Project Management Report: Amazon's History and Strategy

This report offers a comprehensive overview of Amazon, tracing its history from its inception to its current status as a major e-commerce platform. It delves into the influence of bounded awareness on decision-making processes within the company, providing illustrative examples of how cognitive blinders can impact outcomes. Furthermore, the report examines the framing effect, a cognitive bias that shapes choices based on how information is presented, and showcases how Amazon utilizes this effect in its marketing strategies, particularly with Amazon Prime. The report incorporates key milestones in Amazon's growth, including its diversification into various services and acquisitions, and highlights the company's strategic decisions over time. References from aboutamazon.com and amazon.com are also provided.

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Project Management
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Executive Summary:
The aim of the report is to provide an overview of Amazon. The report commences with a
brief introduction and history of the company from the start up till the present times. The
report also provides an insight into the concept of bounded awareness and framing and puts
forward examples for explaining them.

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Table of Contents
Introduction History of the Company from Start-up till Present Time......................................3
Impact of Bounded Awareness on Decision-making Process....................................................4
Example......................................................................................................................................4
Framing Effect of the Company.................................................................................................5
Example......................................................................................................................................5
References:.................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction History of the Company from Start-up till Present Time
The report aims at providing an overview of Amazon with a particular focus on its
growth. The report further tries to provide an insight into how boundaries and framing
influenced decision making and led the company to its present position along with the
mention of the examples.
Amazon was found by Jeff Bezos in the year 1994. It is one of the largest e-commerce
platforms in terms of the market capitalization and revenue (aboutamazon.com, 2019). The
company started as the online bookstore and diversified as selling of streaming and
downloading videos. The overview of the history of the company from the start up till present
(amazon.com, 2019):
1994 Amazon was found
1998 The company announced that it will make a move beyond the books
2003 Amazon launched A9.com which is a subsidiary of Amazon.com based in that
developed advertising and technology
2005 The company launched Amazon Prime
2006 Amazon launched the Fulfillment by Amazon that provided the small businesses with
the abilities of to using its customer service and order fulfillment infrastructure.
2007 CreateSpace announced the book launch on demand service through Amazon.
Amazon also launched grocery service Amazon Fresh, its online music store Amazon
Music and Amazon Kindle.
2009 Amazon acquired Zappos for a whopping $850 million

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2011 Amazon rebrands the Amazon Video to the Amazon Instant Video for the members of
Amazon Prime. It also launched Amazon Appstore for the Android devices and
announced the launch of a tablet computer Kindle Fire.
2013 Amazon acquired the book review and the social reading site Good Reads
2014 Amazon unveiled the voice command device and the wireless speaker Amazon Echo
2015 Amazon launched an Android App, Amazon Underground that allowed the users in
getting other apps and gaming for free. In the same year, it launched Amazon
Restaurant service for customers of Amazon Prime. Amazon also opened up its retail
store named Amazon Books for the first time.
2017 Amazon acquired the higher end grocery store, Whole Foods, for close to $ 13.7
million across US, UK and Canada. The company also began its search for a second
headquarters.
2018 Amazon was launched it Turkey and opened its cashier less grocery store. In the same
year the CEO made an announcement that the new headquarters will remain splitted
between Northern Virginia and New York.
Impact of Bounded Awareness on Decision-making Process
The bounded awareness represents a phenomenon where cognitive blinders prevents
an individual from seeking, using, seeing, sharing, readily perceivable and easily accessible
information during the process of decision making(Grant & Quiggin, 2013).
Example:
An example of boundless awareness is portrayed by Amazon when the sellers in the
urge to increase sales fail to properly take care of the feedback store. They tend to forget that

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the negative feedback spoils the reputation of the company thereby diminishing sales. To
prevent these measures like optimization of seller account has come into picture that helps in
removing the negative feedback and improves sales.
Framing Effect of the Company
The framing effect refers to the cognitive bias where the individual’s makes decisions
on the available options based on whether the options are presented as negative or positive
semantics for example a loss or a gain(Pagani, 2013).
Example
Amazon utilises the framing effect as one of its marketing trick where it offers a
benefit now and pay the consequences later approach for targeting the customers of Amazon
Prime. In doing so the company also offers a free trial for 30 days.

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References:
aboutamazon.com. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.aboutamazon.com/?
utm_source=gateway&utm_medium=footer
amazon.com. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.amazon.com/amazon-devices/b/ref=footer_devices?
ie=UTF8&node=2102313011
Grant, S., & Quiggin, J. (2013). Bounded awareness, heuristics and the Precautionary
Principle. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 93, 17-31.
Pagani, M. (2013). Digital business strategy and value creation: Framing the dynamic cycle
of control points. Mis Quarterly, 37(2).