Organization_of_Amazon

Organization of Amazon.com This team paper will focus on the History, Research, Statistics, Accounting, Finance, and Economics of the organization of Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos the Founder of Amazon.com started in 1994, one day Bezos was looking around on the internet and he came across an article that showed the internet users were growing at a rapid speed. Internet users were growing by 2300% every month. In the beginning Bezos was only interested in selling books over the internet because during this time there were no other company selling books. Bezos seen that there was a need and a high demand for people to be at home searching the net and never leave their home to go buy a book. Research & Economics The study of research methods provides us with the knowledge, the skills that needs to solve problems and help to meet challenges in a fast – paced decision making environment (University of Phoenix, 2010). It is systematic inquiry information to solve managerial problems. It includes reporting, descriptive, explanatory, and predictive study. In a scientific approach in decision – making, managers always need more and better information, in addition to the improved techniques, tools to meet the need (Donald & Schindler, 2003). Good research often generates dependable data that can be used reliably for managerial decision-making. In contrast, a poor research often could not be used in a decision-making (Donald & Schindler, 2003) . In general, a good research should be purposeful, with a clearly defined focus, plausible goals, with ethical and repeatable procedures (Donald & Schindler, 2003). As the research process, a researcher shall discover what he or she can accomplish in different types of study. In the case of reporting study, it is called for knowledge and skill with information sources, and often it requires a minimum inference or conclusion drawing (Donald & Schindler, 2003). Sometimes, a researcher will attempt to describe or define a subject, often by creating a profile of a group of problems, people or events, that will help to answer who, what, when, where and sometimes, how (Donald & Schindler, 2003) in a descriptive study, and many other types of research study. Amazon, Inc is one of the companies that are able to leverage the internet to significantly beatsits competitors’ price. Amazon uses the internet as the search tool in the study of method for selling goods to its consumers (2010) . Based on the pure research method, Amazon not only was able to deliver the products but it also was able to expand its study into partnerships with other vendors so it won’t have to stock much in the warehouse. In the business research, research methods and finding cannot be patented and shared finding in a loss of competitive advantage. For Amazon, Inc., the physical research the company used to conduct is the internet. Business research normally deals with human attitudes, behaviors, and performance (Donald & Schindler, 2003). Based on the www.ocf.berkeley.edu, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos after renamed the company to Amazon, he wanted Amazon.com Company to become a one place shopping where everything one desires will be delivered by the touch of the fingers – online services. He quickly learned that for every 7 dollars to acquire a new customer, he will get an average of 123 dollars from them. It has grown at a tremendous rate from a $150 million in revenue in 1997 to 10.7 billion in 2006. Hence, the benefit and the objectives of research should be weighed against potentially adverse effects. The managers of the future will need to understand more than the managers in history. They will find that the knowledge of research methods to be value in many situations. And as the buyers in research service, they will become the research specialist (Donald & Schindler, 2003). The growing field of economic is a dynamic field that constantly expanding its scope. When study economic, one can develop valuables skill such as good at problem solving because they learn to identify problems, to specify alternative solutions, to determine what data relevant, and to objectively weigh cost and benefits in making decisions. Economics helps people make sense of the everyday activity they observe around them (McConnell & Brue, 2004). Based on the study from University of Berkeley, Amazon studies and understands the economic perspective on the marginal analysis – benefits and costs. Amazon has fully explored one of many goals of economic called economic efficiency to achieve the maximum fulfillment of wants using the available productive resources. The company chooses a central location where the rental for the units is at a premium, and pay salaries for the sales representative, in turn, it give Amazon the competitive advantage and as the result, they are able to sale their productions cheaper. At the end of the day, people become more accustomed to use the internet – model order program as the time saving and cost saving concepts. To summary, economics is a study of the use of scarce resources both in goods and