At the beginning it was just an online bookstore. Six years later, Amazon used their own inventory management, distribution infrastructure, fulfillment, and customer service model to become the one of the biggest online-shopping company. By 2000, over 75 percent of U.S. consumers recognized the Amazon.com brand, and the Interbrand ranked the company as the 48th most valuable brand worldwide. The number of customers increased from 14 million in 1999 to over 20 million in 2000. However, a successful company like Amazon.com also has its own actual problems.
Amazon Evolution Amazon, the largest online retailer, has annual sales in excess of $10 billion but investors have not seen the consistent profit growth they expected (Rainer & Turban, 2008). Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com in 1995 by selling books because he believed that only the Internet could offer customers the convenience of browsing a selection of millions of book titles in a single sitting (Small Business Notes, 2009). According to Small Business Notes (n.d.), “Since 1995, Amazon.com has significantly expanded its product offering, international sites, and worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers.” Amazon continues to grow and evolve as an excellent e-commerce platform by giving customers more of what they want such as low prices, vast selection, and convenience (Small Business Notes, 2009). However, many analysts wonder if Amazon will ever fulfill its original promise to revolutionize retailing (Rainer & Turban, 2008). According to Rainer & Turban (2008), “By 2007, Amazon had spent 12 years and some $2 billion building the infrastructure of its online store, which is among the biggest and most reliable in the world.” However, Amazon does not use but a small amount of its processing capacity at any one-time so the company decided to provide a series of computing, storage, and other services that make its infrastructure available to companies and individuals to help them run the technical and logistical parts of their businesses (Rainer & Turban, 2008).
As an online retailer of diamonds and fine jewelry, Blue Nile provides excellent guidance and support to enable customers to learn about and purchase diamonds as well as classically styled fine jewelry. The company has a current market value of approximately $2 billion while the firm continues to grow. Blue Nile typically trades at about $100 a share after an initial public stock offering of $25 back in May of 2004i. The company has drastically increased its trading
CVS Caremark Global Expansion to United Kingdom Global Business Management Abstract CVS Corporations was founded by Sid Goldstein, Stanley Goldstein and Ralph Hoagland, May 8, 1963 in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 2007 CVS pharmacy merged with Caremark Rx which created CVS Caremark. CVS Caremark is currently the number two pharmacy store in the United States with revenues exceeded $100 billion dollars and has over 7,400 hundred stores in 42 states. The corporation has been successful for over 40 years in the United States. CVS Caremark is designing a global expansion strategy to target areas that are profitable and promising demographically.
the wrong turn HP had high hopes that its TouchPad could catch up to Apple's iPad in the tablet marketplace. But after putting the device out for $499, the company saw few sales. HP then slashed the price by $50. Still, no sales. Next, a $100 discount arrived at retail stores, yet still, the TouchPad couldn't touch the iPad.
(Blue Orb was known for free subscriptions but now it is paid). Analysis Blue Orb has been transitioning from research-orientated company to a retail software company. It is intending to do so by launching “SwitchBlade Pro” subscription base software. As of March 1, 2009, it has more than 1100 subscribers and 15,000 registered users from its previous freeware version of the program; which makes it insufficient customer base to generate enough revenue to break even under the status quo. (Exhibit).
Ana Gonzalez Professor Andreassi MGT-101-A 6 October 2014 Case 4: Amazon: One E-Store to Rule Them All 1) The CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, effectively employed both intuitive and systematic thinking when he developed the Kindle for sale. Through Bezos’s creative idea in the Kindle, one can see that he makes decisions that seem to be based off of intuitive thinking. With this approach, people make decisions according to their past experiences and gut feelings, as opposed to analyzing all of the facts. Bezos took a risk in the creation of the Kindle going off of his gut feelings that it would be a successful idea. From previous experiences, he knew that “music and video have been digitalized for a long time, and short-form reading has been digitized, but long-form reading really hasn’t”.
The opportunity is attractive for Jim and his investors in the following ways: * American Printing Inc.’s business forms division has high market share and also high sales revenue. In 1983, it recorded sales worth $43 million which is approximately 35% of entire America's overall revenue. * The company is also the market leader in its Authentic Insurance Documents business which recorded $12.9 million sales in the same year which comprised 50% share of the entire market. * There was a positive projection for the sales in the year 1985-86 which was expected to grow by $800,000 to $1,600,000 due to certain changes in the policy language. * The company was insulated from shocks of the general industry.
The popularity of internet music distribution has increased and in 2009 more than a quarter of all recorded music industry revenues worldwide are now coming from digital channels. [12] However, as The Economist reports, "paid digital downloads grew rapidly, but did not begin to make up for the loss of revenue from CDs. "[9] The 2008 British Music Rights survey[13] showed that 80% of people in Britain wanted a legal P2P service, however only half of the respondents thought that the music's creators should be paid. The survey was consistent with the results of earlier research conducted in the United States, upon which the Open Music Model was based. [14] According to Nielson Soundscan, by 2009 CDs accounted for 79 percent of album sales, with 20 percent coming from digital downloads, representing both a 10 percent drop and gain for both formats in 2
E -BUSINESS The founder of amazon.com studied the book market before choosing it as a starting place for amazon.com, but more importantly was his understanding of internet and willingness to invest in the latest internet technology to make shopping online faster, easier and more personally rewarding. Jeff Bezoz saw an opportunity that other booksellers couldn’t see, as observed in Business week “ what Bezoz understood before mostly was the ability of the web to connect almost anyone with any product , meant that he could do things that couldn’t be done in the physical world, such as selling 3 million books in a single store”. In a nut shell, Amazon.com gained the first mover advantage CONTINOUS INNOVATION Another success factor for amazon.com is the company’s ability to innovate. The words of saunders said that Amazon.com is “technology company” aside being a retail company. Bezoz knows that there are no sustainable technological advantages and it has to be an ongoing strategy.