[Affiliation]
Amazon.com is one of the most fascinating companies to study because of its continued growth and its continued top performance among businesses of its kind. Its founder, Jeff Bezos, and the company itself have been named either as person or business person of the year and the company as enterprise of the year on several occasions (Burke and Mangalindan). Within three years after its launch, amazon.com revolutionized not only the whole concept of how people buy books (Princeton Academics), but the whole concept of shopping online itself (Webley). Amazon founder Bezos is a voracious book reader and shopper. His development of an online bookstore was a response to his own needs as book lover (Ramo) and his profound understanding of the internet at a very early stage (Bezos). Amazon evolved from being purely a bookstore into one-stop online shopping (Webley). It not only changed the way people buy books but it is now changing the way people even read books (Princeton Academics). The company’s innovations—i.e., the Kindle—provided the springboard for the development of a whole new generation of mobile devices like the iPad (Mangalindan). For his work at amazon.com, founder Bezos has received numerous recognitions including Time magazine’s Person of the Year Award in 1998 within three years of the founding of the company (Ramo), and last year with some business publications (Mangalindan).
Amazon.com is a very good company to study. For one thing, it has practically been the model of all e-commerce or e-retailing companies. It established the template for such business operations. Founded in 1995 and listed in 1998, it has outlasted many dot.com companies set up at about the same time (amazon.com). The founder himself is a good subject for study on entrepreneurship and leadership. He is one of the very few businessmen to have been named Time’s Person of Year, a testimony to his and his company’s pervasive influence on the world (Ramo).
Information, analyses and reviews of the company are available everywhere in print, web and video. It is Russell 1000 member company (Russell Investments). All of its financial information and annual reports through all its 14 years of existence as a listed company are available online (amazon.com). Amazon.com can be comprehensively studied by anyone.
References
amazon.com. (1996–2012). Amazon.com. Retrieved on 11 Dec 2012 from .
Bezos, Jeff. (30 May 2012). We are what we choose. (Text of baccalaureate speech at Princeton University). News at Princeton. Retrieved on 11 Dec 2012 from
Burke, Doris Burke and Mangalindan, JP. (3 Dec 2012). Amazon's Jeff Bezos: the ultimate disrupter.” Fortune. CNNMoney. Retrieved on 10 Dec 2012 from .
Mangalindan, JP. (30 Nov 2012). 2012 Businessperson of the year: 1. Jeff Bezos. Fortune. CNNMoney. Retrieved on 10 Dec 2012. From .
Princeton Academics. (Producer). (30 May 2012) Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos delivers graduation speech at Princeton University. (Video of baccalaureate speech at Princeton University). YouTube. Retrieved on 11 Dec 2012 from .
Ramo, Joshua Cooper. (27 Dec 1999). Jeffrey Preston Bezos: 1999 person of the year.” Time. Retrieved on 10 Dec 2012. From .
Russell Investments. (2011). Index membership list. Russell 1000. Retrieved on 10 Dec 2012 from .
Webley, Kayla. (16 July 2010). A brief history of online shopping. Time. Retrieved on 11 Dec 2012 from .
