MGMT1101 - Final Project: Amazon's Strategic Analysis Report

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of Amazon, examining its strategic management, organizational structure, and environmental constraints. It begins with a SWOT analysis, identifying Amazon's strengths (e.g., global presence, low-cost seller image, Prime membership), weaknesses (e.g., lack of physical presence, lower profit margins), opportunities (e.g., market expansion, new product lines), and threats (e.g., cybercrime, competition). The report then delves into the PESTEL analysis, highlighting environmental constraints like carbon emissions and socio-cultural factors such as consumerism and online buying habits. It explores stakeholder relationships, emphasizing the importance of customers and community. Furthermore, the report examines Amazon's hierarchical organizational structure and design, including its flexibility and top-level management. Employee motivation strategies, such as financial incentives and job security, are also discussed. Finally, the report recommends using a go-to-market strategy and feedback/concurrent controls for monitoring progress and ensuring quality, referencing various academic sources.

Running head: REPORT 0
INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT
MARCH 28, 2020
STUDENT DETAILS

REPORT 1
Summary
Amazon is American multinational technology organisation. Amazon renders modified
shopping services, credit -card payment based on web, as well as direct shipping to the customer.
This company puts focus on the cloud computing, electronic commerce digital issuing, and
artificial intelligence. The products of company involve merchandise and contents that it buy for
resale from sellers and those provided by third party seller. It also produces and sells electric
device. It has three divisions. These three divisions include International division, Amazon Web
Services division as well as North America division. In the following report, SWOT strategy
adopted by Amazon, environmental constraints, organisational structure and design, controls and
recommendations are discussed and critically examined.
SWOT strategies
The SWOT analysis is first step to attain pre-determined objectives as well as aims. It is
necessary to understand that how the advantage of certain opportunities and strength can be
identified. It is also necessary to understand how the organisation can be protected against threats
and weakness -
Strengths- To ensure long-term competitive advantages, Amazon provides its services
worldwide. I came to know that Amazon continues to maintain its image in marketplace as
lower-cost seller. In my opinion, the large merchandise section, prime membership services, as
well as huge number of third party vendors is its biggest strength. I found that unexpected online
progress of company has permitted the organisation to become second largest retailer in the

REPORT 2
world after Wal-Mart. I have amazon prime membership. I realized that it is very beneficial. I
suggest to get prime membership to get more benefits of Amazon services.
Weaknesses –It is found that there are certain weaknesses of Amazon, such as absence of
physical existence, delivery with free shipping, loss of competitive advantages, excess loss
because of fire phone disaster, and lower profitability margin. Most of the times I get products on
free delivery charges. However, I think that the company should charge minimal delivery
charges on every order. I also think that company should increase its profit margin. The
company should focus on the competitive advantages in the market.
Opportunities – I learned that there are certain external factors that affect operations of
company. I notices that Amazon has certain opportunities like others, such as market expansion
opportunity, formation of personal product line, offering’s expansion, as well as beneficial
partnership. As per my point of view, the company can focus on the products that are presently
not found in profusion on website (Myers, 2018). Additionally, the company can create its
product line in smart along with strategic way.
Threats – I came to know that the potential threats for the company are cybercrime, policy
constraint, unsatisfied competitors as well as enhanced completion. I realized that the company
should try to focus and reduce cybercrime activities. Otherwise, the customers including me
would not purchase products anymore. For the reason that the cybercrime activities force the
people to buy online products and get online services. In addition, I also felt that the company
should try to find a new market in the area of competitor. It should leave the undisputed giant
behind (Lorenzo, 2017).

REPORT 3
Environmental constraints
PESTEL analysis of Amazon discovers the significance of expansion of functions into
more marketplaces. The company considers the different environmental outer factors in the
strategic creation. These environmental factors include increasing interest in the ecological
program (opportunity), increasing impact on business sustainability (opportunity), as well as
enhancing acceptance of low carbon lifestyle (opportunity). Considering these trends in remote
or macro environment, I felt that the company faces certain socio-cultural external elements, like
enhancing consumerism in developing country (opportunity), enhancing wealth discrepancy
(threat), and enhancing habit of buying online (opportunity). As per PESTEL analysis, it is
found that the company has different opportunities to advance the environmental impacts in
relation to increasing interest in environmental program. This interest is considered as direct
result of environmental issues, like waste administration as well as energy consumption. The
increase in online purchasing has decreased number of packets provide per mile, and increased
additional trucks on roads, and consequently high greenhouse gas emission (Dutta, 2017).
The company is facing issue of carbon emission from past years. It can see that biggest e-
commerce organisation has for years resisted burden from the investor and different stakeholders
for disclosing more data in relation to the environmental impact. It is challenging issue for the
company. The reason is that it is not easy for the company to estimate the emission from e-
commerce business. It can see that ordering things online is less energy intensive in comparison
of going to physical store for picking up the items.
In this way, I think that based on external factors, improvement in the corporate social
responsibility (CSR) strategy of Amazon.com Inc. can increase the ecological impacts of

REPORT 4
company. The company is currently addressing these constraints in the corporate social
responsibility statement to solve the issue. Therefore, the facet of PESTLE evaluation of
company states the importance of the all-inclusive corporate social responsibility approach (CSR
strategy) to enhance the competence of company in stating environmental concerns the macro
environment
In this relation, the PESTLE analysis considers main opportunities in a field of business
sustainability. In my opinion, the high sustainability norms may furthermore improve ecological
impacts along with support the brand image of the electronic commerce company, based on
strengths of company recognised in SWOT Analysis. Furthermore, there are certain elements
that create opportunities for them. I came to know that enhancing image of low carbon lifestyle
renders chances for an organisation to increase corporate image as the leader in e-commerce
sector. This element will create great opportunities for the company. I also consider that the
company can apply wide-ranging approaches to save energy in the business functions for this
motive (Diehl & Bishop, 2017).
Stakeholders
There are various stakeholders of the organisation. These are directors, managers,
investors, strategic partners, customers, personnel, as well as communities. It is found by me that
the managers, investors as well as directors are very important for the company because they
want the organisation to develop and generate more profits. It can see that the personnel expect
to secure the job, and see the entity develop that can be helpful in the career development.
Additionally, I can see that strategic partners expect high return form an entity and get
advantages from brand connection with entity. The community is also an important stakeholder
because it establishes public that are related to social welfare and growth.

