External Environment
The economic recession that rocked the markets in 2008 – 2009 affected the operations of the firm. It led to a layoff of about 8 % of the employees which meant that the company had a small labor force and even low expertise among its staff due to the layoff. The recession is a factor that is beyond Zappos control but it affects the company operations. Therefore, there is a need to be on the lookout to curb the diverse effects that come with economic recessions in company settings.
Competition for the online shoe shopping business cropped up in 1999. It means that more sites came up with the offer of selling shoes in which Zappos had initially specialized in selling. It means that the idea of selling shoes online had been taken up and more players were getting into the market an example is Nordstrom. This meant that Zappos could not control the number of competitors but better yet, they could use innovation. More than 1,500 sites were dealing shoes on the online platforms.
Legislation on employment seeks to regulate the company in employment strategies and practices. It means that the company cannot hire and fire as it wills, instead there are certain procedures in which the company has to follow in order to carry out the various activities in employment. Though the company laid down the various skills that employees had to meet, the employee welfare was overlooked by the government.
The public opinion is also part of the external environment that tended to affect Zappos. The invest fraternity was not happy with the online business and the sale of shoes on an online platform. It was not considered as a serious business in that it was only established to compliment the local shoe centers, therefore, the investors could not put their money in this ventures. The public opinion for online shoe centers was therefore negative and this tends to affect the business in terms of securing funds for operations and expansion.
Zappos Business Strategy
For an organization or company to succeed, there must be a perfect plan that is followed in their day to day operations. Zappos, a private online shoe, clothing, accessory, and handbag retailing company is no different. The organizational strategy of Zappos is so unique and admirable that other companies such as Amazon always want to merge with it. The corporate strategy of Zappos is based on a 3- C model where they believe in clothing, company culture and customer service.
Company culture aspect of the planning and organizational strategy shows that the enterprise is one of the assets that act as a tool for the success and development and active progress of the company. The company has set well-known core values that each member of it is fully aware. These values were written down by the employees, and they ensure that they live up to those co values. Some of the employees say that it is these business culture practices such as the promotion of friendship that bind them together and move together towards a common goal.
Secondly, the company believes in satisfaction in customer service. Most of the customers of Zappos business will always want to go back there and experience the warm services again. It is very hard or rather it is almost impossible for a customer to place a particular order online and not receive it. The reliability of Zappo's and other customer impressive factors help to attract very many customers
Finally, the other key ‘C' organizational strategy for Zappos is clothing. With the increased demand for clothing and cloth related products, Zappos has been expanding its ability to accommodate more customers for the new and modern developments in clothing and design. The company also purchases different purchase sites if there is a dire need for expansion. For example the footwear support site.
Internal Strengths
The footwear company by the name Zappos attributes its success to various aspects in its internal organization. The company has a remarkable brand name that is easy to remember for people and which is easily recognizable. The name Zappos relates to shoes since it is a Spanish word for shoes. The company does most of its business online, enabling their customers to access shoes for their own use over the internet. The company has made profitable businesses with famous footwear manufacturers such as Bostonian and Dexter among others, who ship the shoes directly to their customers cutting inventory for Zappos. The company does not charge its customer for shipping, which makes their services friendlier to visiting a real store since customers have an unlimited variety to choose from online at no extra cost. Zappos is also known for its excellent customer service. Zappos enables its customers to print a shoe size template online which ensures that the customer gets the right shoe size. In addition, customers are also able to have live chats with shoe experts at Zappos. Photos of shoes are taken from 9 different angles and each shoe has a detailed description which has more to offer to that given by the shoe manufacturers. By 2000, the company had risen to become the leading shoe store in the world.
Workforce Requirements
The company’s success is embedded in the company’s culture. The company strongly believes in excellent customer service which can only be achieved by happy employees. The company achieves this by encouraging their employees to form relationships in the line of their work. Employees must be team players who see their fellow employees as a family. Managers are encouraged to have relationships with their employees outside the workplace. The work life and social life of employees are intertwined and the two go hand in hand. Those who fail to abide by these requirements are fired and others hired. The success of Zappos is attributed to its highly efficient workforce.
The managers of Zappo believe that in addition to the customers, their employees are equally important. They are appreciated by all means possible. As a result, employees offer a very encouraging job. They are known to serve happily and are always eager to satisfy a customer.
HR Practices
The firm has a very strong yet radical set of HR practices. The company nurtured its employees by doing standard skill-set interviews and also psychological profiling that enabled it to determine where an employee’s talents were best suited.
Zappos implemented HR practices by doing psychological profiling for proper assignment of employees. Treating employees well for instance, rewarding them for being flexible, and enhancing discipline by allowing freedom to socialize and interact as they work. They only had one fundamental policy: keep the customer satisfied.
Zappos has had a clear HR practice that reduces bureaucracy significantly: ensuring that there are no bosses at the work place. This ensures that all employees are able to serve the customer well without having to ask for permission from supervisors. As such, there exists very minimal friction in the execution of varied duties by the employees.
Recommendations on the implementation process
Every firm must have a clear strategy for the implementation process in order to attain its goals effectively. The HR implementation process must be aligned with the firm’s mission and core values. For instance, the HR policies and systems will enable the employees at the firm to “Persue growth and learning,” which is one of the firm’s core values.
The implementation process must begin by identifying the areas that ought to be improved in order to attain the firm’s objectives and also reinforcing the firm’s core values. This means that the implementation process must start by identifying areas that need HR initiatives. The next step in the implementation process is to get employee buy-in. This step is very imperative as it is impossible to attain any effect within an organization without having employee buy-in. All employees must buy into the HR vision, right from the management all the way down the hierarchies, and across all departments. The HR initiatives must be guided by strong coordination among all departments and also have a clear measurable goal.
The implementation basically goes through the following steps; planning, customizing, deploying, drive adoption and continuous improvement are simply description of the brief history of Zappos as it grew to become a company large enough to be courted by Amazon.
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