Analyzing Operations and Project Management Techniques in Amazon

Introduction

This study is going to identify the operations and project management techniques involved within a chosen company. focusing on business dissertation help. The organizational growth is shown here, which had started at a base level. Supply chain management is going to be discussed in this context along with an analysis of capacity and quality development. Amazon has been identified as one of the largest growing e-commerce businesses with global recognition in this 21st era. Such an assessment helps in developing criteria of a person's professionalism. The assessment gives an appropriate idea on the evaluation of operations management through a complete analysis of the technological, ethical components in Amazon. Any evidence of operational success is highly discussed and the assessment regards different issues within a systematic arrangement. Amazon's innovations in supply chain development are mesmerizing. The case study in focus is identified as “Creating the global shopping mall: The case of Amazon”.

The overall increase in product time, managing the number of warehouses, and engagement of product delivery time are important. The secret behind Amazon's success can be explained in terms of "Patience, relentless investment and serial innovation have helped Jeff Bezos’s company 'shred the competition” (Amazon.com). E-commerce technology is associated with cost-effective components and helping the future grow brighter in a positive manner. Amazon is associated with a decision-making capability and they focus on fulfilling their commitment. Therefore, a person can learn about the transitions made by Amazon to become “everything store”.

Operations and Project management

Theory and practices in operations management

Operations management is highly impacting the employees working within Amazon. The newest discoveries include online groceries and cloud computing which makes it more essential. The organization incorporates essential markup on magnifying the opportunities within this organization (Baskin, 2017). Operational efficiency helps in the innovation of a significant volume of data management by using data registries in their databases. Storing an effective and large volume of data is important for implementing innovation in operational management. Google innovation management and creative processes are allowed to be defined as operators of business innovations. Radical and fundamental innovations include optimized business search engine uses and driving more customers to the organization by making advertisements. All employees are asked to set up business goals that are essential to manage internal values and contribute to the innovation process. Equal opportunities are gained so that improved business divisions are created and changes in company processes are observed. The R&D teams are integrating bold efforts of two-day delivery standards after the launch. The operational innovation is observed in terms of drone-based delivery systems (Caraway, 2020). The supply chain undergoes continuous monitoring and security components to be managed for customer disappointment and grievance handling.

Amazon's marketplace highly focuses on smaller sellers and manufacturers. The linking applies to a huge customer base and fulfillment program. Displaying the products on a centralized online portal has been observed. Business functionality poses an authentication for fulfilling business programs and follows all FBA practices well (Voigt, Buliga, and Michl, 2017.). A centralized market is dealing with front-end marketing for attracting leads and converting them into significant orders. Selecting between online and offline shopping apparently should provide a clear differentiation of profit to the customers. Providing in-person shopping experiences provides customers the urge to shop from online platforms. An omni-channel strategy is important to address the concerns since the platform has to work on impressive services provided by the people. In the UK, there is reinforcement observed in technological infrastructure management. Improving consumer flexibility is required for the personalized shopping experience.

Amazon's strategy of coming up with Amazon fresh for Alexa has been impressive. There is also a development of edge computing observed that impacts operational studies. On-track application management, risk management is part of Amazon's achievement and focus on innovation. Networking, multiplexing, cable, and security are largely impacted upon. The operations include kiva systems that are associated with the packing and picking process at 775 million (Zhu, 2019). Operational theories of Amazon include environmental, cyclical, and conflictual where the competition and conflict are raised at a higher position. It follows a pattern that enables the following specific and identifiable attributes.

Environmental operations theory focuses on survival in the market and possessing changes in the income made by this organization. The organization highly believes in the theory of Charles Darwin which is popularized by the phrase "Survival of the fittest". Now, changes in technology and competition influence the following operational characteristics such as:

Demographic factors including the age of the population

Social factors including preferences of products and services

The environmental theory is focused on the ability to adapt the changes successfully. The wheels of retailing revolve around cyclical theory, which is affecting the dynamic sectors of political, economic, social, and technological, and intense competition. This approach describes the institutional transformation of life cycles. "Scrambled merchandising" is identified as a component of retailer goods and service management to ensure sales and profit margins. Overall sales and profit margins redeem upon the entry phase, trade-up phase, and vulnerable phase. Next comes the discussion upon conflict theory, this is existing between the operators of similar or dissimilar formats within broad retail categories. Thus retailing involves a dialect process that blends marketing challenges into the next rounds of evolution (Wible, Mervis, and Wigginton, 2014). All these theories are associated with an acceleration of growth components and emerging competitions of investment systems.

Operations strategy

Amazon's impact on the Australian Retail Industry has been unique. The strategies which can be marked as important are:

In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States. This is identified as one of the greatest steps of market capitalization

Amazon is identified to be the world's fourth most valuable public company in the world by acquiring a whole foods market of 13 Billion in the year 2017 (Vicén Sampériz, 2018).

Consistent innovation and investments ensure to comply with Kindle E-readers, Amazon Echo, and Echo dot to leverage upon big data and predictive analytics technology.

