BM311 - Entrepreneurship in Digital Age: An Amazon Case Study Report

This report analyzes Amazon's entrepreneurial journey, focusing on its transformation from an online bookstore to a global e-commerce giant. It examines Jeff Bezos' leadership, innovative strategies, and customer-centric approach. The report delves into the challenges faced, such as distribution issues, and the solutions implemented, including investments in research and development, cloud computing technology, and the development of products like Alexa and Blue Origin. It highlights Amazon's disruptive business model, customer obsession model, and critical successes, such as Alexa and cloud computing. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs and adapting to the digital age. It also provides insights into how Amazon disrupted the e-commerce market and its impact on other businesses. The report concludes with recommendations for future business strategies, emphasizing the importance of customer focus and continuous innovation.

Running head: ENTERPRENEURSHIP IN DIGITAL AGE
[Type the company name]
Entrepreneurship in digital age
Report
STUDENT NAME
[Pick the date]

ENTERPRENEURSHIP IN DIGITAL AGE 1
Introduction
Jeff Bezos established its first office in his garage with the help of few individuals and started
their focus on developing software. In 1995, he named his business as Amazon .com on the name
of South American river. Jeff Bezos started investing in R& D in order to find out possible
opportunities for their business to transform themselves in e-commerce Company (Ritala,
Golnam & Wegmann, 2014). Jeff Bezos has transformed Amazon online book store into one of
the largest e-commerce company whose service is completely based on cloud computing
technology.
Issue faced by Jeff Bezos
One of the important issues faced by Jeff Bezos was related to their distribution system because
they were not able to provide more books at a time. This issue was really impacting their
business in the initial stage of the launch of their service. This issue triggered Jeff Bezos that
their service is not of quality service as an online store and is in need of improvement in order to
remain in this business market.
Transformation of Amazon from small to the big tech giant
The company got its initial success in the business market by selling online book without any
press promotion. After launching their online book store soon they started their operation across
the United States and within thirty days they started working on an international platform with
around 45 countries. Within two months, company was able to reach record sales of $ 20,000
within one week and this offered the motivation base for Jeff Bezos to go for more.
Investment in R&D offered Jeff Bezos to think its business as a digital platform instead of e-
commerce only. This motivated Jeff Bezos to spend $ 12.5 billion in 2015 to generate innovative
thinking. Innovative idea came in the form of cloud technology which totally transformed the
outlook of the company into the most innovative digital company (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015). In
addition to this, they have also innovated voice command instruments like Alexa and Prime TV
services. On e-commerce platform Amazon entered into new segments like online music store in
the form of Prime music, prime pantry, Prime now, Amazon Fresh and so on.
Things done by Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos first started focusing on developing software for his website and then he started using
this software as a mode of selling book which got great success. Its success further motivated
Jeff Bezos to go for some something innovative and therefore he decided to connect his e-
commerce platform with other aspects like music, video and Amazon fresh in order to bring

ENTERPRENEURSHIP IN DIGITAL AGE 2
online grocery store (Lashinsky, 2012). After this, he further decided to work on technology
which can bring value to their business. In this situation, he came up with the idea of cloud
computing technology which has helped the company in finding a new opportunity for their
business growth in the market of e-commerce. He then decided to go one step further and
launched a voice command device in the form of Alexa which works on the virtual command
and offer various features related to music play, alarm setting as well as offer information related
to weather and traffic conditions by simply connecting it with mobile android technology (Dyer,
Gregersen & Christensen, 2008). After exploring the future need, Jeff Bezos decided to enter in
the world of aerospace in the form of blue origin which has become one of the private aerospace
which is capable of launching new space instruments with cost efficiency along with reliability.
Customer obsession model of Amazon
According to Amazon Customer obsession model, The bottom line is keeping the business
operation around customer-centric by starting with the customer and act as background support.
Connect the technology with customer satisfaction because customer satisfaction does not
happen incidentally (Totango, 2019). In addition to this Amazon, customer obsession model also
focus on thinking out of the box because in this competitive world the company who will gain
more pain will be more successful in terms of their operational excellence and soon will present
a threat to the existing companies. Bottom line is a customer can never be satisfied they always
look for something new and therefore the company must go on exploring new opportunities in
order to fulfill their expectations (Pienaar, 2019). Obsession model is based on three pillars one
is strategy, another is forming an emotional bond with the customers and third is making use of
technology to transform this emotional bond into reality.
Disruptive business
Disruptive business is considered as one of the important forms of strategy which is connected
with the innovation that significantly impacts the pattern of the complete market. One of the best
examples is Amazon which has changed the completely changed the pattern of e-commerce with
the help of their cloud computing technology (Entrepreneur, 2019). Cloud computing technology
of Amazon has negatively impacted the business of other e-commerce companies which refused
to involve this technology in their business operation. As a result of this, all the other e-
commerce companies entered into tremendous loss zone. The main motive of disruptive business
is to make use of technology in the innovative pattern instead of focusing on the technology itself
(Hughes, 2013).
Amazon used this strategy in their distribution system because of which the company was able to
deliver their product within the half time which has put most of the competitors in shame
position. In addition to this Amazon disruptive business has helped the company in increasing
their customer reach on the global platform, especially related to Alexa product which has

