This case study is concerned with the continual roll-out of Amazon's global strategy through the development of resources and strategic capabilities. It is about global dominance through the development and use of technology and acquisitions and alliances to offer an increasing array of products and services and continually enhancing customer experience. The case discusses the widening of Amazon's business through serving three distinct and different groups of customers. The case highlights a number of potentially disruptive technologies including Kindle and cloud computing.
? How might depressed consumer sentiment in the global financial crisis affect its growth?
? Is the continued heavy investment in technology and innovation the right strategy for builidng and maintaining
Amazon's sustainable competitive advantage? advantage?What is the optimal balance between catering for the needs of Amazon's different customer groups? As Amazon developed from being just an online retailer to a webservices provider for sellers and now moving into providing web technology infrastructure development it may face challenges in trying to reconcile its vision of being 'customer-centric' through having to consider which group(s) of customers should take priority.
Generally, is Amazon's business model the right model looking ahead five years or more?