Essay Example on Amazon: Earth's Most Customer-Centric Organization

Amazon is an American international corporation technology organization established in Seattle, whose focus is on cloud computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and digital streaming. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, and it primarily began as an online market for selling books, it later expanded into selling electronics, furniture, video games, jewelry, food, toys, and apparel. The mission of Amazon is "To be Earth's most customer-centric organization where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online" (Lang 1). The strategies of Amazon are based on the services to offer customers, distribution proficiency, and accessibility. Following the successes of Amazon in the business sector, this research paper will discuss and provide precise information on how the organization's operations contribute to its strategy.

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The Amazon organization was built primarily for providing incomparable services to its customers. The astonishing feedbacks from the customers reveals how the organization has put its focus on its mission and strategy. Several elements promote the positive feedbacks from the customers; they include the organization's loyalty to its customers; for instance, it's Lending Library, Amazon Mom, and Amazon Prime. It has also invested in technology, which is to decrease the number of faults that might be a discouragement to the customers and to recuperate self-service for the customers. Amazon has more than 100,000 developers as their staffs whose work is to maintain the trends of the technology to provide a pleasant customer experience (Lang 2). The organization has also capitalized in the proprietary storeroom and software for placing orders to manage the logistics of the organization required for completion of orders at a convenient time.

The primary objective of Amazon regarding its distribution strategies was to remove the distributor in its supply chain. It achieved this by bargaining contracts absolutely with constructing huge warehouses, publishers, and leveraging skilled men from recently employed Wal-Mart's administrators. It has its warehouses all over the world, which increases its distribution systems and supply chain (Du 157). Amazon has also heavily invested in implementing a workflow and supply chain management that is the resilience of its supply chain and the primary reason for its exceptionally well-organized distribution system. Amazon's has 42 execution centers that are operating in the distribution of items to customers in North America and controls over 40 execution centers in the entire world.

Amazon deals with several products, which enables it to achieve its strategy of providing its customers with the best and most valuable products. It provides its customers with services, technologies, and products, which connect diverse varieties of customers. Its focus on becoming a multi-sided platform is one of its focus that has ensured the steady, however, operational strategy (Mudambi 189). It improved its initial strategy of trading on books online by spreading into many other business sectors. It also sells music online; it offers services to customers who are developing websites. Amazon has a grocery distribution service known as Amazon Fresh, which ensures its customers receive fresh groceries within a short time.

Ever since its inception, Amazon has radically increased its product range by becoming one of the largest online retailers in the whole world by incorporating the Six Sigma process. Amazon has always based its culture of achieving its strategies on the Six Sigma process (De Mast 613). The organization cannot allow standards to stumble with its customers ordering approximately two thousand items every minute. Back in 1999, the organization initiated a program, which was primarily for Operational Excellence, whose aim was to improve the processes of the company. Its definition of Operational Excellence is to provide continuous upgrading for the customers' best experience and to propel productivity, efficiency, margin, and velocity of assets throughout the whole corporation.

To achieve its strategic plan, Amazon began employing the preeminent and brightest using a conventional Six Sigma approach. The organization trained its operatives as Six Sigma Black Belts. By the utilization of the Six Sigma approaches, Amazon has been capable of reducing variations by searching for it actively using the 'Root Cause Analysis, Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC),' and other related tools (De Mast 605). The organization decreased its wastage of funds by reducing its spending, liquidating none-value-adding course stages, and promoting the Kaizen-based organization's culture. All these steps resulted in a diverse company having vast inventory management, a sturdier value stream regulator, and improved efficiency.

Amazon used the Six Sigma to become global retailers online, which has enabled them to devote themselves excellently to customer service and encounter (De Mast 607). Their culture, based on constant improvement and greatest competence, has seen Amazon take possession of the other online businesses. It is also employing the keep it lean approach, which accompanies the Six Sigma by putting its primary focus on streamlining operations into its daily practices (De Mast 610). For instance, the organization bestows more workforce to its achievements and centers for customer service than in its engineering edge to maintain its level of high service. Furthermore, it bases its mode of transformation for a specific package on the delivery date that they have promised the customer, and every job purpose is considerably designed to achieve extreme efficiency.

