Globalization Case Study: Amazon

The opinion piece published by the Los Angeles Times, “Amazon.com Is a 21st Century Deal with the Devil,” by Amy Koss states her central argument that Amazon is destroying jobs, malls, and stores in the outside world. I strongly disagree with the statement that Amazon is destroying jobs and stores because I believe Amazon brings convenience by allowing people to sell things they might not need that others do. According to Koss,” I also think that it is at the convenience of consumers who have a difficult time going outside because of a medical issue or if they’re just lazy because of the fact that they can order something and have it delivered to them in less than a few days with an even cheaper price tag. Online shopping on Amazon allows others to earn jobs as well because they might work from home and work for Amazon or they might deliver items to the consumer. Some people may even start their own online selling business on Amazon. Amy Koss even states that it’s a cheaper way of buying products ”’Do you want it cheap? Less than anywhere

Amazon is purely an online sales portal. Based on premium web rating organizations Amazon has a position ranging from 4 to 10 on a global ranking of premium websites. The presence of Amazon in the virtual world of internet is unquestionable. Big Data is a technology area which is highly talked about during the last several years. During the last 18 months, companies in the retail sector, manufacturing, construction, and technology areas have realized the extreme potential of Big Data and are trying to gain maximum advantage from it. Amazon is no exception. Amazon uses big data services to analyze consumer trends, marketing strategies, planning the development of new products, and other insights related to marketing their products and offerings.

This week , Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, purchased high-end grocer Whole Foods Market causing a painful stock devaluation amongst other retail grocers, according to Michael Hilzick, LA Times staff writer. While Bezos paid top dollar for the company, and improved Amazons stock price; other grocery sellers watched stock values plunge as much as 9% , as was the case for Walmart. Most confusing to stock watchers is what Amazon hopes to gain with the purchase: consumer data, distribution centers, retail store fronts, or on-line grocery market share?

Amazon.com commonly referred to as ‘Amazon is one of the largest internet based retailers in the United States of America. It mainly provides electronic and cloud computing services. The company was originally founded as an online bookstore by Jeffery Bezos (Bezos) in Seattle, Washington State in 1994. He completed and

Postmodernism is said to be culture increasingly dominated by space and spatial logic (Smart, 1993). A cultural configuration which is constituted in and through complete relationships with a new generation of technologies which themselves are articulated with emergence of a new global economic formation (Smart, 1993). According to Bradlely (1997) cited in Thompson& McHugh (2009) “In contemporary economy, an increasing number of work have become feminized. Women have displaced men in labor market”. Most organizations & their structure bureaucracy in particular can be considered as gendered reflecting to migration of women in higher levels of occupational and professions for example women in management (Adorno,1991). During apartheid discourse

Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. The two Steve’s - Jobs and Wozniak - may have been Apple's most visible founders, but were it not for their friend Ronald Wayne there might be no iPhone, iPad or iMac today. Jobs convinced him to take 10% of the company stock and act as an arbiter should he and Woz come to blows, but Wayne backed out 12 days later, selling for just $500 a holding that would have been worth $72bn 40 years later. (Rawlinson, 2017)

The power and utility of the internet is common knowledge to literate people. It has fundamentally shifted the economic land scape to such an extent that its era is dubbed the new economy (Turban et e, 2011l). At the heart of this new economy is e-commerce. E-commerce is simply doing business online. Amongst the companies at the pinnacle of the new economy and more specifically e-commerce is Amazon. Amazon was by far the greatest e-commerce performer in terms of revenue in 2013 as reported by (Wireless News, 2014). One of the company’s many accolades is that it has the seventh most visited website in the world (alexa, 2015). Compared to its competitors, meaning companies that are offering similar services, it is number one. The position occupied by Amazon in the market warrants a study of the company and its businesses model.

In my opinion, Post-American World Order will increase the relevancy of the Clash of Civilizations. To answer this question, I would like to explain about globalization and realism theory.