ENTERPRENEURSHIP IN DIGITAL AGE 3
created a record sale of 10 million right from its launch in 2014 (Saxena & Yadav, 2013).
Amazon Company was very successful in creating a new market form them and has disturbed
the existing market with the help of their technology. Disruptive business helps the company in
bringing the customer close to the product by forming an emotional bond with the customer in
the form of customer-centric business model.
Amazon three critical successes
One of the critical successes of Amazon is Alexa which works on voice command. This product
makes use of virtual assistant aspect in order to operate. This product has the ability of voice
interaction, smart music players, alarms setting, playing audiobook and even provide information
related to weather and traffic with the help of real-time features. In addition to this, thisdevice is
capable of controlling various home devices (Chung, Park & Lee, 2017). With the help of this
product, Amazon was able to increase its brand image in the world of future and innovations.
Second critical success of Amazon is Blue origin which is working in the area of space
operations. It is basically private aerospace manufacture which was established in 2000 under the
control of Amazon founder. The purpose of this product was to alter the market of space
technology with the help of cost optimization in order to increase ratability.
Third critical success of Amazon is operating their website with the help of cloud computing
technology which has brought revolution in the world of e-commerce and it is also known as one
of the disruptive technology in the world which has forced other companies to make use of this
technology in their business even if they are not willing due to heavy competition (Wang et al.,
2010).
Solution
The company has to focus more on its distribution system in order to make this company
unmatchable as compared to other e-commerce companies on the global level. In addition to this,
the company must link their customer as a strategic partner to increase their dependency on this
business operation with the help of technology advancement.
Conclusion
Any business must not start with just having an idea and move towards the customer. In fact, it is
important to first explore the issues faced by the customer and then start working on it. Amazon
is not focusing on becoming one of the biggest online retail companies in the world. Instead of
that, they are focusing on fulfilling the exact needs of the customer, which is helping the
company in reaching out the position where the customer wants them to be. It is basically one
step ahead which helps the company in becoming one of the most innovative digital tech giants
in the world. This product has also most dominate the other aerospace companies in the world
both in private as well as a public company with their cost-efficient strategy.

ENTERPRENEURSHIP IN DIGITAL AGE 4
References
Entrepreneur.(2019). Why Amazon and Jeff Bezos Are So Successful at Disruption [online].
Retrieved from: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/312481
Hughes, J. E. (2013). Descriptive indicators of future teachers' technology integration in the PK-
12 classroom: Trends from a laptop-infused teacher education program. Journal of Educational
Computing Research, 48(4), 491-516.
Saxena, A., & Yadav, R.D. (2013). Impact of mobile technology on libraries: a descriptive
study. International Journal of Digital Library Services, 3(4), pp.1-13.
Chung, H., Park, J., & Lee, S. (2017). Digital forensic approaches for Amazon Alexa
ecosystem. Digital Investigation, 22, S15-S25.
Wang, L., Von Laszewski, G., Younge, A., He, X., Kunze, M., Tao, J., & Fu, C. (2010). Cloud
computing: a perspective study. New Generation Computing, 28(2), 137-146.
Totango. (2019) Amazon Customer obsession [online]. Retrieved from:
https://blog.totango.com/2019/01/true-customer-obsession-is-key-jeff-i-agree/
Pienaar, Q. (2019) Lessons on customer obsession from Amazon and Jeff Bezos [online].
Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lessons-customer-obsession-from-amazon-jeff-
bezos-quinton-pienaar
Lashinsky, A. (2012). Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: The Ultimate Disrupter. Retrieved September, 3,
2013.
Dyer, J. H., Gregersen, H. B., & Christensen, C. (2008). Entrepreneur behaviors, opportunity
recognition, and the origins of innovative ventures. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2(4),
317-338.
Ritala, P., Golnam, A., & Wegmann, A. (2014). Coopetition-based business models: The case of
Amazon. com. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(2), 236-249.
Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising
workplace. New York Times, 15, 74-80.