Amazon.com Organizational Environment - Assignment Example

Running Head: ASSESSMENT Assessment Name Institution Date Question 1 After looking at the Amazon.com website and the website of an existing competitor like Barnes and Noble, various ways in which the company satisfies customer’s needs can be identified. One area of customer satisfaction is pricing. When evaluating the prices in the Amazon Website and the prices charged by Barnes and Noble, the pricing strategy used by Amazon is much more customer satisfactory as opposed to that provided by Barnes and Noble. A case in point is when a customer wants to purchase a book like Leading from Behind, by Richard Minitee. The cost of the book in both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble website is $12.99. However, Amazon’s pricing strategy is much more superior and customer friendlier as opposed to the pricing offer by Barnes and Noble. Amazon provides an additional free shipping service for the book. On the other hand, Barnes and Noble only provide free shipping for products that amount to more than $25. When making a comparison of the prices offered by both websites, what is evident is that Amazon provides prices that are more appealing to customer and may further bring about satisfaction. With the rising gas prices a customer will definitely prefer to buy a product that has free shipping services. As highlighted by Hogan, (2006) a business can utilize its pricing strategy in order to create a competitive advantage against other existing players in the market. This will further result to consumers purchasing more of the company’s product due to the additional benefits they receive. Amazon also enhances customer satisfaction through diversity of the products offered. As indicated by the Website, Amazon provides a wide range of products as opposed to Barnes and Noble. Amazon has diversified its products to offering not just online books and movies, but also one can purchase electronic devices for instance such as iPad, USB Flash Drives, laptops , desktops. Amazon also provides glossary and food, beauty products, baby products just to name but a few. On the other hand Barnes and Noble only provide literature materials, games and movies. By offering new products and a wide range of products, Amazon is able to enhance customer satisfaction. According to Raju (2003) greater product diversity implies that the needs of each customer are better satisfied. Customer satisfaction is also developed by the quality of the service provided (Cacioppo, 2000). The Amazon website is basically a more quality focused website as opposed to that of Barnes and Noble. This is because Amazon’s website has automated customization whereby when making a search for a product the system does it automatically without much of the customer’s intervention. Furthermore, customers are usually able to configure the products they require. This sort of service provides an opportunity for easy access of products from the website. The Barnes and Noble website on the on other hand is designed in manner that customer can undertake a general search for the products they require. The general search approach can be rather difficult when a customer wants to access a product. This is because a wide range of products are presented in a general format which may make it rather difficult to locate the precise product. In addition if a person cannot locate a product, the option of using the product serial number as indicated on the Barnes and Noble website, may not work effectively. Question 2 Amazon.com has changed the organizational environment in various ways. One of the ways in which Amazon has transformed the online business environment is through changing the business model. The launching of the company in 1995, greatly transformed online shopping models, which further led to rapid environmental change in online business. Amazon adopted the method of identifying the needs of the customers and then working towards developing new ways of delivering the services and goods to the customers. Currently, Amazon has changed its business model to the innovative business model which is grounded on changing the value proportions of consumers. This involves a rapid expansion from not only selling books but rather anything else that a customer may want to purchase. Amazon is now one of the dominant players within the online business environment, due to adopting new business models that have transformed e-commerce (Dike, 2012). Amazon has also transformed the organizational environment by changing customer experiences. Rainer and Casey (2010) highlights that Amazon has a core objective of differentiating between customer service and customer experience. At Amazon customer service is basically a competent of customer experience, in the sense that the service provided to the customers should give a customer a sense of delight. One of the strategies adopted by the company to enhance customer experience is offering the lowest price and also faster delivery. Furthermore, the entire delivery process should be very reliable that the customer does not have to contact an actual person in order to place a complaint. Another strategy adopted by Amazon to improve customer experience is referred to as Fulfillment by Amazon. This is a process in which merchants send their products to Amazons warehouse. The company then provides the rest of the entire services by taking the orders online, answering questions, packing the order boxes and processes returns. According to Amazons CEO, Jeff Bezos, provision of such services to