service in production. It employs the scientific method in which one can form and test hypothesis of cause and effect of relationships in order to generate theories, laws and principles (McConnell & Brue, 2004). The company had a good running start from 1995 to 2000, the sales increased from 5 million to 2,762 million in five years. Amazons customer grew from 180,000 to 20 million in 2000 alone. Soon after this Bezos realized that he could make more money if he was able to offer customer more over the internet. Over the next several years the company expands its product from toy, jewelry, electronics, and software. With offering so many different product over the internet Amazon would tap into fast growing market that would be unstoppable if the manage it right. Finance & Accounting Amazon.com, Inc. is historically a very sound company financially. The next couple of paragraphs will look at finance and accounting at Amazon.com, Inc. It is important first to understand when accounting is used versus finance. Accounting is the recording, reporting, and evaluation of transactions with the company. That function includes the company preparation of statement regarding assets, liabilities, and operational outcomes. Finance on the other the hand considers the management of assets and liabilities. For all intensive purposes accounting is a subset of finance. The tools and techniques used my accountants helps the finance department make educated decisions about the company’s resources and ability to make purchases or new business purchases or ventures. Major difference accounting is concerned with income and expenditures – based on the accrual system. Revenue is looked at during the point of sale not when it is collected and purchases are looked at when they are made not when they are paid off (“Differences Between Accounting and Finance”, 2009, p. 1) . Finance is based on actual cash flow – revenue is looked at when the actual cash is received or paid. The following graph was created based on data received about the Operating Cash Flow of Amazon.com through their presentation provided online about their Earnings titled “Q4 2009 Amazon.com, Inc. Earning Conference Call Slides”. The graph was not created by amazon.com or directly on their site but developed from their data. You can see that Amazon has maintained an increasing cash flow for several years. With the largest increase coming at the end of 2009. {draw:frame} Amazon uses their accounting and financial resources very wisely. In fact during this extremely hard economy they are a thriving organization. Here are some examples of accounting tools used by Amazon.com, Inc. to monitor their current income and expenditures. Included below from the amazon.com Historical Financials are their “Income Statement 2002—Present”, Statements of Cash Flows 2002 –Present”, “Segment Information 2002 – Present”, and “Balance Sheets 2002 – Present”. Income Statement: {draw:frame} Historical Statement of Cash Flow: {draw:frame} Segment Information: {draw:frame} Historical Balance Sheets: {draw:frame} Statistics The following information will introduce you to the statistics of Amazon.com. Amazon.com has been striving as the most consumer centric company where people across America will be able to discover the virtual world first hand with all their shopping needs without leaving there homes; anything they want to buy can be bought online. Amazon has created a more of what they want attitude that consist of low prices, convenience, and vast selection. Amazon.com will continue to grow as the world-class e-commerce platform. Here is the key statistics report on Amazon.com since 1994 when they first opened up the business that brought about a wide-spread shopping for consumer over the internet. Headquarters: Greater Seattle Area Industry: Internet Type: Public Company Status: Operating Company Size: 20,700 employees 2008 Revenue: $19,166,000,000 Founded: 1994 Along with the beginning reports here are some of the Common Job Titles the employees work under at Amazon.com Software Development Engineer 22% Manager 3% Software Engineer3% Operations Manager 3% Software Development Manager 3% The Top Schools University of Washington 3% Median Age 32 years Gender: Male 72%, Female 28% During the first 30 day of Amazon doing business over the internet, Amazon filled orders to customer in 45 countries and 50 states. All of these orders were filled and shipped out of his garage in Seattle. In, 1995 the Founder Jeff Bezos started the website and is was a place for customers to buy books. This was a unique was for book lovers to buy any book that they could not just walk into a store and get their hands on a book. Bezos firmly believed that the internet would offer customer a more convenience way to search for many different book titles. In fact Amazon has over a million books in the internet. According to Amazon only the world’s best minds that can transform technology will come to work for Amazon. Amazon has research and has developed a technology that they believe will give the consumer a better way to improve their life by having more option by shopping online.