Amazon Innovative Operations

Running head: AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
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1AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Company Overview:....................................................................................................................3
3. Relationship between creativity and innovation..........................................................................3
3.1. Explain the creative strategy process and discuss the creative strategy implemented by
Amazon........................................................................................................................................4
3.2. Critically analyse the complexities of implementing creativity and innovation into an
existing business culture and business structure..........................................................................4
3.3. Critically examine the importance of fostering creativity and innovation within the
workplace by reflecting on a business that has failed because it has failed to adopt a creative
approach in order to innovate......................................................................................................5
3.4.1. Incremental Innovation:.....................................................................................................6
3.1.2. Disruptive innovation:.......................................................................................................6
3.4.3. Radical innovation:............................................................................................................6
3.4.4. Architectural innovation:...................................................................................................6
3.5. Choice of innovative strategy at Amazon:............................................................................7
4. SWOT Analysis...........................................................................................................................7
5. STEEPLE Analysis......................................................................................................................8
Rising income among customers:....................................................................................................8
Technological................................................................................................................................12
Technological advancements:....................................................................................................12

2AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
Advanced logistics:....................................................................................................................13
Economic...................................................................................................................................13
Capital acquisition:....................................................................................................................14
Investments:...............................................................................................................................14
Environmental................................................................................................................................15
Political......................................................................................................................................15
Legal..............................................................................................................................................15
Ethical............................................................................................................................................16
6. Porters’ five forces:....................................................................................................................16
Threats of new entrants:.............................................................................................................16
Threats of substitutes:................................................................................................................17
Bargaining power of customers:................................................................................................18
Bargaining power of suppliers:..................................................................................................19
Competitive rivalry:...................................................................................................................19

3AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
1. Introduction
The study is focused towards understanding how important creativity is for the company
Amazon. The business of the company was started in an innovative manner which meant that
innovation is always valued within the organization as a factor that can lead to its continued
success. The company went from strength to strength to establish itself through the help of
innovation.
2. Company Overview:
Amazon.com Inc commonly referred to as Amazon an American IT multinational
company listed on NASDAQ. The main products of Amazon are ecommerce platforms, cloud
computing, internet platforms and consumer durable products. The company leads the
ecommerce market and operates the under leadership of Jeff Bezos in the capacity of its
chairman, CEO and president. The company sell variety of products in 100s of countries and
generated revenue of U$ 232.887 billion as on 2018. The company as on 2018 employees more
than 650000 employees globally (Aboutamazon.com. 2019).
3. Relationship between creativity and innovation
Innovation as per Gao et al. (2017) can be defined as the process of developing new
ideas, thoughts or features to bring about improvements in the existing products to meet new
requirements of the market. Corazza (2016) defines the term creativity of developing something
entirely new. Thus, innovation refers to generation of a new idea to bring about improvement in
existing products while creativity leads to development of a completely new product.

4AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
Figure 1. Requirement model
(Source: Graessler et al. 2018)
3.1. Explain the creative strategy process and discuss the creative strategy implemented by
Amazon.
Amazon as an organization focuses on creativity and innovation. The innovative
approaches that are chosen by the company are focused towards effectively reaching the
customers. The company is focusing on the use of eco-friendly and waste reductive processes
while serving its customer base (Sarooghi, Libaers and Burkemper 2015). Creativity and
innovation go hand in hand in the organization as the general idea is to create innovative
measures to tackle the challenges faced by the organizations.
3.2. Critically analyse the complexities of implementing creativity and innovation into an
existing business culture and business structure
Amazon integrates innovation and creativity to ensure availability of an immense product
umbrella. The first example of creativity which Amazon applies is, its very official website gives
viewers the competitive advantage which Amazon has over its competitors like Safe & Secure
Payments. The second example of creativity is that Amazon designs its shopping portals

5AMAZON INNOVATIVE OPERATIONS
exhibiting cultural aspects of the respective target countries (Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-
Jiménez, and Sanz-Valle, 2016). This enables the company to relate to the cultural aspects of its
host countries in spite of being of American origin.
3.3. Critically examine the importance of fostering creativity and innovation within the
workplace by reflecting on a business that has failed because it has failed to adopt a
creative approach in order to innovate.
Fostering of innovation and creativity hold immense importance for business
organizations. Innovation is one of the biggest competitive advantages of Amazon which has put
the company ahead of its international competitors. The first example of innovation which the
company carries on is innovation in its product umbrella. The total product line of the company
is divided into ‘departments’. Customers on clicking the tab and the particular products can gain
total information on the products (Caniëls and Rietzschel 2015). The second example of
innovation is that the prices of products are available in the local currencies of the concerned
host countries. It can also be pointed out that businesses which fail to bring about innovation fail
in the market. For example, Microsoft failed to innovate its smart phone products according to
the needs of the customers and thus failed to compete with Android.
3.4. Categories and types of innovation
There are various areas of innovation within the larger framework of the operations
of the organization. The main types of innovation are categorized into sales oriented
innovation, customer service oriented innovation, logistics and packaging oriented
innovation and innovation in sustainability (US About Amazon 2019). The different types of
innovation which are used by companies constitute of incremental innovation, disruptive