Technological innovation and its impact on an amazon com enterprise a focus on business structure an business performance

Furthermore, this study shows that continuous technological innovation creates impact on business structure and business performance of Amazon.com Corporation... To express the economic

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 7

1.1 Background 7

1.2 Amazon.com Overview 8

1.3 Research Purpose 10

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN 12

2.1 Research objectives 12

2.2 Research questions 12

2.3 Research methodology 13

2.4 Expected contributions of the research 13

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW 15

3.1 Concepts and related studies 15

3.1.1 Concepts of technological innovation 15

3.1.2 Technological innovation and Business structure 17

3.1.3 Technological innovation and Business performance 18

3.2 Previous studies on case of Amazon 19

3.3 Conceptual framework and hypotheses 22

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 24

4.1 Amazon‘s Competitive Profile Matrix Analysis 24

4.1.1 eBay introduction 25

4.1.2 Barnes & Noble Introduction 26

4.1.3 The comparison between Amazon, eBay and Barnes & Noble 26

4.1.4 Competitive profile matrix of Amazon, eBay, and Barnes & Noble 31

4.2 Impact of technological innovation and value chain analysis of Amazon.com

33

4.3 Technological innovation and Amazon‘s Business structure 38

4.3.1 Monetization activities, total assets, and shareholders‘ equity 38

4.3.1.1 The monetization activities 38

4.3.1.2 Technological innovation impacts on total assets and shareholders‘s equity and total assets 41

4.4 The impact of technological innovation on Business performance 48

4.4.1 Labour productivity 48

4.4.2 Products – Services development 49

4.4.3 Market development 50

4.4.4 The analysis of business performance result 51

4.4.4.1 Business performance result review before 2014 51

4.4.4.2 Business performance result review between 2014 and 2019 52

4.4.4.3 The special period of Amazons‘ business performance result in 2020 55 4.4.4.3.1 Covid – 19 pandemic overview 55

4.4.4.3.2 Technological innovation and commercial triumph during Covid–19 pandemic 56 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND LESSONS 58

