Amazon Competitive Advantage

Amazon understood firsthand that the competitive advantage of a company originates immediately from how distinctive the organization's resources and competencies are. Amazon is able to both engage in production at a lower cost and generate a superior product at a standard cost. This is accomplished mostly via Amazon's strategy of having a wide variety of goods and competitive pricing. Customers know they can find basic products at slashed prices or high quality goods at standard prices and this is all achieved via the enormous range of products and product brands and types available on their massive marketplace. For example, the depiction displayed in the case study which shows how growth was related directly to: lower cost structure- lower prices customer experience traffic sellers -selection and convenience. While this is a grave oversimplification of the Amazon business model, it demonstrates how many aspects of the strategy reinforced one another.

As of January 2010, Amazon.com has three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples. By offering a large amount of varied categories through its website and other international ones (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.co.fr, and so on), it has managed to grow to a customer based company with over 30 million people. In addition, the online retail format enables the company to reduce costs of managing inventory (Amazon.com; online bookstore, 2008).

Amazon’s fulfillment centers are valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and organized to captured value. Thus, they attribute to Amazon’s competitive advantage. Amazon Prime and 1-Click are also valuable to the organization. However, they can be replicated. Walmart launched a membership program to compete with Amazon’s Prime Service. With Walmart’s membership program customers receive free two-day shipping when they spend $35 or more on orders. Amazon Web Services is valuable, rare, costly to imitate and the organization has capture the value of it. Therefore, AWS has contributed to Amazon’s sustainable advantage. Amazon’s brand name and reputation have also given the company sustainable advantage. Amazon acquired enormous brand valuation in a short period of time. It is

One of the companies that exploits opportunities and business ventures to create growth and sustainability is Amazon, Inc. Amazon was founded in 1994 and since then it has opted to take its business online and thus develop a global strategy that has paid off and turned the company into a technological business hub that serves consumers by offering an assortment of products and services in a noteworthy customer service. These strategies have made Amazon one of the leading online retailers with a revenue of US$ 88.988 billion as of 2014. This paper thus seeks to describe Amazon’s grand strategies of product development, market development, and concentration as part of its long-term growth strategy.

Diversification strategies involve broadening the scope of an organization across different products and market sectors. It requires an organization to explore new experiences and knowledge outside its existing markets and products (Business Case Studies). Strategic management is a business concept that consists of strategy analysis, creation, implementation and monitoring, used by organizations in order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage (as cited by Jurevicius, 2013). The following parts discuss Amazon’s strategy with a focus on the company’s competitive advantage and its customers.

Amazon focuses on global reach, putting customer first,, and extensive selection of products through its vision which is “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (Gregory 2016).

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.

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.

Amazon’s core competencies are in its ability to effectively use and develop technology to drive site traffic and enhance the customer experience. Their distinctive use of website real estate coupled with their ability to leverage their brand and effectively use that leverage to deliver low prices and high quality products, makes them a leader in online retailing. Their partner brands and their ability to adapt and recognize deficiencies enable them to effectively cut out the middle man, or at the very least, partner with them.

The first recommended strategic action is to focus on increasing Amazon’s brand products. The company can gradually start offering its customers more of their brand products. Amazon has already built a loyal customer base from all over the world and they must take advantage of this. According to Statista (2016), the company had over 31

The creation of a more automated and independent infrastructure is an important aspect of business that most companies wish to expand. It can provide flexibility within the company by eliminating the reliance on third party affiliates and can ultimately lead to larger profit margins. In order for this to happen however, a large amount of investment capital is needed. Luckily for Amazon, the company has sufficient capital to justify large investments.

Amazon has grown rapidly since their inception. The company experienced a surge is sales of 313% until 1998, supported by 8.4 million customer accounts in over 150 countries, of

Amazon.com is a Fortune 500 company that has revolutionized the retail industry. In recent years, Amazon has faced increased competition in the highly competitive online retail space as competitors invested heavily in their online storefronts and infrastructure. Positioned in a highly fragmented industry, Amazon must find solutions that can sustain its long term profitability and maintain its market share. To that end, Amazon should grow the Amazon Prime membership base and expand on its media and mobile offerings.

Amazon has grown up from a normal online website to an ecommerce and broadcasting partner to development platform being driven by the spirit of innovation. Amazon is a service based company offering customers best services and providing more types of products, at lower prices and with proper reviews. Their innovations towards the technology increase the growth of Amazon. Since 1995, Amazon has significantly expanded international retail websites, its product selection, customer service centers and worldwide network (AmazonJobs).

With the proliferation of communication and information technology, particularly the Internet, most business organizations have been at the forefront to join the e-commerce platform. Amazon is considered as one of the existing and largest e-business platform in the world. This report outlines Amazon’s strategic intent and key resources and capabilities. In addition, the report will also include an analysis of the company 's assets and capabilities that have provided it a sustainable competitive edge as well as, the recommended future strategy of the giant online organization. Amazon defines its line of business operations based on product and service sales, fulfillment, digital content subscriptions, publishing, and co-branded cards. The company 's line of business is defined as an online store, Internet service provision, and the Kindle ecosystem. This project will explore the truth that has made the online company to be considered as the top online retailer, which mainly focuses on strategy. This report also outlines how inventories play a fundamental role in the organization 's business or corporate strategy. The other issues covered in the report include the approach used by the online company deal with the supply chain and the reason behind fast shipping fast. The paper will outline the finance statute of the company and whether the finance effect will bar the organization from developing in future. In order to achieve the answer to the questions