In my essay I will talk about different business strategies which companies can adopt in case of responding to issues of globalization. First of all I would like to define all the terms that will appear in my essay. Globalization is the global evolution toward economic, financial, trade, and communications integration which implies the opening of regional and nationalistic perspectives to a wide attitude of an interconnected and interdependent world with free transfer of capital, goods, and services across domestic frontiers. Growth strategy is a strategy aimed at winning greater market share, even at the expense of short-term profit.

This paper analyzes and compares the companies Walmart and Amazon. After explaining a brief overview of each company, we will look at how Walmart stays profitable by having a good relationship with suppliers, and how they keep their competitive position in the global market. We will also look at how Amazon builds trust with their customers to keep them coming back to shop. Additionally, this paper will analyze the internal strengths and weaknesses of each company and their strategies used to increase profitability and efficiency. By using each companies balance sheet, income statements, and financial ratio we will be able to see how each company is performing and if they are staying ahead of the competition. After looking at all aspects of both companies functionalities, we can the make recommendations of ways to improve their competitive advantage so that the companies continue to be front runners in their competitive markets.

Amazon’s culture is based on employees’ competiveness, hard work and innovation. This corporate culture however brings a really stressful environment among the organization. For the past years, the company lessened the impact of a negative culture whereas the financial reports as well as the innovation were reported as the most important things. Nevertheless, organizational culture is nowadays becoming really important. It was for example seen in the Harvard Business Review when the CEO of Amazon went from one of the top ranked CEO in 2014 to the 87th position in only twelve months. One of the main reason of that is that would be that (they? Who?) are not just looking at the financial success, but also at the social responsibility criteria.

One of the most constantly deserted and returned to worldly issues, is globalization. Its scope is so wide that varying matters and happenings relate to it. After waves of political, social, and economic issues wash over one after another, it has always gone back to and talked about, written about, and debated about. Some might argue that it is a matter worth discussing due to the gradual development occurring. And for others, it is a matter to look out for, for how ever helpful and imperative the effects of globalization are, it has the potential to be catastrophic if not managed well. But despite the efforts to control globalization, can one really say that this global phenomenon is capable of being administered and

The value chain model of Amazon in itself is internally and operationally the best that adds value and maintains competitive advantage. The primary activities include Inbound logistics for example quality control, receiving, raw materials, control and supply schedules; Operations for example packaging , maintenance, quality control; Outbound Logistics for example finishing goods, order handling, delivery, dispatch, invoicing; Sales & Marketing for example customer management, order taking, promotion, market research, sales analysis; Servicing for example warranty, maintenance, education and training. Support activities of Amazon include administrative and finance infrastructure; human resources management; product & technology development and procurement. This leads to less cost and more profit margins.

Globalisation has now become an everyday household tenure, used to personify,explain, and justify many current economic and social developments. The term and its common usage convey the imprint that it is theoretically and actually possible for ordinary people and economic actors to get in touch, cooperate and do business with other people and communities world-wide. The expression has also progressively come to be linked with the feeling that economic activity, events and processes have a outline and life of their own determined by globalisation and that we cannot - and should not - do much to alter them. The public at large usually construes a high degree of globalisation and international incorporation to mean andindicate that, we travel more, we communicate with the rest of the world more quickly, we collect images and sounds of news in real time, we are able to buy the same type of car or jeans or burger in Dallas, Rome, Beijing, Moscow or Mexico City, we can do business all over the world. In other words, our consumption, production, exchange, leisure and culture activities are more cohesive with the rest of the world. The

Globalization: a complex and controversial phenomenon that has faded the economic state boundaries inevitably in the past decades mostly due to technological advancements. The phenomenon is usually referred to consist of four waves. The fourth and most resent wave started around year 2000 and was a follow- up to the third wave, starting from the early 1980s, where companies started to outsource production to developing countries. The fourth wave is mostly consisting of China’s rise to be one of the most favored production sites and hence, changing the economy and the political hegemony of the United States. The globalization has increased hugely during the third and fourth waves and national economies in the world have increased co-operation and thus, the world has been integrating into one immense economy system. This has been followed by the debate on the consequences and they have been widely discussed and evaluated in the global political arena.