Amazon Company Overview

Introduction

Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, Amazon Company went online in 1995 at Amazon.com and sold its first book in the same year. The logotype of Amazon Company has a curved arrow moving from A to Z. It means that the company deals with all products from A to Z. Amazon got its first profit of $5 million towards the end of the year 2001 (Spector 2002). Amazon Company received popularity for online shopping by the Time Magazine in 1999 and named Bezos as the Person of the Year.

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Amazon had 30,000 employees working in the USA on a full-time basis in 2011 and 1the 80,000 employees by the end of the year 2016. In part-time and full-time jobs, Amazon Company employs a total of 306,800 people worldwide. In 2016, October 11, Amazon Company planned to develop food pickup locations and construct convenience stores. Amazon Company opened Amazon Go store for its employees in Seattle. The store uses different sensors that automatically charge a customer's Amazon account as he/she leave the shopping store thus eliminating checkout lines. In June 2017, the company announced to acquire Whole Foods with over four hundred stores for a cost of thirteen billion US dollars. Media experts viewed this as a move to challenge Walmart's supremacy and a step in strengthening its physical holdings.

Product Overview

Amazon Company deals in a long range of products available at the company's website. The products include but not limited to Amazon Studios, Kindle, Echo, Music, Amazon Wireless, Alexa, Amazon Prime, Kindle, and Amazon Fresh. As the operation manager at Amazon Company, I seek to review and modify the Amazon Fresh product. Amazon Fresh is one of the subsidiaries of Amazon Company that deals with the delivery of grocery items. Amazon Company started in Bellevue/Seattle in the year 2007. It is currently providing services in Berlin, London, Munich, Tokyo and some states in the U.S. people spend more than $600 billion on groceries each year with an average of about 2% taking place through the internet.

Amazon Fresh has plans underway to provide services in metropolitan areas partnering with local stores that deal with a specific line of products. The local stores help deliver local items. Customers order items on the company's website and the company delivers them on the same day. In March 2017, Amazon Company declared the launching of Amazon Fresh Pickup. It is a grocery store that allows Amazon Prime subscribers to drive in with their cars and get the goods after shopping and reserving for the products needed online.

Later in July 2017, Amazon was said to involve in the selling of Meal Kits. Meal kits are subscription services in which customers receive pre-portioned food recipes and Ingredients that enables them to prepare meals at home. By March 2017, there were over 150 companies that dealt with meal kit in the U.S. According to Time Magazine, the meal kit business was worth USD 2.2 billion worldwide. On the other hand, supermarkets made their kits sold in local stores to contest the meal kit popularity. Meal kits also face challenges like the difficulty in maintaining subscribers, and most of the subscribers were the urban dwellers and the overwhelmed young. Also, there was a problem in the recycling of the packs used to ship the meal kits.

As the operation manager, I plan to make some modifications on the meal kits by recommending them mostly for customers that have medical problems and healthy eating is their remedy and those that doctors have recommended them to feed to specific meals. Our company will be in a position to provide these meals to their doorsteps after subscription with the company.

Aims and Objectives of Amazon Fresh products and its Contributions to Company Performance

Most of the organisation's objectives include the provision of products or services that satisfy the consumers and ensure value creation for them. Product or service design depends on the feedback received from customers and the market requirements. Process design ensures the continuous and smooth relationship between required output and the intermediate processes (Kleindorfer 2005). The Amazon Fresh product received critiques that inspired the need for well laid out objectives that will ensure the success and better performance of the company. The three main objectives of Amazon Fresh products include: the need to improve the in-store shopping experience, need for more fresh food, quicker delivery and access to foods and lastly to increase trust and transparency.

Need to Improve In-Store Shopping Experience

There is a need to modernise how customers locate and purchase products from Amazon Company. Amazon Company is testing various improvements in its business experience by use of new strategies like Amazon Go. The Amazon Go stores can help modernise the way customers locate and purchase products. This Amazon Go store makes use of many technological advances to serve the purpose of abolishing the checkout process. It helps ensure that customers pay as they leave the store premises. It will be a game changer in the field of world retail. The Amazon Go will help improve the shopping experience of customers shopping from in-store and online.

Need for More Fresh Food and Quicker Delivery mechanisms

The company should put in place strategies that will help eliminate limiting factors in the quick moving of grocery on the online platform. Proper plans are necessary for ensuring that fresh groceries are delivered quickly at the doorsteps of the customers. Amazon Company will be able to sell large fresh products to its customers directly. Amazon will be able to reach more customers with the location of more Whole Foods store in highly populated areas like in the urban centres. When they build more grocery stores, it will reduce the time take for customers to receive the goods

Increase Trust and Transparency

There is a need for the provision of precise information and greater transparency in the supply of grocery products. Apart from the customers having the ability to access and inspect goods, they also need to have access to detailed information about the products they need to purchase. Details like the sourcing and ingredients used should be available for the customers. The company aims at providing data that is complete and trustworthy. The business world in the 21st century needs businesses that uphold trust and consistency since customers tend to shy away from a company that lacks consistency in store and online.

Assessment of Relationship between and Significances of the Process Design

A successful process design considers the appropriateness of the process to the overall objectives of the company. Process design needs a wider view of the company and should not have a conservative outlook. The design process needs to involve the management at every stage. For a company to achieve a good process design, there is a need for effective process strategies. These strategies will deal with a single line item that is required to produce the expected product. For instance, in the manufacture of grocery products, process design should be in a manner that supply of the products is during the peak season when the demand is high. Therefore, machines and people need to relate and align to produce continuously throughout all seasons in the year.

Design management techniques are used by many companies to serve certain significances in the industry. For instance, it serves as a competing tool in a crowded market industry. Companies may also be able to connect with their customers easily and also be able to maximise the power of their brands (Johnson 2008). Good design ensures the products produced are more competitive in the market. This in the long run also reduces the production costs. Also, a good design makes the consumers of a given product happy which lures them to revisit the suppliers' premises again and also makes the loyal customers recommend the products to their friends thus the success of the company. The design also ensures there is the growth of trust in the company's products by the consumers and thus encourage them to try new products produced by the same company.

Stages of Product Development

Product development process helps enhance the competitive position of a company in the industry (Gemser 2001). The steps used in product development may vary with different companies depending on the nature of products the company deals with and the management styles. Below is a seven-step product development plan that Amazon may find efficient in the modification of its Amazon Fresh product.

Brainstorming the Product Idea

This is the first stage that involves coming up with the ideas about the product to be developed or modified. Employees, who interact with the customers frequently, need to be asked about any product idea. Also, the company may conduct a survey of customers for feedback about the existing products. Examining the whole industry may also help the company identify the areas that have no useful products. The company may source information through creating an online survey for consumers, and then all new ideas about the new product are listed.

Figure 1: showing the Stages of Product Development

Evaluating the Ideas

The next step involves making a list of product ideas and then sharing them out with the appropriate individuals concerned with decision making in the company mostly the management team. A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of every idea takes place, and they select few best ideas by their ability to generate profits and the time and resources needed to develop the products.

Market Evaluation

This stage involves seeking feedback from the employees, consumers a...