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Inc. A Case Study Analysis PDF
Inc. A Case Study Analysis PDF
reid.m.berryman@wmich.edu
School of Communication
Western Michigan University
ABSTRACT: This paper is a case study analysis of Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon). In this paper, I look at the business strategy of
Amazon. Special attention is given to five parts, including a historical overview, organizational structure, business operations,
financial performance, and the future outlook of Amazon. The historical overview chronologically describes landmark events of
Amazons beginnings to their current position today. The companies departmental structure is categorized and briefly commented
on in section two. An analysis is provided for Amazons operations with a breakdown of major products and services offered. A
comprehensive financial analysis of Amazon follows (section four) with matching insight that links performance to events and
business strategies. The future outlook of Amazon is discussed last, offering a topical overview of where Amazons business
interest is shifting.
KEYWORDS: Cloud computing, Computational advertising, E-book readers, Electronic commerce, Multimedia content
creation, Multimedia streaming, Personalization, Recommender systems, Tablet computers, Web services.
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I. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
In the early 1990s, the dot-com boom drastically changed the landscape of communications, business and culture with no signs
of regression. For new businesses, effective innovation offered great potential through the World Wide Web. Growing popularity
of Internet access created an inspiring logistical niche later popularized as E-commerce, proving to be a successful means of
purchasing products through the Internet. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon) was the first to profitably innovate
in this emerging market, and has become the worlds largest online retailor.1 Bezos realized the opportunity presented by
the web revolution, whereas becoming an established industry leader was the only means to long-term profitability. In 1994,
Bezos left his vice-president position at D. E. Shaw, a Wall Street firm, to move forward with his business idea that would soon
become Amazon.com.2 Before the end of 1994, Jeff Bezos incorporated his book e-commerce company as Cadabra.3 Later,
Bezos rebranded the company as Amazon for two distinct reasons: The alphabetical advantage when listed in directories and
metaphorically representing the Amazon River in terms of the companys size. Piloted right out of Bezoss garage, Amazon
became an instant success and soon acquired a warehouse for continued operations. Bezos planned his supply chain strategically
from day one, placing the company headquarters in Seattle near a large book distributor in Oregon.4 An illustration of his original
homepage in 1994 can be viewed in Figure 1. listed below.
Figure 1.
Amazon.com Home Page (1994)
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ITERA 2014, The 12 Annual Conference on Telecommunications and Information Technology, 4 April -6 April 2014, Louisville, Kentucky.
By 1998, Amazon was fast becoming one of the worlds leading Internet startups. They conducted business with over one and
half million customers, reaching both the United States and 160 countries.16 This outreach made them the third largest bookseller
in the U.S. without the brick and mortar presence its competitors had (Barnes & Noble and Borders).17 Outstanding success as an
e-commerce bookseller influenced the development of new services, products and additional markets to enter. Amazon acquired
the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) in April of 1998, purchasing their way into the online media market.18 Bezos realized
IMDBs capability to vertically integrate as an information asset. IMDB aligned with his vision of distributing media and
entertainment products, made evident when he promoted movie sales through it shortly after the acquisition.19 Two other
acquisitions in 1998 eliminated potential competitors in the book e-commerce industry. Bookpages and Telebook based in
the United Kingdom and Germany were acquired for a total of $55 million. This decision was Amazons first transnational
horizontal growth, adapting their business model to cultures that valued different books than their domestic consumers.20
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ITERA 2014, The 12 Annual Conference on Telecommunications and Information Technology, 4 April -6 April 2014, Louisville, Kentucky.
2000s. Amazon was also making heavy investments in technology to become a differentiator in digital services, cutting its
operating margin to 4.1% in 2005.29 This worried investors in spite of Bezoss explanations; Wall Street analysts such as Steve
Weinstein at Pacific Crest Securities reflected the concerns of many regarding Amazons strategy:
I was impressed with the revenue acceleration, but the margins are a sticky point. Its just not clear theyre
getting the return on their investments.30
In alignment with Amazons technical investments, they prepared the legal side of their online video content network they hoped
to grow by purchasing distribution rights from NBC and other networks.31 Amazon then became an entrant into this new market
through their video and media digital delivery or video-on-demand (VoD) services.32 Prior investments in technical infrastructure
made Amazons charge into digital services a next step in Bezoss vision. On August 25th 2006, Amazon publically announced
their entry into the computational services industry.33 EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) was a revolutionary service that took true
advantage of Amazons scale of operations and their geographical placement. They were the first to offer cloud computing power
in an easy to purchase, incremental model, dynamically scaling to client needs. This declared Amazons successful entry as a
technology services provider, still showing growth in 2013.
