Amazon : Wrestling Big Ideas

Karen Olsson believes that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer company, under pays their employees for the amount of work they do daily. They do not offer good working conditions for their employees or enough medical benefits to support themselves and their families. Sebastian Mallaby says that Wal-Mart is not wrong for the way that they run their business; he feels as though Wal-Mart does their consumers a favor by keeping the wages low and offering “low prices” (620). It’s just business! They have to do what it takes to remain the world’s top retailer and continue to, “enrich shareholders, and put rivals out of business” (620). Karen Olsson and Sebastian Mallaby both address the topic of big

Facts Surrounding the Case. According to Lisa Mahapatra’s (2013) article, “Amazon.com Has Second Highest Employee Turnover Of All Fortune 500 Companies”, Amazon.com has been placed 2nd in highest employee turnover rates by a special report from Payscale. In addition to this bad press against the company, Steven Barker, a former Amazon.com contract worker, criticized CEO, Jeff Bezos, in an open letter on the CEO’s hiring techniques. The letter states that “The company has a policy of hiring temp contract workers who are let go after 11 months to save on benefits like medical coverage and paid vacation days” (Mahapatra, 2013, para 1-2). Management at Amazon has to research why employee turnover is so high, and then research how to fix this issue to make Amazon more productive and efficient.

In the article, “Amazon.com is a 21st century Deal with the Devil” the author Amy Koss makes her piece an argumentative writing. She tries to persuade the reader that the company, Amazon, is cruel and untrustworthy. The author states,”They’re offering deals and deeper discounts, closing branches, consolidating staff, trying to fend off the inevitable. According to the feds, there have been 60,000 retail jobs in just the last two months.” I disagree with the author’s statement and believe that Amazon is just doing what they have to do, so they can make money and build a stronger business. It isn’t exactly Amazon’s fault that other businesses are closing making people loses their jobs. The other businesses must have their prices very high, making

Amazon employees are left feeling angry because they are being given low-paid wages for overworking. This effects Amazon heavily as they are having employees leaving the company and the company it's self has to bring in agency workers as temporary employees. This would mean

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.

Amazon has earned a great reputation in customer service for allowing customers to shop without face to face, avoiding talking to a customer’s service representative agent on the phone, everything it done online. Sales clerk does not exist, everything is ordered with a click of the mouse, and arrives extremenely quick in the mail (Cohen, 2009). Amazon at interval has gotten involved with the customers when they can have too. According to Green, H. (2009), “Amazon stands out most markedly from other companies, and helps explain how the company earned the No. 1 spot on Business Week’s customer service ranking this year”( para. 1).

Globalization is a growing part of everyday businesses. This is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments of different nations. With the world of online retail, the buying and selling to one person to another has grown drastically. There has also been a substantial change in technology and what we as people can do in today’s time rather than in the past. Amazon is a huge retail giant and buying and selling items is one of their key functions. The impact made on Amazon is nothing but an advantage. Amazon currently is the 56th largest company in America by market capitalization. Being one the largest retailer around, 15th in the nation at that, Amazon has made a name for themselves. Amazon has made some very substantial growths and with these opportunities they face they can make even more advances in the future. (Globalization 101, 2016)

In the United States Walmart effects negatively retail worker wages as well as retail employment. In addition, University of California researchers found that workers in Walmart earn on average 12.4 % less than retail workers as a whole (UNI Global Union, 2012). Walmart’s workers demonstrated thier dissatisfaction with working conditions and low wages by protesting on Black Friday 2012, which is the day the company is making the biggest profit. Walmart workers stood up and more than 1,000 demonstrations in a hundreds encouraging Walmart to act ethicaly towards them. For workers protesting it was a huge risk as they are oficially not protected by any labour union (Progress, 2012). Another evidence that Walmart treats its employees unfairly are discrimination claims. Women workers in California pursue discrimination claims saying that Walmart systematically treats them unfairly. According to women workers retail giant denied to pay raises and promotions due to gender bias (Levine & Gupta, 2011).

Walmart employees, customers, and suppliers have seen their fair share of Walmart’s bad side. While Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton, claims to make their employees feel like they “are working for them” and that they care Walmart has done such a horrific job with the way they treat their employees that one day, the workers decided to walk out and go on strike. They walked out on the grounds that they “were emblazoned with the workers’ grievances: poverty wages, miserly benefits, dignity denied” (Eidelson 1). They felt like they weren’t only taking a stand against Walmart, but also taking a stand for the younger generations to come. Walmart’s employees are getting treated unfairly and are underpaid. The CEO’s, Michael Duke, annual salary gives him more money in an hour than an employee who works full-time would make in an entire year. In Bangladesh, over 100 workers “died in a factory without outdoor fire escapes, NGOs blame Walmart for pushing deadly shortcuts” (Eidelson 1). Not only are the employees being poorly paid by Walmart, but they are paying their life to Walmart just to make enough money to barely get by. Walmart even made a pregnant employee work around chemicals that eventually made her ill. After a trip to the doctor, Walmart allowed her to be put on a lighter duty, so they made her a door greeter; however, they

Walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world as well one of the most criticized. For some they look at the many jobs the corporation creates, or how it’s one stop shop saves the lower class billions a year with their affordable prices and quality products. On the other hand, critics focus on the poor working conditions, and their antiunion actions. In “Up Against Wal-Mart”, Olsson argues that Walmart is not as great as everyone thinks because they underpay workers, don’t provide proper affordable health care, and go to extreme measures to prevent employees from forming labor unions. Olsson feels Walmart’s morals are in the wrong place and they need to improve the employee relations instead of being so greedy. Sebastian Mallaby

To successfully achieve her goal of a more profitable company Helen must rely on the support of the workforce. As resistance to change is common human behavior the

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.

The company has many strengths. First, Amazon is the world’s leading online retailer. According to the 2016 Annual Report, Amazon had total net sales of US $135, 987 million in 2016. These total net sales include three segments which are North America, International, and AWS. Second, in comparison to many companies, Amazon has a superior logistics and distribution system, which allows the company to actualize improved customer fulfillment. Third, with its prolonged strategic drive on low-cost, differentiation, and focus, Amazon offers a wide range of product at low prices to customers. Fourth, Amazon enjoys global recognition from its customers. As stated earlier, Amazon built a strong brand in very little time. Finally, the

Amazon is the big online shopping conglomerate we know today, which is known for their presence in the online shopping scene. They started with Jeff Bezos’ leadership, growing to where they are today. Amazon is a powerful company, however it is not without its problems. The company’s problems regard its strategies with growth, compared to Patagonia, leading them towards unsustainable results (LMPGS). To bring forth my proposal, I will talk about the narrative of Amazon’s start. Also, the definition of sustainability and why it’s relevant to the proposal at hand. Thirdly, a counter-argument will be brought forth on a practice used by companies that counteract sustainability. The proposal to change practices, such as the waste of packages, and the communication with suppliers. Amazon could be made more sustainable by studying other, less growth-oriented companies.

While Amazon faces many issues in a rapidly changing economic, political and global environment, this paper will focus on how Amazon can increase loyalty among its customers and continue to differentiate