the customers does not earn Amazon much money; instead the services are significant based on the fact that they improve the experience of the customers. Leadership is another crucial element that has been utilized by Amazon order to transform its internal business environment. In order for a business to survive within the current business environment, leadership is a significant element. Amazon has in most cases adopted the transformative type of leadership that has spearheaded the renewal and growth of the organization over the years. The transformative leadership in Amazon is one that is grounded on identifying opportunities that can be used in serving customers indifferent ways. The leadership approach has therefore greatly influenced the organizations transformation from a simple online book seller to a dominant supplier of many products. Amazon.com has also transformed the organizational environment through changing its organizational culture. Griffith (2011) reveals that Amazon has changed its organizational policy to one that involves turning each stakeholder into a decision maker, inspiring work ethics, giving all employees a stake in the organizations, enhancing safety first and also eliminating hierarchy. These particular cultural components intertwine to develop a new approach of managing the organization. Question 3 Institutionalized socialization entails a structured program of socialization in an organization that is designed with the objective of encouraging new comers in an organization to accept the already existing organizational beliefs and norms and hence maintain a status quo. It also works towards reducing uncertainty and ambiguity about the organization (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2010). One of the dangers of institutionalized socialization is that it encourages conformity as opposed to innovation. The basic assumption of institutionalized socialization is that newcomers have a passive role to play in the process of organizational socialization. By placing the newcomers in a structured program of socialization, the newcomers willingly accept their established roles within the organization and work towards maintaining the status quo. Consequently, in such as scenario the new comers do not work towards coming up with any sort of new ideas, instead they confirm to the already existing ideas (Cameron and Spreitzer, 2010). An additional danger of institutionalized socialization is that it substitutes proactivity (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2010). Proactivity is a crucial element that assists a newcomer to deal with the challenges that arise in their roles. This is because proactivity involves a newcomer actively seeking information in order to fill the gaps that exist in the socialization process and to deal with issue that may unexpectedly arise during the enactment of ones role. In addition, proactive behaviour is also linked to newcomer learning. According to Cameron and Spreitzer (2010) institutionalized socialization reduces proactivity based on the fact that the new comers are just passive recipients of information from the organization, instead of them finding the information individually. Consequently, in a scenario whereby proactivity is substituted due to the practice of institutionalized socialization, then the implication is that the new comers will not be effective in dealing with the challenges that may arise in the working environment. Institutionalized socialization may also hinder the growth of the organization. The basic objective of brining in new employees to an organization is for them to support the functions of the organization, assist in attaining the objectives of the organization which may further lead to the growth of the organization. If a formal system of orientation into the organization is presented to newcomers were the new employee are just passive receipts of information, they are bound to respond or behave in the same manner as the existing employees in the organization. Therefore, if the culture of the existing employees does not effectively enhance the growth of the organization, then the new comers are also bound to adopt the same culture. Another danger of Institutionalized socialization is that it encourages dependence of the new comer to the supervisors or even other employees. Institutionalized socialization entails a new comers gathering information from supervisors, team members and managers concerning their position in the organization. The new comer does not sink dip in finding out about their role in the organization. As a result the lesser the involvement of the new comer in understanding their roles in the entity, the more dependent they become on other employees (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2010). References Cameron, S and Spreitzer, M.(2010). The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship. Oxford University Press. Dike, D.(2012).When evolutionary change needs a nudge. Management-Issues Ltd Griffith, T. (2011). The Plugged-In Manager: Get in Tune with Your People, Technology, and Organization to Thrive .John Wiley & Sons. Hogan, J. (2006). Using Pricing Strategy to Create Competitive Advantage--It's Time to Change the Game. Håvard Business Review ,p1. Kevin Cacioppo, K. (2000). Measuring and Managing Customer Satisfaction. Quality Digest. Raju,G.(2003). Marketing Management, 2E. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Rainer, K and Casey, G.(2010).Introduction to Information Systems: Enabling and Transforming Business. John Wiley & Sons. Read More