Amazon pushed investments into hardware development, an area they had yet to conquer and released their first
hardware device in 2007 called the Kindle, selling out almost instantly.34 Placing a handheld e-book reader in customer hands
made the purchasing process much more natural. In 2009, continued success of their e-book selection, the Kindle, and growing
exchange efficiencies led to the announcement they had sold more digital books than printed ones.35 They unveiled Amazon
Prime Instant Video which in 2011 became a direct competitor with Netflix and Hulu streaming services.36 Amazon also made
strategic licensing contracts between 2011-2012 with Disney-ABC, 20th Century Fox, West Discovery Communications, PBS
Distribution, and NBC-Universal Cable & New Media Distribution, positioning them well for online video delivery.37
Amazon continued expanding its distribution centers around the globe in China, France, and India continuing to grow
diversity in their product line.38 Bezos and Amazon remained fiercely competitive and innovative through an industry bust as
well as a global financial crisis. This was not by chance and instead an example of highly successful long term strategic planning
with rational reactions as unpredictable events emerged.
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make up Amazon, Inc. An aggregate table from varying sources with a detailed breakdown by individual services and products
can be seen in Appendix 1.
Table 1.
Amazon.com, Inc.s organizational chart (Oct 2013)
Seller Services
Digital
Legal
Human Resources
E-Commerce Platform
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in new technological development, a financial strategy that caused great concern in the early 2000s. The negative speculation of
this strategy has been widely dropped, although Bezos refuses to leave it unaddressed:
Our heavy investments in Prime, AWS, Kindle, digital media, and customer experience in general strike
some as too generous, shareholder indifferent, or even at odds with being a for-profit company.46
Bezos wants investors to take a long-term view toward growth and development. This approach has not always been well
received by outside investors.47
49
Amazon focuses on attracting developer customers, through selling cloud infrastructure services hosted at Amazons data
centers50. Amazon is able to subsidize its own data and processing requirements by turning whats normally a cost center into a
profitable division. Amazons ability to successfully scale and manage large projects has placed them as the market leader in
cloud computing services.51
ITERA 2014, The 12 Annual Conference on Telecommunications and Information Technology, 4 April -6 April 2014, Louisville, Kentucky.
We want to make money when people use our devices not when people buy our devices 56
Many versions have existed since the original, developing into two distinct device product lines based on hardware and
operating systems. The E-Ink and Android devices fully integrate with Amazons e-book distribution services while the
Android models add additional media capabilities.57
Source: Amazon.com, Inc. 2013
64
Owners of Amazon stock have never received dividend payments, Jeff Bezos believes in keeping all future earnings to finance
future growth.65 Amazon is known for its thin operating margin, a warning indicator of profitability problems to most
financial analysts. Sustained investments in technology and capacity growth explain this thin margin, while representing the past
three years declining Net profit.66. Despite financial analyst norms, Amazon has received a steadily increasing valuation per share
reporting a high of $373.49 on November 18th 2013 up from $131.41 on November 18th 2009.67 Slate magazines economics
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Source: Amazon.com, Inc. 2013
71
V. FUTURE OUTLOOK
Amazons history with capital purchasing and other heavy investment actions resonates through the company as justification for
lean operations. They are driven by a culture of expansion and growth, in addition to continuous innovation and lean
management of the capital they purchase. Amazons presence in the marketplace is a strong force felt by many firms across
multiple industries.
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such as Netflix rely on purchasing their capacity.72 This puts Amazon in a unique dichotomy, as their Prime Instant Video
service was created to enter the market of digital video delivery.73 Bezos explained the situation well at his AWS talk in 2012:
We may compete on Prime Instant Video, but we bust our butts every day for Netflix on the AWS side.74
Senior Vice President of Amazon, Andy Jassy, made it evident at the 2013 AWS re:Invent conference that much greater market
potential exists in this area of services:
Jeff is very excited about the AWS business and he believes - like the rest of the leadership team does that
in the fullness of time- it is very possible that AWS could be the biggest business at Amazon.75
The transition from physical delivery to digital delivery is a point of change in the history of distribution and logistics. Amazon
had the advantage of being somewhere in between with its original book delivery service, competing with brick and mortar
stores. Now it aims to make the transport of processed data an even larger revenue source in the future for the company.
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lieu of these forces calls for innovations in cost restructuring, especially because Amazon has little control on the source of these
threats and claims.
