less importance, as the emphasis is put on their contribution and problem-solving abilities. (Hoang 194). Amazon has created a sense of belonging and unity within its’ workforce by installing the idea that anyone can contribute. This can be seen through the 14 leadership principles that Amazonians refer to as the “articles of faith”, outlining how employees should act. It is at the core of Amazon’s corporate culture; It’s used in daily rituals, in hiring, at meetings and are quoted in food-truck lines at lunchtime (Streitfeld). Most importantly, it applies to all Amazonians and they are told each one of them is a leader (Sanghani). For instance, the co-inventor of the delivery-by-drone project announced in 2013 was a junior level engineer (Streitfeld). Therefore, the task-oriented culture can be the source of the stressful work-environment stress despite fostering motivation and responsibility within the employees.

One of the most noticeable features about the City of Seattle is the incredible amount of coffee shops in the area; so it’s not very surprising that one of the most recognizable coffee companies in the world hails from Downtown Seattle. Starbucks has been in business since 1971 and has grown from a single coffee shop to one of the largest and most recognizable food companies in America. One of the things that fostered this explosive growth was the company’s willingness to adapt with a changing world. With technology advancing in leaps and bounds, Starbucks has found ways to utilize it in order to further themselves as a business; their strategy worked. This paper will answer three questions to demonstrate how Starbucks has successfully used Information Systems (IS) to grow themselves into the company they are today. The correct understanding, implementation, and management of IS has allowed Starbucks to rise to the top of their industry and distinguish themselves from other businesses.

The main philosophy at Amazon is “to create shareholder value over the long term.” To work through this philosophy, Amazon focuses on customers continually and makes investment decisions in light of long-term