Question 3
Read the following case-based extract regarding Amazon and answer the questions that follow.
Amazon Ever since Amazon went online in 1995, the e-commerce juggernaut has undergone a slew of changes – despite being led by the same man, Jeff Bezos, during the ensuing two-plus decades. When the Seattle-based company first launched its website, all it sold was books. Gradually, Bezos and his team expanded Amazon’s offerings to include things like CDs and DVDs. But Amazon never really stopped changing the inventory it sold. 18; 19; 20 2020 © The Independent Institute of Education (Pty) Ltd 2020 Page 7 of 8 Bezos said he wanted his store to become the world’s largest, so he worked hard toward meeting that goal – whether that meant offering new products, launching Amazon Prime, launching Amazon Instant Video ... the list goes on and on. Today, Amazon sells more than 200 million products to customers all over the world. Though for years, Amazon’s detractors insisted that the company wasn’t making enough profits to justify any investments, that all changed in 2015 when the company posted back-to-back successful quarters. The market responded kindly, and today Amazon boasts a market valuation of more than $440 billion. But Bezos isn’t anywhere close to done yet. There are talks of Amazon delivering packages via drone. And if that wasn’t enough, Bezos recently said he hopes Amazon can produce as many as 16 feature films each year. In 2017, Bezos and his team took home three Oscars. Indeed, it appears as though Amazon is a company that can be characterized as changing constantly. To date, they’ve been successful, probably because the company is always putting its customers first.
2 ) Describe any key external force of change at play in the Amazon case-based extract.
1 ) It’s clear from the Amazon case-based extract that change has been a key feature of Amazon’s success. John Kotter developed an ‘Eight Step Process’, stressing that change is a process not a checklist. Briefly discuss Kotter’s ‘Eight Step Process’ and do you think that it is something that Amazon could have used in its quest to implement change in its business. Why?