Amazon will continue to enter new markets with products and services, but also create new ones through related
diversification of subsidiaries in its highly vertically integrated structure. The future holds great potential for Amazon in
becoming the greatest distributor of digital content. How they leverage this ability could produce competitive forces previously
unheard of, especially in fragmented markets with no clear leader. Amazon announced in December of 2013 a plan to offer flying
drone delivery, enabling even more control over their value chain.81 Gopago, a point of sale company was also acquired,
indicating Amazons interest in payment processing.82 This innovation and acquisition represent their business philosophy,
closing in and controlling both ends of the value chain. In doing so, Amazon can control cost, customer experience and increase
profits through the long tail of their diverse product and service offerings.
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Appendix 1.
83
Amazon.com, Inc.s extended organizational chart (Oct. 2013)
Sports
and
outdoors:
Exercise
and
fitness
e quipment
Outdoor
recreation
Hunting
and
fishing
Cycling
Athletic
and
outdoor
clothing
Team
sports
Golf
Boating
and
water
sports
Fan
shop
All
sports
and
outdoors
Seller
Services
Web
services
Order
fulfillment
Marketing
and
promotional
services,
i ncluding
online
advertising
Co-branded
credit
cards
Finance
and
Administration
financial
processes
a
nd
controls
financial
reporting
and
accounting
practices
facilities
management
administrative
functions
Human
Resources
Recruiters
Specialists
HR
Business
Partners
Learning
&
Development
Human
Resource
Information
Systems
Compensation
&
Benefits
Publishing
Amazon
Publishing
Authors
Musicians
Filmmakers
App
Developers
Kindle
Direct
Publishing
Independent
Authors
Grocery,
health
and
beauty:
Movies
Blu-ray
Musical
i nstruments
Video
games
th
TVs
Digital
Legal
Kindle
E-Readers
Amazon
i nstant
video
MP3
downloads
Game
downloads
E-Commerce Platform
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15
Jeffrey, Bezos. Amazon.com, Inc., "1997 Shareholder Letter." Last modified 1997. Accessed October 23, 2013. http://media.corporateir.net/media_files/irol/97/97664/reports/Shareholderletter97.pdf
16
Ibid.
17
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20
Ibid.
21
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Global, Available at:
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22
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23
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24
Ibid.
25
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26
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27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
30
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31
"Amazon.com Inc." Notable Corporate Chronologies. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Business Insights: Global, Available at:
http://bi.galegroup.com.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/global/article/GALE%7CI2501150074/2ba9062d44d19c5764e9282fc4cd0d55?u=lom_wmic
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32
Ibid
33
"Amazon.com, Inc." International Directory of Company Histories. Ed. Tina Grant. Vol. 113. Detroit: St. James Press, 2010. Business Insights:
Global, Available at:
http://bi.galegroup.com.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/global/article/GALE%7CI2501313853/918aa6711abf9ca5a3a1da9581f67787?u=lom_wmich
u , Retrieved: 23 Oct, 2013
34
Ibid
35
"Amazon.com Inc." Notable Corporate Chronologies. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Business Insights: Global, Available at:
http://bi.galegroup.com.libproxy.library.wmich.edu/global/article/GALE%7CI2501150074/2ba9062d44d19c5764e9282fc4cd0d55?u=lom_wmic
hu , Retrieved: 23 Oct, 2013
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.
39
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40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
43
44
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45
Ibid.
46
Ibid, 2.
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47
Ibid, 2.
48
50
Ibid
51
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52
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53
Ibid
54
"Amazon MP3 Adds Music Audio Downloads from Warner Music Group." Amazon.com, Inc. Press Release. http://phx.corporateir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1089999&highlight= (accessed November 24, 2013).
55
Ibid
56
Ibid
57
Amazon.com, Inc., 2012 Annual Report. Last modified 2012. Retrieved: 20 Nov 2013.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTc5ODc3fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1
59
Ibid, 18.
60
ibid, 17.
61
Ibid, 22.
62
Ibid, 1.
63
Amazon.com, Inc., 2012 Annual Report. Last modified 2012. Retrieved: 20 Nov 2013.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTc5ODc3fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1
65
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67
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68
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69
Amazon.com, Inc., 2012 Annual Report. Last modified 2012. Retrieved: 20 Nov 2013. P25-26.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTc5ODc3fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1
70
Ibid
71
Ibid, 17.
72
Coyle, Emily. "Amazon Dreams Big About the Future of Cloud Computing." Wall St. Cheat Sheet. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/amazondreams-big-about-the-future-of-cloud-computing.html/3/ (accessed November 20, 2013).
73
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74
Ibid.
75
"Day 1 Keynote." AWS re:Invent 2013. http://reinvent.awsevents.com/index.html (accessed November 20, 2013).
76
Anders, George. "Amazon's 1,263 Patents Reveal Retailing's High-Tech Future." Forbes.
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77
Ibid.
78
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79
Ibid
80
Ibid
81
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82
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83
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