Amazon… Stronger than female warriors in Greek mythology?!?!

Amazon.com, Inc.
Research Project

            Over the past decade many consumers have compared Amazon.com, Inc. to the conglomerate corporation Wal-Mart. As electronic commerce becomes the isolated way people get periodicals, Amazon has made its stake and is not going to vanish anytime in the near future. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is an American multinational electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington. It is the world’s largest online retailer and provider of all things electronic. The company also produces consumer electronics – notably the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, and is a major provider of cloud computing services.

Background and History:

            Jeff Bezos incorporated the company (as Cadabra) in July 1994, and the site went online as amazon.com in 1995. The company was renamed after the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world, which in turn was named after Amazons, the legendary nation of female warriors in Greek mythology. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. The initial target markets were young, innovative students and customers with a passion for books. While the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores and mail-order catalogs might offer several hundred-thousand titles, an online bookstore could definitely offer much more at a fraction of the price. Bezos was a visionary at heart, hoping to achieve success before the website even launched. Amazon’s logotype is an arrow leading from A to Z, representing customer satisfaction as it forms a smile. A marketing goal Amazon had was to have every product in the alphabet, in which stands as an attainable goal that Amazon has surpassed. The website is represented in several languages, such as, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese. 

Business Plan and Organizational Structure:

            Amazon’s first business plan was bizarre and many business analyst thought it soon too, would be a complete failure. The company did not expect to gain a profit for the initial four to five years it began in the public sector. Its slow and steady growth aggravated stockholder, and many complained that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the Dot.Com era came to a bust, and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million or 1¢ per share, on revenues of more than $1 billion. The profit, although it was modest, served to demonstrate that the business model could be profitable. Bloomberg Business week now describes how businesses need to model their life cycles, “Shorter business life cycles require a new sort of management discipline capable of leading an organization through an ongoing process of transformation and renewal. To thrive in today’s marketplace, to be built to last, every business now must be built to transform.”  Amazon survived the dot-com bust because it had a viable and innovative business model built around a market-changing customer value proposition and a radical profit formula, which upended the staid book industry. Then it quickly expanded beyond books to include all sorts of easily shippable consumer goods, growing from its core into near adjacencies. What sets aside Amazon from the rest of the E-Commerce businesses is the way it didn’t have a lot of emphasis on revenues. When Amazon allowed third-party buyer and seller relationships, it allowed people to be their own entrepreneurs. The competitive advantage they used by publicly sharing their business model with competitors was a genius move on Amazon’s home front. Many companies decided, “if you can’t beat them, join them”. As in the case of Borders Bookstore who joined forces with Amazon, but later the partnership didn’t work out. In the late 2000’s, Borders Bookstore Corporation had filed for bankruptcy.  After initially reaching profit gains, Amazon decided again to restructure its business model. The new format of the interactive, user-friendly website made it popular daily hit for many web browsers. Amazon kept going. In late 2007, it set up Lab126, whose first product, the Kindle e-book reader, came to market wrapped in a business model not only foreign to Amazon’s DNA but also potentially disruptive to the entire publishing industry. The introduction of the Kindle electronic reader caused many small, family-operated bookstores to close their doors after many years in business.

Operational Inefficiencies & Efficiencies:

            To launch this high-margin, product-based offering, Amazon had to become an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Like the digital giant Apple, many customers with ITunes have to exclusively use the rights and royalties’ deemed by Apple. The structural design of Amazon has many customers flocking to new and improved subsidiaries’ of the expanding businesses that encompass the organizational model. “Identifying value begins by thinking of an important undiscovered or underserved job that customers want done and then coming up with a well-defined value proposition to address that job, however foreign to your current offerings that may be. “If you want to continuously revitalize the service that you offer to your customers, you cannot stop at what you are good at,” says CEO Jeff Bezos. “You have to ask what your customers need and want, and then, no matter how hard it is, you better get good at those things.” With a well-defined customer value proposition serving a focused, well-articulated job, business leaders and project teams can work together to design the appropriate profit formulas, key resources, and key processes the company needs to thrive”(Johnson, 2010). Business model innovation thrives in cultures of inquiry, environments in which new value propositions, new ways to turn a profit, and ideas for new business models are met with interest and encouragement. The Amazon.com Inc. is studied at the world’s top Business Schools as one of the best Business Models for growth and development. The biggest competitor and as some business expertise say “frenemies” Wal-Mart and Amazon are the battle of the budget line. “Wal-Mart pushed everyone in retail toward the world of massive stores and products in bulk, toward economies of scale and full truck loads,” she said. “But those efficiencies won’t necessarily work in a direct-to-consumer environment like e-commerce, so everyone is testing how they can manage the cost of transporting products along the last mile to the consumer”, as stated by Michael Kanellos( Forbes, 2012). Many former Walk-Mart executives have now since moved on and are currently working with Amazon.com sharing business concepts and share secrets. However, Wal-Mart won a Federal settlement from Amazon.com in 1998, that doesn’t change the fact insider information, was leaked and dishonesty helped skyrocket the Amazon brand. At the time, Wal-Mart issued this statement: “The purpose of the lawsuit is to bring an immediate stop to what appears to be a wholesale raiding of its proprietary and highly confidential information systems by Amazon.com and others through the use of former Wal-Mart associates.”