Amazon is applying the Kaizen theory in the Six Sigma, which focuses on increasing its efficiency to accords or surpasses the customers' needs (De Mast 613). Amazon's warehouses handle over 35 orders every second, indicating a close exceptional service level in the merchandising sector. All its distribution centers have managers whose work is to ensure constant improvement as far as productivity is concerned.

Among the myriad of things that are fundamental in an organization's success is the production and distribution of products and services that are of high quality (Mehrotra 43). Quality merchandise and services, which meet the expectations of the customer, make sure the customer is satisfied, maintains customer loyalty, and a good business reputation. Amazon is putting a lot of effort into ensuring that it satisfies its customers' expectations through their insolent objectives to increase the quality of its operational productivity (Ipeirotis 66). It focuses its operational management on constant improvements to increase the quality measures of its e-commerce corporation. Amazon manages to achieve all these by inspiring the employees to establish a novel, improved ways to handle problems by staying inventive and bold.

To achieve its total quality management, Amazon operates under seven fundamental attributes of deliberate quality management (Ipeirotis 65). For instance, its management has established leadership codes, which its employees use daily in their tasks. The management's fourteen principles are similar to the fourteen ideas of total quality management established by Edward Deming (Mehrotra 43). Its management is bringing employees together to work as a team while providing an awareness of direction, which sees the organization achieving its success. It also engages the managers to utilize its strategies to achieve the goals it had put in place. Its top management sets quality standards, which surpasses the expectations of the customer, ensures that experienced personnel only creates the perfect approaches for resolving problems, devise and make simpler the processes and maintains the highest standards (Barney 5).

Strategic planning is fundamental to maintain the operations of an organization and enable it to achieve its long-term goals (Mehrotra 45). Amazon puts a lot of its effort in ensuring that the organization is working as a solitary body in which every section of the body properly comprehends its tasks and is properly managed. Its strategic planning guarantees efficient operations are allowing the exponential growth of the organization (Lang 23). After establishing a strategic plan, it is important to evaluate them. Amazon does this by checking if the strategy has dependable policies and goals, they look at how compatible the strategy is and how it will counter to numerous external elements, they also ensure that the strategy provides a corresponding benefit to the organization. It also tests the feasibility of the strategy.

The accomplishment of high-quality design methods in an organization guarantees the elimination of errors that are preventable from happening (Ipeirotis 65). It is significant to have a look at the quality of design of the e-commerce website, the operation's design management, packaging, and delivery. Amazon has designed its website in such a way that it enables the customers to see and browse items, examine their descriptions, post, and peruse reviews. They can also track their orders since it has initiated an on order service, which allows customers to browse through immense media collections. Amazon's e-commerce website is properly reflected through; hence, it is more efficient.

As Amazon's customers place an order on the items they are shipped without wastage of time or even resources, its warehouses are properly systematized, and it has well-qualified employees. The latter executes quality standards, which the top management has set. If Amazon is delivering the product using its delivery service, it ships the item very first, guaranteeing better customer satisfaction (Mehrotra 47). Its fast mode of shipping and specific distribution of orders is the outcome of a properly managed outline design strategy. The operations managers of Amazon are continuously designing novel objectives in the outline design strategy to enhance and improve the information means, transport of materials, and human resource movement.

The Amazon Company affiliates computer-assisted procedures with efficient outline designs to accomplish their anticipated objectives. The design of the e-commerce system must have a proper organization and is properly tested to avoid any problems from taking place, which could lead to displeased customers (Du 156). Amazon's design has established its attention on doing away with the processes, which are unnecessary and do not add any worth to the customer. In this manner, the organization ensures that there is no process, which would cause a delay in the dispatching of the customer's packages and ensuring the customer gets qualities that are of high quality considerably faster than the other competitors are at a lower cost.

One of the greatest priorities of Amazon is ensuring that the customer is satisfied; this maintains the customer's trust in the organization, and possessing the customers is significant for the achievement of the organization's strategy. Amazon has invested much in their operations management, its infrastructure, and service to the customer (Mehrotra 50). After a customer places an order the Amazon's employees at the warehouse amass the items included in the order, uses a packaging that offers protection to the item during shipping. They also offer a fast delivery process allowing the customer to get their item the same day they placed their order.

Conclusion

There is competition in every business, and becoming flexible, agile, and fast is an added competitive advantage in the current market. For this reason, agility is fundamental to maintain the company's strategic plans to achieve its objectives. Amazon has put agility into use to maintain its successes (Du 160). Putti...