Introduction
Amazon.com Inc. is a retailer, e-book reader producer, and Web services supplier whose brand is known for online shopping. Seattle in Washington, is home to the corporation’s headquarters. The company sells toys, electronics, housewares, movies, music, and several other items directly or via intermediaries between Amazon customers and other sellers (Hall, 2022, para. 2). Web services, also known as “cloud computing,” are a company division that enhances data processing and storage ability over the Internet. In 2012, Amazon’s data centers handled 1% of all website traffic in Northern America. The firm also creates the finest Kindle e-readers (Hall, 2022, para. 3). Amazon’s strategies have led to a significant rise in its sustainability due to the competitive advantages they offer to the firm.
According to A.I. Assistant, Amazon is the world’s largest Internet corporation regarding income and market share. In 2021, Amazon Prime, a monthly service with approximately 200 million users worldwide, surpassed Walmart as the most prominent global retailer outside of China. Amazon is the second-biggest private job creator in the U.S. Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, Twitch all offer various downloading and streaming materials offered by Amazon.com Inc. (Hall, 2022, para. 1). Amazon Studios created television shows and movies and acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It also makes consumer electronics like Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, Fire T.V., and Fire tablets. As of December 2020, Amazon operated in the U.K., the U.S., Italy, Spain, Germany, and Canada (Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Results | Amazon.com, Inc. – Press Room, 2022, para. 6). Amazon Prime Air uses a drone system in its delivery. Amazon recruits people directly for its bulk distributors, warehousing, staffed “Amazon Hub Locker+” sites, and delivery stations.
Impact of Pandemic on Sustainable Development
Organizations compete through sustainability to generate shareholders’ finances and offer industrial services to deliver an additional foundation of income and permit manufacturers to grow more cooperative enterprises that move past arms-length dealings. Firms further adopt digitalization, which encourages innovation among workers, improving their competition levels (Parida and Wincent, 2019, p. 6). Businesses may better target their customers and increase sales and revenue margins with the above-mentioned sustainable operations while also retaining customers and employees (Peskett, 2018, para. 4). The pandemic touched all the aspects of sustainability due to its environmental, and biological threats to humanity. It impacted humanity badly in the practical quest for healthy lifestyles, physiological sensations, and economic development.
COVID-19 impacted various firms, including small-sized companies, which were vulnerable. Because of the COVID-19 scenario, manufacturing companies had to hold their production channels for a more extended period while searching for longstanding explanations (Kumar et al., 2020, p. 4). Millions of people died due to the COVID-19 epidemic, which had far-reaching consequences for individuals, families, businesses, and the entire supply chain (Further and Faster, Together, 2022, para. 3). During the epidemic, Amazon’s company surged, resulting in pollution. The pandemic created various opportunities for Amazon; shoppers turned to Amazon for everything, including face masks and sanitizers to foodstuffs and office equipment; the opportunity made Amazon’s online store a big winner. Despite an increase in total emissions, Amazon reduced its carbon intensity or the number of emissions produced.
Identification of The Competitive Stances
One way to describe Amazon’s business model is cost management occupied to its rational assumption. Amazon’s competitive gain is based on its ability to offer a wide variety of products at a reasonable price. There is no margin for error when it comes to the world’s largest online retailer because of the mixture of scale economies, new procedures, and ongoing diversification of the company’s business model. Depending on the three organizational tactics, Amazon has maintained a long-term competitive edge. A low-cost leader, a customer differentiation strategy, and a focus strategy are examples of this business approach. Amazon is pursuing low-cost leadership by differentiating its products based on price. Amazon ensures its long-term prosperity by delivering low prices to its customers. Achieving more significant sales capacities, getting better deals from suppliers, and refining operational competence will reduce the overall cost of cutting prices.
Amazon guarantees that its goods contain a similar quality as other firms but significantly lower prices. One of Amazon’s strategies is the company’s fast delivery service, which comes in various flavors. Various Amazon products are eligible for free two-day shipping with Amazon Prime. It’s also worth noting that Amazon Prime members get access to a wide range of discounts and special offers. Various brands and companies are sold on Amazon, as well. Amazon prioritizes its clients, and the company is well aware that the delivery process is one of the most sought-after features by customers. Because fulfillment centers are not retail storefronts, no sales taxes must be charged on Amazon purchases. Amazon can better serve its consumers since it has several warehouses in various places. Throughout the years, Amazon’s growth has made it possible to lower its costs.
Amazon’s strategies include regularly entering new markets and categories, developing its ecosystem, and maintaining a laser-like focus on providing excellent customer service and upholding its core principles. Amazon’s modest edge is constructed on the groundwork of advanced universal logistics. The computer behemoth has made great use of this edge to broaden its scope of operations and achieve financial success. The e-commerce behemoth often stumbles into new markets and niches while searching for solutions to business issues. An excellent example of this is Amazon Web Services (AWS). On a more specific level, Amazon was straining to maintain pace with its rapid expansion in 2000. Infrastructure functions, including computing, storage, and database management, were handled by internal systems designed by the corporation for its use.