Proposal for the Future of Amazon.com, Inc:

            Is Amazon the new Evil Empire? As once the title held by retail-store giant Wal-Mart. In December 2011, right at the peak of holiday shopping Amazon introduced an incentive program for its loyal customers who fired up Amazon’s Price Check app at a bricks-and-mortar store could scan an item and submit the price the shop was charging. More often than not, the app will reply that it can be had at a cheaper price. However, on Dec. 10 Amazon made things interesting by offering customers an additional 5% off (up to $5) on up to three qualifying items. In other words, Amazon was providing a financial incentive to folks to discover how out-of-touch retail pricing can be at some stores (Aristotle, Munarriz, 2011). Many local and state officials are lobbying to begin to make Amazon and its associates pay sales taxes in designated areas. Now that Amazon controls the end-to-end relationship between suppliers of goods stacked in its warehouses and consumers of those goods using its devices, Amazon’s next opportunity is to eliminate anyone who stands as a bottleneck between the two affiliations. The operational advantage is well-planned and hopefully well executed by the upper-management at Amazon.com Inc. Instead, Amazon produces an inexpensive, subsidized flagship tablet or tablets in those markets where it’s already strong. Then, depending on the success of that launch, it could partner with other companies that offer Amazon-powered products tailored to different regions or with very clear differences in form factor, features and price.

            The future is still very bright for Amazon, may analyst believe it must remain user-friendly and have strong relationships with its employees to maintain a good standing in the public eye. Wal-Mart did the complete opposite, treating its most valuable asset, human capital, like week-old produce and losing sight of a structured work environment. As we fast approach another holiday season, Amazon.com Inc. will sure not disappoint its loyal customers anytime in the near future. In addition to Amazon’s great success, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO was named Fortune Magazine’s businessperson of 2012.

 

 

 

References:

Kanellos,M. (2012, April 25). Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkanellos/2012/04/25/amazon-takes-another-step-toward-b2b-with-amazon-supply.

Munarriz, R.A. (2011, December 19).AOL.Original. Retrieved from

            http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/19/is-amazon-the-new-evil-empire-sense

Welch, D. (2012, March 29). Electronic format. Bloomberg businessweek.

Retrieved from http://www.bloombergbusinessweek.com/whywal-martisworriedaboutAmazon.

Additional Information from:

www.amazon.com

www.google.com

www.wikepedia.com

“So That’s Why Your Boss Never Takes a Sick Day”…

People in leadership positions have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, according to a recent Harvard University study, which researchers attribute to having a greater sense of control. Next time you’re crazed, get that same empowered feeling by doing something to create order in your day–like decluttering your desk or tackling your to-do list. It’ll calm anxiety and keep you healthy, since lower cortisol means a stronger immune system!

“Lead and inspire people.

Don’t try to manage and manipulate people.

Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.” — Ross Perot

What Being an “Authentic Leader” Really Means!!!

Being an effective manager requires that you behave authentically. “Why?” you might ask. “Maybe the ‘real me’ isn’t the most effective boss, but if I can just act the way an effective boss should act and get good results, what’s wrong with that?”

In my experience, two things are wrong with that, and they both amount to the same thing: It almost certainly won’t work. First, it won’t work because, sooner or later, the people who work for you and with you will see through it. Even if your leadership and your instructions are sensible and productive people will feel uncomfortable with someone who doesn’t really mean what he or she says.

Second, trying to act like a different kind of person than you really are won’t work because you yourself will not be able to keep it up day after day, year after year. Your words and your body language as well as your actions and decisions will reveal that you are not what you present yourself to be and people will be more and more reluctant to trust you as a leader. In both ways, then, “authenticity” is as much a practical virtue as an ethical one. You simply won’t be able to lead effectively if people perceive you as disingenuous.

Students are often worried — at first — about my emphasis on authenticity. “Isn’t being your true self a license to say whatever you think and vent whatever you feel at a particular moment?” It seems obvious to them that this would cause at least as many problems as it solves — and, of course, they are right. Being your true self is not the same as being spontaneous. It is one thing to be authentic, quite another to “shoot from the hip.”

Let’s imagine, for example, that you are running a brainstorming meeting and someone comes up with an idea that you think is pretty stupid. Let’s also imagine that patience is not your strong suit, so you shoot back with something like: “That’s a dumb idea.” Not very nice, but you’re the boss and in a way, it is authentic, isn’t it?