Amazon follows stock analysis using financial ratios to ensure that best management practices are applied and the organization highly focuses on long-term thinking to value the consistent growth module.

Project management

Project management theories specifically the agile method is important to be engaged within this. In the case of Amazon, the customer service strategy, customer focus, automation in editing, and canceling are managed so easily that the business reaches higher heights. As commented by Sumner-Rivers (2015), the solid and componential analysis on "Anticipatory Shipping '' is observed that allows Amazon to knock on the shipping of products before the engagement is valued upon big data and predictive analytics technology. Project management comes with different terms such as:

Cost of products and services

Delivery Speed

Quality and value offered

Delivery Reliability

Speed of new product introduction

Localization

Ability to capture global markets

Geo-political understanding

Delivery Reliability

The operations are intended to manage overall retail service which maximizes innovations and diversification of the company. Specific knowledge regions help in sustaining the global environments and add to the maturity development of this organization. The company largely relies on internet services.

Significance/importance of operations

The operations within this organization are significant since a variety of components are engaged within business and research partnerships. In August 2017, Amazon entered into a partnership for better integration of Alexa and Cortana digital assistants (Schmidt, 2014). Cross-platform integration helps in living up to the edge of lighting, security, and smart home devices. Amazon wireless collaboration is partnered upon for delivering differentiated integration strategies and horizontal solutions for all mutual customers. Collaboration is observed with technical giants such as Cognizant, Accenture and focuses on the delivery of cloud transformation projects majorly. Therefore, signified operations are helping to generate good relations with other companies and making up a larger profit index. Strategic collaborations are highly focused with Amazon to ensure record-breaking sales and getting bigger in the Mid-East. A digitally funded capital float startup is revolutionized for a $1 billion investment with a revenue marking of 400 billion.

According to the CEO, Jeff Bezos operations are important since there is accountability observed of online and physical aspects. Warehouse efficiency and marketing campaigns are given priorities so that complete inventory management planning is processed. It is one of a kind internet-based enterprise that is selling books, music, and many more goods. The type of business model associated with Amazon is entirely dependent on its operations where the management of quality is observed (Patel, Azadegan, and Ellram, 2013). It highly works with marketing p's such as promotions, place, and suitability of actions. Amazon's sustainable competitive advantage is that can indulge in the business strategies of Amazon. Provision of physical products, web-servicing, and deploying IT capabilities for different primary and support activities. The fulfillment of a customer-centric vision is observed inside this organization.

Supply chain management

Importance of supply chain

The importance of the supply chain can be explained in terms of patenting a list of ranges. A practical way of managing dependency is identified to balance the benefits of the company's core values. Internalizing the surrounding actions is important for the successful encouragement of technology components. Amazon's supply chain management is referring to the entire process of product warehousing to automation and inventory management. The technology embracement is applied to supply chains to manage end-to-end visibility and work on the process of automated warehousing. The combination of information technology, extensive networking of warehouses is changing the way of supply chain management. After 10 years of foundation, the annual revenue increased up to 7 billion (Oti, 2013). Amazon is having a game-changing delivery system with the development of Amazon prime that is made up of innovative strategies and gives major competition. "Quick and efficient supply chain management" is outsourcing inventories and insourcing logistics. Several third-party sellers are identified which is associated with a 50% increase in sales.

Porter's five forces can be applied to identify the adequacy of Amazon's competitive positioning. of substitute: This particular force is identified to be stronger since, technological innovations enables the organization to generate a certain level of differentiation. Vast catalogue of alternative products gives strength to hold a sustainable market position.

Bargaining power of suppliers: This particular force is weak, since a large number of suppliers and a variety of sellers ensure that Amazon gains a monopoly over the ecommerce business.

Bargaining power of customers: This force is stronger since there is combined strength observed of over 49 million customers and attraction towards the competitors of Amazon (McGarry, and Anderson, 2018.).

Barriers to entry: This force is higher since Amazon becomes a tough competitors to those who are about to enter with a limited budget. Amazon’s improved uses of IT and technical innovations are improving operations. Amazon’s fulfillment systems manage the integrity and competency levels.

Rivalry among existing competitors: This force is identified to be higher since, Amazon takes the advantages of types of resources for the improvement of business. Competitions are made in terms of Amazon’s continuous refinement and value proposition which is quite inspiring.

Process of capacity and quality development in Amazon

This organization is having a specific quality control team that focuses on the quality control aspects largely. “Technology behind the smile” is the tagline of Amazon while all the operations are managed successfully. Streamline processes are performed using the latest applications in science, machine learning, and scalable distributed software on the cloud (Lashinsky, 2012). Data engineering is also incorporated within so that financial statements work for digital companies.