Amazon’s corporate strategy is based on the idea of an ecosystem. An essential part of the Amazon network is a group of people who can communicate with customers, authors, publishers, and application developers to spread the word about what is possible on the platform. Amazon’s business strategy is based on the belief that customers are essential to the equation. As the world’s biggest online retailer by sales, Amazon ranks long-term progress over temporary income. Customers are Amazon’s priority, and they do not give a hoot about their competitors. Instead, Amazon has acknowledged a chair for each boardroom to represent the consumer as “a concrete reminder to develop in their favor.” Amazon’s ability to maximize the value of its human capital is another clear advantage. Amazon employees must work long hours, often sacrificing their personal lives, to meet the company’s high standards. As a result of Amazon’s leadership concepts, including customer devotion, focusing on the top level, and digging deep, the company’s workforce can contribute more.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Among Amazon’s strengths are the following: a well-known name, a wide range of products, and the capacity to implement new technologies quickly, particularly in the online service sector, are some of the essential attributes of a successful organization. To maintain its position as the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon relies on a strategy that emphasizes cost leadership, distinctiveness, and narrow focus. The corporation has reaped the benefits of this tactic, enabling stockholders to gain wealth. The corporation’s rapid success, mainly in the initial years, can be credited to this benefit, significantly impacting brand awareness and consumer trust (Greenspan, 2019, para. 2). Amazon’s market analysis includes various positives, including a moderate level of business diversity. Examples include online retail operations, private label items, and cloud computing. Amazon.com Inc. is a formidable rival because of its wide range of related operations. Therefore, the business is well situated to adopt the changing trends.
Weaknesses
Limitations in Amazon’s infrastructure impede the company’s ability to expand. Imitable marketing strategy, limited expansion in underdeveloped regions, and local brick-and-mortar operation are the most critical of Amazon’s shortcomings. There are several ways to copy Amazon.com, Inc.’s sales model. Other firms can build e-commerce websites to offer anything, which is a vulnerability that generates possibilities for other companies to impose more significant pressure on the electronic commerce behemoth. Amazon’s lack of mobility in emerging economies is another problem that stops the company from reaping the benefits of these markets’ high economic growth rates (Greenspan, 2019, para. 3). However, due to its minimal brick-and-mortar footprint, the company has difficulty developing swiftly in the offline sector. With the takeover of Whole Foods’ Markets, Amazon wants to expand its non-online businesses. Nonetheless, the company experiences a hurdle in expansion in both the present and growth of e-marketplaces because of internal variables in this area. It is possible that Amazon’s organizational design and layout and its strategic development and scheduling will need to be altered to meet these difficulties head-on.
Opportunities
There are numerous avenues available to increase Amazon’s diverse business efficiency. Expanding in developing areas, expanding brick-and-mortar company operations, and forming new alliances with other companies are possibilities for Amazon. The company can expand into emerging markets like China and India. When other substantial e-commerce companies begin to root, this step will benefit the corporation with a better competitive edge. External factors include the increased money generated by adding additional brick-and-mortar locations to the current Amazon locations (Greenspan, 2019, para. 5). In addition; the corporation can use external strategic factors, such as the chance to form new alliances with other companies, to broaden its worldwide e-commerce footprint. The company can enhance Amazon’s corporate responsibility policy by partnering with companies with successful company citizenship images. These external influences can help the organization expand its market presence and increase income.
Threats
Different businesses and markets present Amazon with different risks. Threats to Amazon include intense rivalry from digital and non-online enterprises, cybercrime, and replication of Amazon’s pricing structure and goods in the sector (Greenspan, 2019, para. 6). With Costco Wholesale, Walmart, Google, eBay, Netflix, and Apple, Microsoft is among the many competitors Amazon.com Inc. faces in the retail market today, and competition stands the most significant danger to the company. Consumer devices, commerce, e-commerce, internet digital content delivery, cloud-based activities, and other I.T. services are all facing increasing levels of competitiveness. The table below summarizes Amazon’s SWOT analysis:
Table 1: SWOT Analysis Box
Recommendations
Amazon’s sustainability can be achieved by setting goals and most minor amounts in financial inclusion programs that focus on agricultural systems that are environmentally friendly, as well as food and nutritional security and decreasing environmental damage, both of which can be achieved through particular budgetary allocation to support environmental activity in nearby public policy initiatives. Bioenergy chains can be improved and developed to create a green recovery. Amazon must operate an eco-friendly venture to assist Amazon in minimizing its environmental effects and preserving natural resources (Marysol Goes, 2022, para. 14). The industry can maintain its green recovery by using fewer natural resources and recycled material (The benefits of an environmentally friendly business | Business Queensland, 2022, para. 1). The organization should start limiting airline travel by conducting interstate meetings via teleconferences as part of a comprehensive review of the corporation’s operational processes.
Conclusion
Making Amazon more environmentally friendly is good for the company’s bottom line and the surroundings. The company should also avoid wasting resources by printing double-sided and encouraging employees to take messages on scrap paper rather than buying message cushions instead. Based on the work surrounding Amazon’s advantages, Amazon’s operations can continue to grow. E-commerce expansion, particularly in high-growth emerging economies, can help the company flourish. To address the issues this Swot matrix raises, Amazon will have to re-evaluate most of its current plans. Still, the company is among the world’s largest technology companies. The firm should continue expanding its business to reinforce itself against manufacturing threats to answer the external and internal aspects of this SWOT analysis. Amazon should expand its global operations to better withstand competition and other associated strategic problems by forming new alliances.
Reference List
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