How Innovation And Culture Have Impacted The Company Amazon Both in a Negative And Favorable Way

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Innovation refers to the improvements of a product or a process to better meets the needs and wants of customers, effectively. Culture refers to the norms, beliefs, and values of an organization or a collective group of individuals, shaping a businesses’ practices and characteristics. Amazon, American electronic commerce, and cloud computing were founded in Seattle, Washington, by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Amazon has become the largest internet retailer in the world measured by market capitalization and revenue, followed by the Alibaba Group.

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Amazon continually is also one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, as measured in 2017 for accounting for around 46% of total e-commerce sale in the U.S. A. Amazon initially originated as place online to sell novels, but has expanded to sell a variety of goods, including Amazon-owned devices such as the Kindle eBook, Amazon Alexa Echo and many more. This essay will aim to look at how innovation and culture have impacted the company Amazon both in a negatively and favorable light.

As of 2017, Amazon has been operating in the following 12 countries, U.S.A, Canada, U.K, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, China, India, Australia, and Mexico, and offers Amazon Prime; along yearly membership, in 9 of these countries. The most recent launch for Amazon was the availability of Amazon Prime in the 24.13 million populated Australia as of June 2018. Amazon only launched their presence in Australia in December 2017; the market location was long awaited as the cross-border e-commerce accounts for 35% of online retail purchases, thus establishing an enormous opportunity for innovation within Australia.

The recent launch of Amazon Prime has already created a negative impact on Amazon Australia, delivery options have become expensive as the closest warehouses are a 24 hour plane ride away in the U.K. However, Amazon’s head of retail operation Dave Clark noted in an interview a few months after the launch into Australia that it was the most successful international launches in the company’s history in which was judged by numerous disappointed consumers and media, due to the expensive product prices and long delivery waits.

Contrarily, Amazon’s success is based on their constant thrive for innovation. Amazon, an online based company mainly stems from its innovative technologies and practices, advocated by their CEO, Jeff Bezos. For example, the Amazon Echo is an Amazon made product, a voice-activated and internet-connected command device that can play music, check the weather or traffic, make calls/send messages, and even order off of Amazon. This innovative technology released towards the end of 2014 has sold over 22 million units since. The Amazon Echo was featured in the 2016 super bowl and became a world-famous speaker. The creation of Amazon Echo has positively impacted the company as a whole. Evi Technologies, an organization, owned by Amazon was responsible for a cogent part of The Amazon Echo, doubled its revenues in 2017 to $72 US million, from around $20 US million in the previous year. Furthermore, according to Amazons accounts, their cash flow increased from approximately $24 US m to $40 US m. Nevertheless, the Amazon echo has satisfied customers to a large extent and has provided Amazon with a significant profit.

Amazon's corporate culture; the various norms and values specifically in Amazon, is known to have a churn and burn company culture. In 2015, an article published by The New York Times talked about how ex-Amazon employees referred to the Amazon work culture as ‘bruising.’ The article also mentioned the former Amazon books marketing employee, Bob Olson, and how he noted that “nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk”. The work culture is known to be forceful, and risk-taking, employees are known to be overworked and have little to no balance between their work and personal life. Additionally, numerous surveys had been sent to current and former employees in 2015 and hundreds of reviews noted negative remarks to the work culture in Amazon. For example, a past employee who was an area manager in Haslet, Texas commented in a review posted on Glassdoor “Extreme hours and horrible work/life balance. Be prepared to work a minimum of 12 hours every day and up to 15-16 hours for months on end.” However, CEO Jeff Bezos commented on the backlash stating "I don't recognize this Amazon”. A negative work culture can lower the confidence, motivation, and overall approach from employee’s, discouraging them from paying careful and detailed attention to their specific duties. Google, one of Amazon's most durable competitors, is none to have a more ‘warm’ and ‘fuzzy’ culture in which appeals to both consumers and individuals wishing to work there. For example, Google is known for allowing employees to bring their pets to work, providing free food, and allowing staff to take breaks when they feel like it. Furthermore, within a company with poor corporate culture it can prevent the employees from performing at their best levels leading to limit the company’s overall potential and professional growth.

However, numerous employees found working at Amazon a more positive experience and that the Amazon has built a Darwinian culture. According to Glassdoor, the average corporate culture for the company rates at 3.4 out of 5, and recent data as of 2018 shows a .4 increase to 3.8 out of 5. Moreover, former Amazon employees have submitted reviews on Glassdoor, 74% noting that they would recommend working at Amazon to a friend and that working there provided a rich learning experience where you were always surrounded by someone intelligent. Although there a contrary reviews towards the work culture in Amazon, the company continuously increases its net revenue each year, to the most recent statistics of 177.8 Billion US dollars.

On the whole, innovative changes at Amazon through its continual introduction of new products and thrive for international expansion has directly impacted the organization in a favorable light, and have had an extensive influence on Amazon’s growth.