Now let’s imagine a different response to your subordinate’s idea. You have learned — from experience, practice, and your self-awareness — that your impatience with that idea might well be a signal that you don’t understand what your subordinate really meant. If you knew more about what he was thinking, his idea might not seem so stupid.

With that in mind, you control your impulse — authentic as it is — to snap at him. Instead you hand the controls over to your other impulse — also authentic — to act in a spirit of mutual respect and grant that your subordinate might have something valuable to offer which escapes you. So you say something like, “I don´t understand what you mean by this. Can you tell us more about it?”

So which of these two authentic responses should you choose?

First of all, it should be the one that reflects more of you. The “dumb idea” response only reflects your feeling that the idea doesn’t make sense and it fails to reflect your awareness that you might not know what the person really means. Indeed, the immediate feeling that someone else is being stupid very often stems from the irritation that we feel when we don’t understand what the other person says or does. And an irritating idea is not necessarily a stupid idea.

With the “tell me more” response, however, you are reflecting yourself more truly. You admit honestly that you don’t always understand everything immediately and, most importantly, you express your inner value of fairness.

It’s not only more authentic, it’s also more effective, which is the whole point of authenticity. The spontaneous offensive response would inhibit the free flow of ideas in the meeting. Even if the other people there agree with you that their colleague’s idea is stupid, they’re not going to be so quick to stick their own necks out in the future. You might well lose out on good ideas and important information. Thus, failure to differentiate authentic from unthinkingly impulsive behavior is likely to undermine the basic project which authenticity serves; namely, establishing and sustaining effective managerial interaction.

The second response will have just the opposite effect. Even if the other people there think that their colleague’s idea is stupid, to see that he didn’t get his head chopped off for that will assure them that they need not be nervous about expressing their ideas openly. They will be more likely than ever to offer you whatever ideas and important information they have. Thus, your leadership will be much more effective.

You might wonder: Would it have been an even better idea to pretend to like the dumb idea, just for the sake of encouraging everyone to share their ideas freely? No, it wouldn’t. If the idea really is a bad one, as it might well be, it’s likely that most of the other people there can see that, too. Pretending to appreciate it will strike a false note and people will get confused and suspicious as they try to figure out what you are really up to. That would certainly not be conducive to effective managerial interaction.

It is crucial to recognize that authenticity is a social ability. Implicit in the concept of being authentic — “being actually what is claimed” — are qualities of interactive behavior. We regard a person as authentic to the extent that her conduct towards others accords with what she truly believes in. Authenticity, then, is about giving a message about your true self — one you must continually shape and deliver by thoughtfully choosing your words and behaviors to suit the people you interact with and the specific purpose at hand.

Zig Ziglar: 10 Quotes That Can Change Your Life

Zig Ziglar died today at age 86. A World War II veteran, Zig Ziglar became the top sales person in several organizations before striking out on his own as a motivational speaker and trainer. With a Southern charm and lessons grounded in Christianity, Ziglar wrote over two dozen books and amassed a following of millions who were encouraged by his lessons for success.

Below are 10 quotes from Zig Ziglar that have the power to completely change the direction of one’s life.

10) “Remember that failure is an event, not a person.”

9) “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

8 ) “People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.”

7) “There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic.”

6) “People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.”

5) “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”

4) “If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”

3) “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

2) “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

1) “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.”

:Zig Ziplar: Leadership Motivator for Decades!

 

This Protege Kevin Kruse compares The Top 4 Leadership Flaws:

 

Adapted & formatted from Forbes Magazine Online

Leadership Secrets with Great Leadership: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton

Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton
Rebecca Shambaugh
Columbus, Ohio, McGraw-Hill, 2010

In keeping with her reputation as a no-nonsense diplomat, Hillary Clinton is spending her final months as Secretary of State far from the campaign trail. Much of that time has been on the go: this year alone she’s traveled to 42 countries. The former Presidential candidate has faced a formidable past 12 months: She’s navigated treacherous territory when WikiLeaks released sensitive diplomatic cables in November, urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to hand over his power and leave his country and recently warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to chart a different course than his militant father. And she went viral: the tumblr blog “Texts from Hillary” became a popular meme in April. Clinton has steadfastly said that she plans to move out of public life at the end of the year, but supporters are breathless over the possibility of a 2016 Presidential bid. Hillary Clinton has been an infamous leader in business for decades.

 

Leadership Qualities are in Seven Categorizes:

1.)   be resilient

2.)   keep learning

3.)   be authentic

4.)   embrace change

5.)    be connected

6.)   be an effective communicator

7.)   Lead with a purpose.