REPORT 5
I realized that the main stakeholder are the customers along with community. In my
opinion, the company should give high priority to the community and customer. The reason is
that the customer is king of market. The customer is most important stakeholder group. The
company should perform its duties and responsibilities in the best interest of customers. For
creating good image, the company should try to satisfy the customers because they are key
stakeholders of entity. It is suggested that the company should make its corporate strategy around
the customers.
Organizational Structure and Design
The organisational structure of company can be understand from following chart –
(Chen, Mislove & Wilson, 2016)

REPORT 6
The organizational structure of company is classified into hierarchical, top level
management including three Chief executive officers and 3 senior vice presidents accountable
for different key aspects of the business reporting in direct manner to Jeff Bezos (CEO of
company). I came to know that main features of organisational structure of company are
flexibility of business, hierarchical structure, as well as stability in management. I can say that
because of following the business diversification approach in the aggressive way, the
organizational structure would be dynamic, being subjected to some modifications in the ordered
way (Lincoln & Andrew, 2018).
Motivating employees
The employee motivation is one of the perilous elements for the organisation. The
successful company makes it the priority to make sure that the workers are motivated and
involved in their functions (Correll, et. al, 2016). There are different elements influencing
employee motivation. Interesting projects, working conditions, learning opportunity, career
development opportunity, and obviously money. All these strategies have significant role in
motivating the employees. I think that company should use money as well as job security. It is
my opinion that money and job security can be helpful for satisfying the employees. By
following the money and job security approach, the company can retain employees for long time
(Onyusheva & Seenalasataporn, 2018).
Recommendations and Controls
For monitoring the progress of business plan as well as activities, I would suggest to use
go-to-market strategy (GTM strategy) (Mishra & Yadav, 2017). I came to know that the go-to-
market strategy is a best method in which the organisation takes the product to marketplace. It
usually involves the business plan stating the target audience, sales approach as well

REPORT 7
as marketing plans (Wang, Liang & Urgaonkar, 2018). Further, it can see that there are different
types of controls such as feed forward controls, feedback controls along with concurrent
controls. I will suggest to use feedback controls and concurrent controls. The concurrent controls
(specifically feet tracking) see ongoing employee’s activities to make sure consistency with
quality standard. With the help of GPS, it can be determined whether the goal is attained.
Further, the feedback controls includes monitoring data to decide whether performance meets
developed norms. In feedback control, it will be easy to know whether the goal is attained. When
the sales goal is set, the sale team does work to get goal for 3 months, and at the end of the three
month, the manager reviews the result and decide whether goal was attained (Tigre, 2019).

REPORT 8
References
Chen, L., Mislove, A., & Wilson, C. (2016). An empirical analysis of algorithmic pricing on
amazon marketplace. In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on World
Wide Web, pp. 1339-1349
Correll, N., Bekris, K. E., Berenson, D., Brock, O., Causo, A., Hauser, K., ... & Wurman, P. R.
(2016). Analysis and observations from the first amazon picking challenge. IEEE
Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 15(1), 172-188.
Diehl, K., & Bishop, B. (2017). Strategic Analysis of Amazon Madison Morgan November 16,
2017 MGMT 275.
Dutta, S. (2017). Analysis of flipkart and amazon e-commerce business in the Indian context.
Lincoln, I. V., & Andrew, C. E. (2018). Porter Analysis: A Business Strategy of Amazon. Com
Through a Value Chain and Comparative Advantage Analysis of Amazon’s Trademarks
and Intangibles. Com Through a Value Chain and Comparative Advantage Analysis of
Amazon’s Trademarks and Intangibles (November 27, 2018). Practical Guide to US
Transfer Pricing,.
Lorenzo, L. (2017). Targeting International Customers in Japanese E-commerce: A Web Content
Analysis of the Marketing Mix in Rakuten and Amazon. co. jp.
Mishra, A. K., & Yadav, D. K. (2017). Analysis and Prediction of Amazon EC2 Spot Instance
Prices. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 12(21), 11205-11212.

REPORT 9
Myers, A. (2018). Amazon Doesn't Have an Antitrust Problem: An Antitrust Analysis of
Amazon's Business Practices. Hous. J. Int'l L., 41, 387.
Nicolle, S., & Leroy, M. (2017). Advocacy coalitions and protected areas creation process: Case
study in the Amazon. Journal of environmental management, 198, 99-109.
Onyusheva, I., & Seenalasataporn, T. (2018). STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF GLOBAL E-
COMMERCE AND DIVERSIFICATION TECHNOLOGY: THE CASE OF AMAZON.
COM INC. The EUrASEANs: journal on global socio-economic dynamics, (1 (8)), 48-63.
Tigre, M. A. (2019). Building a regional adaptation strategy for Amazon countries. International
Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 19(4-5), 411-427.
Wang, C., Liang, Q., & Urgaonkar, B. (2018). An empirical analysis of amazon ec2 spot instance
features affecting cost-effective resource procurement. ACM Transactions on Modeling
and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems (TOMPECS), 3(2), 1-24.