Questions1. How has Amazon.com developed since July 1995 to its present position at the end of the Case Study?2. How would you define the business, as well as the industry, that Amazon.com is in,at the end of the case study?3. How is technology likely to drive the strategy and affect future industry structures?4. What criteria can be used to highlight the changes in strategic paradigm taking place due to e-commerce?5. How has Amazon.com attempted to merge changes in strategic paradigm that are taking place due to e-commerce?6. How is e-commerce affecting the traditional business way?7. How would you classify Jeff Bezos leadership style??Amazon is no longer just recognized as the largest river worldwide but also as the world's biggest online retailer. Choosing the name of the river with, literally, the biggest market share the aim of Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon.com, was obvious. Up to now the strategy of its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, to grow as big as possible in the fastest time possible has paid off. (Die Zeit, 1998) Amazon.com has become synonymous with e-commerce, is one of the few Internet brands recognised worldwide (Economist, 2000) and for the first time, since its founding in 1995, Amazon.com could announce an overall profit of US$5.3 million. (Der Spiegel, 2004) However, up to this point it had been a long and hard way, which will be described in the first chapter.1. How has Amazon.com developed since July 1995 to its present position?Obviously Amozon.com has developed very well and fast from year to year in terms of employees, locations, customers, sales figures, etc. To avoid mentioning this figures, every year tables will be attached to show the growth of the company.When starting business on the worldwide web in 1995, Amazon.com had no significant competitors, neither in the Internet nor in the traditional business. Even though the company was, in the beginning, unprepared for the huge order volume it was able to take advantage of being the first in this business and established a well-known brand within only one year. (Lindstrom, 2001) By offering more than 1,000,000 books, and with focusing always on the customer, the company became world's best and largest bookstore in the worldwide web and already began to introduce improved software for customer services. Amazon.com implemented, for example, a personal, which informs customers about new releases, a recommendation section, which recommends books based on earlier orders and an award section, which informs customers about books that won prices. (Amazon.com)In 1997, with its focus still on the US market, Amazon.com had to cope with aggressive competition for the first time. But despite the new market situation Amazon passed many milestones. The most important was probably the opening on the Nasdaq in May. The company started its trade at the stock exchange with 3,000,000 shares for a price of US$18 per share. Moreover, Amazon recruited several mar...
