Amazon Supply Chain Analysis Paper

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American international electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world’s largest internet company, based on revenue ($74.4 billion as of 2013) and number of employees (132,600 as of June 2014).

Amazon’s supply chain also consists of developed service and maintenance activities, including a customer service department to address consumer issues, as well as seller and product reviews/ratings from customers. All of these activities are accomplished via support activities including the procurement of items from manufacturers, distributors, and third party sellers. Technological developments are also a crucial support for facilitating the above activities, as well as well developed management and firm infrastructure.

This paper reviews the supply chain management practices of Amazon.com (AMZN) and highlights findings in the framework of a Strengths – Weaknesses – Opportunities – Threats (SWOT) framework.

Amazon.com, Inc. was founded in 1995 by Jeffrey P. Bezos, and its Headquarters is in Seattle, Washington. Amazon offers online retail shopping services and is the world’s leading online retailer. Its success has encouraged all sorts of other types of retailers to have an online presence. Amazons increasing size and sales has many referring to it today as the online equivalent of Wal-Mart. The site was generally known for its wide selection of books. The site has expanded and now offers millions of new, refurbished, unique, and used items. Amazon has products in departments such as; books, video games, electronics, movies, music, tools, toys, kid items, baby items, health, beauty, clothing, shoes, jewelry, grocery, sports, outdoor

Surprisingly, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has continued to grow exponentially without any real threat to their business due to their extensive supply chain model and management. Innovation was their special ingredient in disrupting the retail industry by creating more effective and efficient ways of managing their supply chain and inventory. In fact, the most interesting aspect of the strategy was not merely adding, but actually removing associations in the supply chain which in effect, caused numerous advantages for Wal-Mart; less expenses, more simplified system of flow which produces fewer errors from looming.

According to Webb and Schlemmer (2008) the firm’s infrastructure related to Amazon.com is that they consist of having the utilisation of technology so that they can connect with services in worldwide locations which cut costs and investment. Customer data is stored in warehouses where details can be saved in their data banks, although there has been a case when customer data has been lost so it’s not too reliable (Webb and Schlemmer, 2008).

Amazon.com is the world’s largest online store that provides access to online shoppers worldwide. In 1994, Jeff Bezos started this in his garage with the name of Cadabra. It was given its present name in 1995. Its headquarter is in Seattle Washington according to the statistics of 2012, 88,400 employees are working in the office and its revenue is about 61.09 billion US dollars. Firstly starting as an online book store, it developed itself as the largest online store of DVDs, software, mp3 downloads, videogames, furniture, toys, food, jewelry and many more things. Amazon is present in many countries as separate selling websites like America, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Japan and china. As the internet banished the geography, so did the Amazon. Today, there are 1.7 billion internet users as compared to the 3600 million in the year Jeff Bezos started the Amazon. So, it also globalized along with the globalizing world (Wasserman 2012).

Amazon.com first started as online bookstore but soon it diversified into selling apparel, software, food, furniture, toys and jewelry. Nowadays Amazon produces consumer electronics like kindle book e-reader and the kindle fire tablet. Amazon’s mission was “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices”. Amazon.com began to offer it e-commerce platform to other retailers and individuals sellers in 2000.

Amazon is E-commerce Company, Amazon got its start as an online bookstore, but as the industry evolved so did Amazon. Amazon has become one of the largest online retailers now selling a variety of products including electronics, DVDs, CDs, video games, clothing, and general merchandise in the world. Today Amazon.com is the largest Internet-based company in the United States. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 was the release of the first online bookstore, Amazon.com Inc. revolutionized the industry. Amazon’s initial entry into the book industry was a bold and strategic move competing with traditional Brick and

Amazon is one of the supply chain management leaders. According to the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2012 survey, #1 admired company in supply chain leadership was Apple; while #2 was Amazon (Hofman & Aronow, 2012). However, in SCM World’s survey on global supply chain practitioners, Amazon was top rated and beat Apple on three aspects of supply chain: (1) agility (the ability to quickly and cost-effectively shift amounts and types of production and delivery to improve operational performance in volatile conditions); (2) collaboration (the ability to work across organizational boundaries to solve systematic operational problems and create new

Design approach – The paper is based on an exhaustive study of eight supply chains which included ten companies in America. Managers from at least four levels of the supply chain were interviewed, and the supply chains were outlined and observed.

The service-based company that I have chosen to focus on is Amazon, they prove the sentiment stated in the essay title to be true more than any other successful company I have observed in the current business landscape. Amazon epitomizes the definition of innovation as everything its founder Jeff Bezos has strived for since starting the company in 1995, has been with the goal of evolving the business and innovating in ways not seen before in the global business market. The ethos of the company is innovation and expansion which is evident in the name Bezos chose for the company, “Amazon”. The name Amazon was chosen as it is the worlds largest river and Bezos wanted Amazon to become the world’s largest online bookstore (amazon was originally just a book store). Amazon has grown from a humble online bookstore to the worlds largest online marketplace in what is a small-time frame given that they are now the biggest online company in the world.

This case discusses Amazon.com's business model, supply chain, and its order-delivery processes. In 2005, Amazon.com introduced a premium membership scheme called ‘Amazon Prime'. It was a free two-day shipping and discounted one-day shipping rates service offered to the members in the US on eligible purchases for a flat annual fee of $79. Over the years, the service was extended to other countries like Japan, the UK, Germany, France, and Canada. In 2009, Amazon introduced same-day delivery in 10 big cities in the US, which were close to Amazon warehouses. However, in August 2012, Amazon.com introduced same-day delivery as an option and made next-day delivery a standard service to all its customers.

Amazon.com became a platform for the retailer and individuals in year 2000. Amazon.com offers their services towards 4 types of customers, consumers, sellers, enterprises and content creators. Amazon serves their customer through the popular web site which is www.amazon.com. These days, customers can access the website through using electronic gadgets like mobile phone, tablet and etc. Besides that, Amazon.com apps are also available for Apple & Android for the customers.

With the proliferation of communication and information technology, particularly the Internet, most business organizations have been at the forefront to join the e-commerce platform. Amazon is considered as one of the existing and largest e-business platform in the world. This report outlines Amazon’s strategic intent and key resources and capabilities. In addition, the report will also include an analysis of the company 's assets and capabilities that have provided it a sustainable competitive edge as well as, the recommended future strategy of the giant online organization. Amazon defines its line of business operations based on product and service sales, fulfillment, digital content subscriptions, publishing, and co-branded cards. The company 's line of business is defined as an online store, Internet service provision, and the Kindle ecosystem. This project will explore the truth that has made the online company to be considered as the top online retailer, which mainly focuses on strategy. This report also outlines how inventories play a fundamental role in the organization 's business or corporate strategy. The other issues covered in the report include the approach used by the online company deal with the supply chain and the reason behind fast shipping fast. The paper will outline the finance statute of the company and whether the finance effect will bar the organization from developing in future. In order to achieve the answer to the questions