Amazon.Com Case

Amazon.com is the largest online retailer in the United States. This company started only with selling books, however, as time passed they diversified their products and now they sell everything from books to MP3's to food and toys. Amazon has a focused differentiation strategy and this is able simply because the company has great technology development and operations.

One of the key strategies that Amazon focuses on now and has since it's founding in 1995 is acquisition. This is very important for the company simply because it is in the technology business and technology is changing at a fast pace. Since 1997, the company has had more then 15 acquisitions on 3 different continents. Innovation is another element that Amazon has been focusing on. They realized that being just a online book retailer might not be living up to the company's potential so after creating products like the Kindle, Amazon Fresh, online donations channels and other products they decided to focus on innovation because it was obviously working for them. Finally, a huge strategy that the company is focusing on is globalization of services. In other words, even though that it is a online company and on would assume that it is automatically a global product/service, in many cases we can see that this is not the case. However, Amazon has focused on offering their services all across the world and they operate strongly on Asian, European and American continents.

One of the main focuses that the company needs to focus on in the future is the continuing of acquisitions. This is very important for the company because only if they acquire small/medium businesses they can continue with their innovation and vast service offerings. In the past, they have acquired companies that sell food, shoes, books, technology etc. and this is how they are able to diversify themselves to the nearest competitor which is Staples Inc. Also, with making overseas acquisitions like they have in the past with companies from China (Joyo.com), they can continue with the overseas expanding while at the same time innovate and diversify. Upgrading the Kindle is another strategy that needs to be focused on by Amazon. This is very important simply because the era of the touch screen tablets that are present now and are taking over the market. One of the ways that the Kindle can be upgraded can be by allowing it to download apps. In other words, if Amazon started a system where they can produce and sell apps for the Kindle and other touch screen tablets, this could potentially become a very wanted product but also at the same time, the apps could bring in huge market recognition as well as, new profits. For a company like Amazon, it would not be costly to start creating apps (ideas come from customers) and the technology available would be sufficient. Finally, expanding and focusing on the private label products made by the company itself would be a great idea. In 2005