Introduction
Amazon began as a small business that was initially established to sell books online. Over the last two decades, the company has experienced significant growth and has conquered the online retail space on a global scale. The growth of the company has largely been contributed by its strategies, which have seen its revenues increase astronomically. From a small business that Jeff Bezos operated from his garage, Amazon has grown to become the biggest retailer in the online space. However, some challenges have also been experienced along the way. This essay discusses these strategies and gives appropriate recommendations.
Strategies Employed
The great success that Amazon has experienced within the time of operation has to do with the undertaken strategic moves. One of the key strategies for the growth of the company is customer-centricity. While most businesses are focused on going ahead of their competitors, Amazon is a company that is focused on staying ahead of customers. Over the years, the company has maintained an obsession with the experiences of its customers, with priority given to consumer needs and desires. The vision of the company is to become the most company-centric business where customers have access to anything they would like to purchase online. The reason why customer-centricity is crucial is that it influences customer satisfaction. Of the essence is that customer-centricity focuses on the needs of customers to increase their satisfaction and corporate success (Kreuzer et al., 2020). The success of the company has been mainly ensured by its ability to run operations that are centered on customers. The commitment is evident through the inclusion of customer centricity in the company’s vision statement.
Constant innovation is another pillar that is crucial to Amazon’s growth strategy. Innovation requires that a company is capable of developing new ideas and methods of doing things. Through innovation, the company has brought value to consumers, and this has aided the company’s growth. Innovation in Amazon includes the exploration of artificial intelligence and Blue Origin, which has helped the company to explore outer space. In modern times, businesses are finding that they have to remain innovative for their survival in the competitive business environment.
Amazon’s competitive strategy has kept it ahead of competitors and thus sustained its growth over the years. The company is keen on the use of the broad differentiation strategy through which the company has maintained its uniqueness and customers are offered a wide variety of products. The company’s logo has an arrow that moves from the “A” to “z” in the name Amazon, and this implies that customers can get anything they want from the company. In addition, cost leadership has also been employed in various ways, among them networking technologies and other processes, as well as fulfillment stations.
The company maintains its emphasis on low-cost leadership and differentiation strategies as they sell products at low prices compared to those that the market offers (Althafairi et al., 2019). This has been an important aspect of the company’s growth, given that customers are increasingly persuaded to buy from the company because of the monetary savings they make by being offered similar products at low prices.
Amazon is a leader when it comes to research and development in the industry. In a company whose operations are based on e-commerce and cloud platforms, sustained efforts in terms of research and development have ensured the company’s growth on both platforms. The technology industry is very competitive, and for a company like Amazon to maintain its leadership in e-commerce and cloud solutions, there has been a deliberate effort to increase funding for research and development in this area as part of its growth strategy. With an e-commerce platform where the A9 algorithm (a platform that Amazon uses in deciding the ranking of products in search results) is used, Amazon gives its customers an experience that most online retailers can only dream of.
The various strategic measures taken by Amazon have ensured its continued growth since its inception. Adopting the right strategies has enabled the creation of a brand that has sustained growth even in the hardest economic times, such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has destroyed global economies. Despite facing some challenges along the way, the company has proved to be the undisputed leader in the online retail business.
Missteps
The success story of Amazon might seem like one of a company that has not experienced some challenges along the way. Amazon is a company that believes in trying new things and ideas to ensure the success of the company in terms of growth and market expansion. However, it is worth noting that the company has experienced some missteps on its path to success. When one thinks about the company’s missteps, the Amazon Fire Phone is easy to identify. In launching the phone, the company was aiming at further diversifying its product offerings as part of the growth strategy, but in the end, it ended up recording millions of dollars in losses when the product failed (Borison, 2015). In a move that was seen as a direct competition to eBay, Amazon decided to launch Amazon Auction. Eventually, Auction was forced to close business, but it was instrumental in the company’s launch of Amazon Marketplace, which is key to the business (Kim, 2015).
Endless.com, a fashion line that was focused on shoes and accessories, is another example of the company’s failures (Green, 2019). Amazon has also experienced challenges when it comes to entry into foreign markets. China is a good example in this regard. The company entered the Chinese market by acquiring the country’s leading online book-seller Joyo.com, which was later rebranded to Amazon China (Weise, 2019). Amazon’s failure resulted from its inability to adapt to the tastes and preferences of consumers in the market. The company’s missteps have played a crucial role in shaping it into what it is today. Failures have always been taken positively, and for this reason, the company has emerged stronger with new innovative ideas even after failing.
Future Strategies
Amazon is a business that is on everybody’s tongue whenever e-commerce is mentioned. The company still has many options in terms of strategy that can be adopted for continued growth in the future. One ideal strategy would be the further development of its private brands and increasing marketing efforts to the millions of loyal customers that the company has. By increasing the number of products that it offers, Amazon can compete more with other companies in the private brands sector, including Walmart. Amazon has various advantages compared to its competitors, and one of them is that it is capable of offering low-priced quality products. Consequently, the business would benefit significantly because it has a ready market for the products it would introduce.
Amazon’s future growth could also be ensured by expansion into the grocery business. The company has sufficient knowledge in this area and should take advantage of the prospects in the grocery market to increase its market and revenue share. Recent developments have indicated that the online grocery business is poised for growth, and this is an opportunity that the company should exploit.
In the past, Amazon has entered into strategic partnerships and made acquisitions, including Whole Foods and Zappos, with the aim of product diversification. Such moves have also ensured that the business diversifies its service portfolio. In its pursuit of diversification, Amazon has in the past been involved in both related and unrelated diversification (Onyusheva & Seenalasataporn, 2018, p. 51). Therefore, by acquiring more entities, whether, in related or unrelated business, Amazon would position itself strategically across different markets through such diversification efforts. Coupled with its low-cost price strategy, diversification would further expand the company’s market reach and ensure its growth in the future.
Conclusion
Amazon’s strategies have ensured the company’s growth over time from a small online book retailer in 1994 to the biggest online retailer of all types of goods today. The company has focused on customer-centricity, constant innovation, broad differentiation, and research and development, as well as its low-cost pricing model. Amazon has been able to provide customers with what they want and has ensured that their needs are put first. The company’s success has not been without failure as some missteps have been witnessed over the years, for example, the failures of the Amazon Fire Phone and the company’s failure to conquer the Chinese market. However, these challenges have not prevented the company from further growth through the introduction of more products. Investing more in private brands and the grocery market while also seeking strategic partnerships and acquisitions are some of the strategies that Amazon should pursue for future growth in line with its business model.
References
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Borison, R. (2015). Here are 10 of Amazon’s biggest failures. TheStreet. Web.
Green, D. (2019). Jeff Bezos has said that Amazon has had failures worth billions of dollars — here are some of the biggest ones (AMZN). AfricaBusinessInsider. Web.
Kim, E. (2015). Jeff Bezos says Amazon is not afraid to fail — these 9 failures show he’s not kidding. Web.
Kreuzer, T., Röglinger, M., & Rupprecht, L. (2020). Customer-centric prioritization of process improvement projects. Decision Support Systems, 133, 113286. Web.
Onyusheva, I., & Seenalasataporn, T. (2018). Strategic analysis of global e-commerce and diversification technology: The case of Amazon. INC. The EUrASEANs: Journal on Global Socio-Economic Dynamics, 1 (8), 48-63. Web.
Weise, K. (2019). Amazon gives up on Chinese domestic shopping business. The New York Times. Web.