Technology, people, and ethics

Machine learning and artificial intelligence have been identified as the two most essential components of technology that help Amazon to ensure growth levels. Open-sourced AI development gives the customer a chance to gain an in-person shopping experience by switching to virtual try it on mode. The python-based programming interface is helping in the development of assistants such as Amazon's Alexa (Laber, Thamma, and Kirby, 2020). This is a new service that ensures the device makers include smart displays, reduce complexity and reduce cost. AI-infused voice assistants perform several operations such as Echo smart speakers. The organization has more plans to support Alexa in the BMW cars. Next comes Amazon Web services which are helping the business grow and engage in AWS cloud business. In addition to this, Amazon's cloud segment accounts for 58.9% of the overall operating income.

Amazon has been taking part in autonomous vehicle management to ensure an analysis of autonomous vehicles and testing the reality of the elements. Understanding whether the vehicles are fully functional or not is important. Bi-directional driving is capable of speeding 75 miles per hour. Amazon is becoming a logistics powerhouse day after day. Amazon fulfillment centers are growing exponentially with a current number of 110 (Isckia, 2009). "Amazon surprised the world by acquiring Zoox for more than $1 billion, making it the company’s biggest acquisition of 2020". It acquired new opportunities of e-commerce segmentation to a certain limit so that it becomes the most formidable option on the internet. As a part of revenue analysis, it can be explained that Amazon provides over 13.5 billion operative income alone to engage in record-breaking sales in 2020. Amazon saw a growth that beats the topmost market owners easily throughout the year 2021. There is an important hike in revenue distribution observed where people are committed to the loyalty of Amazon and take services from them.

Ethical understanding involves Amazon building a strong personal and social orientation. The management of conflict and uncertainty is associated with a lawsuit protecting civil rights. The company encourages enormous protection rules to make sure that covid guidelines are maintained appropriately. Amazon follows the differential aspects of business ethics such as fair pay services, understanding the importance of community-based learning, and rolling the perspectives of workplace abuse and discrimination (Cohen, 2018). Amazon web services give a detailed understanding of components with a nagging and reliable mode of working. Amazon never publicizes the ethical understanding, which they follow. Recognition of ethical components has also been understood within conscious consumerism and Amazon's market dominance is continued. Here, people are given enough opportunities to learn continuously and grow at a certain level. A definite list of activities is encouraged while consumerism is identified to be at its best. Moral and ethical uses of big data have become important since customers' privacy is prioritized in Amazon.

Conclusion

The study reveals a systematic analysis on company Amazon, which enables to identify the company’s progress of customer-centric information management. Operational development along with supply chain competency development is highly associated within this organization. There are systematic indulgence observed which evaluates the efficiency of company persons and provides an inspiration of becoming large scale retailer. Swift delivery modules are created for managing flexible returns and one click payment options. The organization focuses largely on customer information safety by providing two-step authentication and protecting the credit card information every time they shop. Targeting, segmentation and positioning is highly focused for becoming popular throughout this organization.

References

Journals

Baskin, B., 2017. Amazon’s free shipping pushes small retailers, delivery firms to compete. The Wall Street Journal, 8.

Caraway, B., 2020. Interrogating Amazon’s Sustainability Innovation. In Cultural Industries and the Environmental Crisis (pp. 65-78). Springer, Cham.

Cohen, R., 2018. How Amazon’s delivery logistics redefined retail supply chains. Journal of Supply Chain Management, Logistics and Procurement, 1(1), pp.75-86.

Isckia, T., 2009. Amazon's evolving ecosystem: A cyber‐bookstore and Application Service Provider. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration, 26(4), pp.332-343.

Laber, J., Thamma, R. and Kirby, E.D., 2020. The impact of warehouse automation in amazon’s success. International Journal of Innovative Science, Engineering & Technology, 7(8), pp.63-70

Lashinsky, A., 2012. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: The Ultimate Disrupter. Retrieved September, 3, p.2013.

McGarry, K. and Anderson, T., 2018. ANALYZING INTERNET SALES AND USE TAX INFLUENCES ON AMAZON’S STRATEGIC SUPPLY CHAIN DECISIONS.

Oti, O.O.O., 2013. Hub and spoke network design for the inbound supply chain (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Patel, P.C., Azadegan, A. and Ellram, L.M., 2013. The effects of strategic and structural supply chain orientation on operational and customer‐focused performance. Decision Sciences, 44(4), pp.713-753.

Schmidt, M., 2014. Amazon's going the'last mile'. Quality Progress, 47(6), p.10.

Sumner-Rivers, R., 2015. Amazon’s Prime Ambition. Parcelhero Industry Report.

Vicén Sampériz, M., 2018. Study of new technological innovations and their possible strategical and operational effects on amazon’s supply chain (Master's thesis, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya).

Wible, B., Mervis, J. and Wigginton, N.S., 2014. Rethinking the global supply chain. Zhu, X., 2019. Case XI: Amazon’s DNA: Driving Technology Innovation in the Digital Economy. In Emerging Champions in the Digital Economy (pp. 289-311). Springer, Singapore. Case Study

Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., 2017. Creating the global shopping mall: The case of Amazon. In Business Model Pioneers (pp. 67-77). Springer, Cham.

Website

Amazon.com, 2021. Available at: [Accessed on 01/09/2021]

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