Case Analysis Of Amazon

It can be served as a competitive advantage, which attracts more customers shifting from Amazon’s online retailer competitors into buying their products, thus increasing the market share.

How would you define Amazon’s industry? What difficulties do you encounter identifying primary competitors and key lines of business?

Critically compare and contrast the ‘best fit’, BP and RBV models of HRM strategy – explain how EACH approach is argued to contribute to improve organizational performance.

Furthermore, it is stated that HRM practices can also be categorized on the basis of their emphasis into three sets viz., quality focus, cost reduction, and differential innovation (Guest, 1997). The importance of effective HR practices can be judged by the fact that with the effective execution of HR practices, the employees tend to be more committed to their work and they go the extra mile to add to organization’s benefit.

Although it is the most established because of its long history and early start, competitors such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, AutoZone Inc., eBay Inc., Rakutenchi Inc., Netflix Inc., Jet.Com, Wal-Mart and Time Warner Cable among others exist (Yahoo Finance, 2015). Notably, apart from Jet.com, Amazon’s competitors are segmented according to products and services offered; for instance, Wal-Mart stores Inc. offers competition in general merchandise and electronics segment while eBay, Time Warner Cable and Apple offers competition in the media segment. Among the competitors, Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have the highest market capitalization; however, the Amazon’s dwarfs all other competitors. Amazon has a high market capitalization at $254.82 billion (Nassauer, 2015). The table below shows Amazon’s major competitors based on their market capitalization and 52-week share price range

Wright and McMahan (1994) define strategic HRM as “the pattern of planned Human Resource deployments and activities intended to enable the organisation to achieve its goals.” A HR function should impact the success of an organisation; a policy must remain current and suitable to both the internal and external environment. Ulrich and Lake (1990) affirm, ‘HRM systems can be the source of organisational capabilities that allow organisations to learn and capitalise on new opportunities.’

This case analysis serves the purpose to provide an analytical framework to evaluate Amazon.com from an internal and external perspective, and to provide strategic direction based upon the internal and external evaluation. The case will begin with an introduction to Amazon.com.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the terminology used to illustrate formal systems devised for the management of people within an organization. It is the method of managing an organization or company that is directly related to the employees of that particular organization. The success of a business often rely heavily on the performance of managing human resource. Maximizing the desires and benefits of an organization and helping a business grow by rewarding employees to help motivate and push them in their performance is one of the main aim of HRM. By doing this, it will have a positive impact on both the company and it’s entire organization.

The objective of this case study is to outline and provide a brief overview of Amazon.com’s (Amazon) mission, strategic direction, core competencies, relied technologies and their future impact of new technologies, and how management and use of consumer data will impact future business.

CRITICALLY COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE 'BEST FIT', 'BEST PRACTICE' AND 'RESOURCE-BASED VIEW', MODELS OF HRM STRATEGY AND EXPLAIN HOW EACH APPROACH IS ARGUED TO CONTRIBUTE TO IMPROVED ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE.

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

The most recommended distribution network suited for highly differentiated products would be drop-shipping network. It is the process where shipping avoids the retailers, meaning the retailer isn’t informed to hold any type of inventory for the customers, and instead, the products are directly delivered to the end customers from the manufacturers. In this network, the supply chain can divert and expand low level of inventory to a higher level of availability. It also gives an opportunity for manufacturers to reschedule the customization when necessary. This is excellent for sellers that are able to build to order, and for end customers who wants highly-differentiated products that are in low-demand but are highly valued and are willing to wait for delivery.

More firms’ business strategy can be better realized using the integrative model of HRM. Both employees and firms’ aspirations can be met if the right strategy is used. . HR professionals must be well trained to implement this strategy.

In 2000, Amazon and Toys-R-Us entered into a symbiotic agreement that would benefit both corporate entities. Both companies had recently had unimpressive fiscal years due to differing issues. Toys “R” Us struggled with poor order fulfillment. Although they were equipped with enough merchandise, other issues kept them from being able to get orders to customers in a timely manner; especially during the busy holiday season. Conversely, Amazon was forced to write off $34 million because of a miscalculation in inventory and had orders that could not be honored (Ouchi, 2004). Following these debacles, both organizations felt that joining

Jeff Bezos looked out the open doorway of his office and stared at the “problem of the day,” which his assistant Sarah had posted on the whiteboard in the hallway. It was Friday, September 13, 2002, and the whiteboard read: ”You have 10 bottles with 100 pills each in them. In nine of the bottles, each pill weighs 10 mg. In one bottle, each pill weighs 9 mg. These pills are poisonous. You have a digital scale that reads out in mg. Can you determine which bottle contains the poison with only one weight measurement?” Bezos—founder, chairman, and CEO of Amazon.com—normally enjoyed trying to solve these brainteasers. But today his mind