At the end of each chapter there’s a questionnaire to help bring home the points that were made.
What Leadership Skills you will obtain:

• – How to stay optimistic and on message in tough times.
• – How to create a “personal brand” that people will want to get behind.
• – How to adapt to change and disappointment – while never losing sight of your goal.
• – How to effectively engage, re-engage and inspire others in difficult times.
• – How to win the partnership of others (even some detractors!) and to grow your network of supporters.
• – How to instill a sense of hope, commitment and resilience in those around you.

 

As if a peaceful Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t enough of a challenge, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to spend her holiday chasing an even more unattainable ideal: peace in the Middle East. I find her a great inspiration to all women in business and combating overall disparities in global initiatives.

” Why the Best Man for the Job is a Woman”

According to Esther Wachs Book, “a new breed of leader is emerging, and that breed is female” . Why the Best Man for the Job is a Woman: The Unique Qualities of Female Leadership hails the lady CEO as a sign of a revolution taking place in a corporate culture traditionally dominated by men. The world of business is changing, the Book writes; and it is women who are best suited to meet the challenges of the modern marketplace. The book contends that women such as Meg Whitman of eBay and Marcy Carsey of Carsey-Werner succeed because they embody seven uniquely female abilities: they can sell their visions; they are not afraid to reinvent the rules; they are closely focussed on achievement; they show courage under fire; they turn challenges into opportunities; they are aware of customer preferences; and they maximize what Book calls “high touch” in an era of high tech. A sort of seven-habits guide for aspiring businesswomen, Why the Best Man for the Job Is a Woman profiles fourteen of the most successful businesswomen working today, charting their careers in order to show how they gained power by tapping into their femininity. Presenting these women as role models, Book concludes by encouraging readers to emulate them: “With their insights,” she writes, “just imagine what you can do”. Uplifting? Possibly. But only if you can stomach the proposition that women are genetically predisposed to lead and the ugly insinuation that men, as the opposite sex, are not.

The manipulativeness of  the book’s argument comes through most forcefully when she discusses the careers of top corporate women. Some do foreground their femininity, presenting themselves as mothers or even guardian angels (Darla Moore, formerly of Chemical Bank, liked to walk into boardrooms full of about-to-be-bankrupt businessmen and announce that she was there to “save” them). But others draw on traditionally masculine images, comparing themselves to coaches and military leaders. Still others choose scrupulously neutral terms to describe their leadership philosophy: Orit Gadiesh, senior partner of Bain & Company, says she strives always for “true North,” while Moore notes that “leadership is far more powerful than either gender alone”. Taken together, these examples suggest that far from relying on their innate and irrepressible femaleness to do their jobs, women powerbrokers depend on their shrewd ability to represent themselves to colleagues, clients, employees, and, yes, feminist authors, in whatever terms are most effective and appropriate to the moment.

 

“The 8-Step Process for Leading Change”

I just came across the most empowering leadership professor researcher from Harvard University Dr. John Kotter. His work is practiced and praised by many Fortune 500 companies and their organizational models.

Thirty years of research by leadership guru Dr. John Kotter have proven that 70% of all major change efforts in organizations fail. Why do they fail? Because organizations often do not take the holistic approach required to see the change through.

However, by following the 8-Step Process outlined by Dr. Kotter, organizations can avoid failure and become adept at change. By improving their ability to change, organizations can increase their chances of success, both today and in the future. Without this ability to adapt continuously, organizations cannot thrive.

 

The 8-Step Process for Leading Change: It can help any organization succeed in a world of change!

Step 1: Establishing a Sense of Urgency

Help others see the need for change and they will be convinced of the importance of acting immediately.

Step 2: Creating the Guiding Coalition

Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort, and encourage the group to work as a team.

Step 3: Developing a Change Vision

Create a vision to help direct the change effort, and develop strategies for achieving that vision.

Step 4: Communicating the Vision for Buy-in

Make sure as many as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

Step 5: Empowering Broad-based Action

Remove obstacles to change, change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision, and encourage risk-taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

Step 6: Generating Short-term Wins

Plan for achievements that can easily be made visible, follow-through with those achievements and recognize and reward employees who were involved.

Step 7: Never Letting Up

Use increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision, also hire, promote, and develop employees who can implement the vision, and finally reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes, and change agents.

Step 8: Incorporating Changes into the Culture

Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success, and develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession.

” Falling into the Right Leadership Position”

When people in organizations think of success, they sometimes forget that the their failures are what catapults their achievements. I have sometimes wondered “what if” certain things didn’t happen would it make difference of the final outcome of that situation. Leadership is what many people want to achieve, but the road to get there can be extremely bumpy at times.

My Personal Leadership Model:

• Teamwork <Fight in a team>
• Heart
• Integrity
• Situation Assessment= Framing!!!
• Attitude
• Myth
• Initiative

When you are able to speak the truth, without the necessity to be right, your leadership skills will dramatically improve for the better.

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