AMAZON EMPIRE

The rise and reign of Jeff Bezos

In july 1995 amazon.com went live. Amazon is the great disrupter, from books to retail
stores. For the last 25 years he has been transforming every aspects of modern life. Jeff
Bezos's amazon is completely revolutionized commerce. Jeff's view is that consumerism is
an example of how today's society live better than our grandparents and he wants our
future generation to have a better lifestyle. Customer focus always comes first in the
amazon because of which they always had an empty chair at the meetings.

-exploiting customer data for organisational productive benefit.

amazon saved each and every data which customer share in the site . They were keeping in
track of the entire customer information like hours spent , search history , cart details . This
is what they were actually looking for, Knowing customer interest and customer preference
without their own knowledge

-Amazon never throwed a share of profit to investors.

Bezos was mainly focusing on company's growth than caring about the investors. He
actually was spending all the profits for building a monopoly business environment and a
huge infrastructure which showcased the company's growth. He would spend money trying
to beat his competitions. When the company first become limited, Bezos even send letter to
all shareholders, stating that the investment on amazon is completely about long term,
which is something being moral to the investors.

-Allowing sellers to access their customers.

amazon allowing all sellers around the globe to access amazon customers all around the
world made a 50-50 advantage for both sellers and amazon. The sellers had the right to
price their product and give a cut of 4% to amazon, but still amazon was having a line to line
competition keeping alive their platform of business with other sellers in a more transparent
way, which made him control the entire entire market.

-Bringing dominance in anticompetitive ways.

Bezos wanted to pursue publishers the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle. Amazon was
actually targeting from the back, like a man in marathon who started very late trying to
overtake from the last position. Amazon asking 4% more of their sales was the first step
towards it. Actually they were not in the motive of making profit from this, but this was
totally done in the sense of beating the competitors and bringing dominance. Sellers
concerns were not considered, they were actually forced by making disappearing their buy
button from the site. This was not something that is to be done in a healthy business
environment. Forcing and trapping business patner’s are a way of suppressing them to
abide the rules of the Amazon. Even by the introduction of kindle is something Amazon tried
to get control over the publishers which is very immoral from the sides of business
environment.

-Amazon executives were loyal and ethical.

Executives never tried to reveal the actual picture of what is happening inside the company.
They were very much professional. They never revealed the strategies which they were
working on. Even when there was a mentioning about anecdote Gazelle project, they lied
blindly, being more loyal to Amazon.

-Amazon failed in gaining employee morale.

The workers of the fulfilment center were not able to keep the rates on the warehouses.
Bezos conducted hundred's of experiment in a day to meet the daily orders. The employee
find it hard to manage the work. They were meant to work as robots in a particular
countdown time. Employee need and satisfaction were not at all considered. They tried to
cover all of these by throwing a good pay double the national minimum pay, Because of
which they were forced to introduce robotism in the fulfilment center’s. Workers were
forced to ignore the safety rules to keep it up to the rates.

-Being irresponsible for company actions

company make sure of every safety procedure, but they are not willing to task
responsibility. Amazon had made that very clear that, safety of the customer as well as
employees are given at most priority, but only in theoritical not by practical. Mandatory
insurance policies for the delivery drivers and even for the third party is made , but they
wont take responsibility in case of any accidents. Likewise, the 60% products which are sold
on amazon are by the outside sellers, and they wont even have a safety check of the
products nor they take responsibility in case if any accidents occur.

-Forcing associates of business to comply with new terms of business, if not having
disagreement in contract of sale.
Bezos had a disagreement with Hachette in terms if new digital sale contract. Because of
this Bezos gave immoral threat saying, "those who search for your products in amazon will
be redirected to another publisher". This is completely unethical way in dealing with a
business associate. Amazon failed to keep a healthy relation within the business. This
resulted in 50-90% decline in sales from Amazon of the affected publishers.

-Non consideration of small sellers as business associates.

A business is something which is meant to be for a long period of time. Amazon never took
interest on small sellers. They were not even treated as business associates. They have the
complete authority to block a sellers profile within a second of time even without giving
prior warning. This is total negligence of business code of conduct.

-False representation of Amazon's dominance.

All the employees of the company were given training for referring Amazon's dominance
over the market. Employees were forced to use the term "market segment share" in the
place of market share. This is one way of expressing monopoly which is very unethical for a
business environment .

-Failed in maintaining customer privacy.

Their focus on data collection turned down customer privacy. Alexa recordings were actually
heard by other humans, in the name of Alexa performance improvement. Even the insiders
of the company made sure Alexa is turned off whenever they wanted a private moment.

-Releasing inproven technology to market and suggesting for law enforcement.

Facial Recognition using AI was not a successful technology. Eventhough Bezos suggested
for law enforcement. This is very unethical for a society in which they flourish.

-Employees were restricted from forming unions.

The voice of the employees are generally expressed through their unions. The company
never appreciated in creating work unions. This act is complete negligence of employee
rights. The company always treated employees as a part of data stream and never treated in
human nature. Which made them feel like robots.

-Amazon being the largest retailer refused to pay tax.

A company which is operated in the society , are obliged and liable to do some benefits for
the society. Whereas here the whole profits of the Amazon was recapitalized for further
establishments. This act lead to create disputes between society and business and also with
government.
Amazon being the largest ecommerce can now focus on investors interest, pay divident ,
pay tax, and consider worker's interest , which will now attract more investors to the
company , which will automatically gain stakeholders interests. Business is something which
is meant to be in long term, and bring benefits to atmost short term. It is now time to
evaluate all the unethical practices , analyse and then execute accordingly which may bring
Amazon to the position of monopoly through a healthy competition in the existing market.