5.1 Conclusion 58

5.2 Implications and Lessons 59

5.2.1 For Amazon 59

5.2.2 For other SMEs 62

5.3 Limitation and future research 64

5.3.1 Limitation 64

5.3.2 Future research 64

REFERENCES 65

APPENDIX 71

FIGURES

Figure 1: Amazon.com Business structure 21

Figure 2:The conceptual Framework of the thesis 23

Figure 3: Amazon.com value chain analysis in technology stream 34

Figure 4: Amazon.com Value chain 36

Figure 5: The main activities generate revenue for Amazon.com 40

Figure 6: The bar chart of Amazon‘s Shareholders's Equity 41

Figure 7: Technology and content 43

Figure 8: The investment of Amazon's field 45

Figure 8: The Total Assets of Amazon.com 46

Figure 9: Emloyees in Amazon 47

Figure 10: R&D Expenses and Inventory 50

Figure 11: Revenue, Cost of goof sold, EBIT 53

TABLES Table 1: The comparison between Amazon, eBay and Barnes & Nobles 26

Table 2: CPM of Amazon.com, eBay, and Barnes & Noble 32

Table 3: Revenue generating activities in Amazon 39

Table 4: The investment of Shareholder‘s Equity 42

Table 5: Information about Amazon's Executive Officer 48

Table 6: Financials ratios of Amazon 54

Table 7: AWS market share 57

Table 8: The table of Amazon Income Statement (2014-2019) 71

Table 9: The table of Amazon Balance Sheet (2014-2020) 72

Table 10: Amazon Financial Ratio 2014-2020 73

Table 11: CashFlow Statement of Amazon 2014-2019 74

ABBREVIATION

AWS: Amazon Web Service

CEO: Chief Executive Officer

CFO: Chief Financial Officer

SPV: Senior Vice President

B2B: Business to business

B2C: Business to customer

CPM: Competitive Profile Matrix

KDP: Kindle Direct Publishing

IT: Information Technology

SMEs: Small and Medium Enterprises

EBIT: Earnings before interest and taxes

EPS: Earning per share

ROA: Return on Assets

ROI: Return on Investment

ROE: Return on Equity

EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization

MWPVL International: A global supply chain and logistics consulting services

ABSTRACT

Amazon.com Corporation - one of the largest and most tremendous successful based shopping worldwide Amazon.com is the most famous for modern innovation in all academic fields they have typically involved In the world, technology innovation has been applied and developed in many fields like security, military, medicine, entertainment, commerce, and post and brings many great benefits High technologies are the right procedure in the commerce field both now and in the future Therefore, the importance of the research is to highlight the benefits, advantages, and the strength that technology innovation brings about in the Amazon.com fulfillment centers, contributions, and warehouses, in such the way that alters the enterprise in the long term by improving the value chain Furthermore, this study shows that continuous technological innovation creates impact on business structure and business performance of Amazon.com Corporation

web-CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Technology has stopped being strange and advantaged all through the modern world, and its efficient utilization has instantly become an essential component in the business field In a particularly dynamic and globalized world, if a business does not innovate or improve manufacturing processes of such enterprises by technological innovation so that becoming technologically out of date can mean preventing it penetrate the market Some other previous research has focused on development as the vital of corporate development and technology innovation is the most widely recognized methodology to expand the development of the corporation (Hervas-Oliver, J.L.; Sempere-Ripoll, F.; Boronat-Moll, C.; Rojas-Alvarado, R., 2018) That is the reason companies should bargain each day with technological advances and adjust to them, in order to accelerate their processes and maintain competitiveness in the market In a turbulent market, those firms which have high technological capabilities become leaders of the market and gain high profitability (Chae, H.C.; Koh, C.E.; Park, K.O , 2018) The fundamental companies are attempting to create and implement their own technical advances in order to overcome their rivals These innovations give various services that assist organizations with building up more straightforward associations with their clients and providers, incomes, improve processes, make modern procedures for the new strategy of the organization Technological innovation is regarded as an important driver factor that significantly contributes to business performance (Hervas-Oliver, J.L.; Sempere-Ripoll, F.; Boronat-Moll, C.; Rojas-Alvarado, R., 2018) The importance

of a firm‘s technological innovation capability, which can be beneficial to the company and leads to improved competitiveness, has been confirmed by many studies (Zhang, Y.; Khan, U.; Lee, S.; Salik, M , 2019) It was proven that Industry4.0 is key to the improvement of sustainable business performance for SMEs

The successful company was sufficiently established in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Seattle with the first official name correctly was Cadabra, Inc but has been instantly changed

to a name-based Amazon.com – Amazon‘s the largest river in the world, and begin with the letter "A" which is the first letter of the alphabet Amazon is a multinational focused multinational technology company focused on cloud computing, digital broadcasting, artificial intelligence, and e-commerce

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) is an e-commerce company located in Seattle, the United States, Washington This precious corporation is the largest US retail system with sales revenue of 280.522 billion USD (in 2019), business profit of 14.541 billion USD (in 2019), and a combined number of employees worldwide and 798,000 (in 2019) Amazon is a multidisciplinary business company such as books, music services, IT software, home decoration, games, Amazon advertisements catch our brilliant eye whenever our modern devices (Smartphones, laptops, TVs,…) are accessed network Experts call Amazon one of the potential companies now and until the future With annual revenue of trillions of dollars in just four years of development,

it is clear online retail stores are one of the giants of the e-commerce world Amazon set up separate websites in Canada, the UK, Germany, France, China, and Japan,… serving more than 17 million conscious consumers in 160 developed countries

In 25 years of establishment and development, Amazon has a lot of great improvements, and accomplishments to the company have been like today Amazon.com currently possesses 80 tremendous label brand that they ordinarily have

on their ideal platform: (Flamand, Wisher, & Riley, 2020)

Echo and Alexa

Amazon Kindle Fire

Audible

Additionally, the fulfillment centers, warehouses, and standard distributions of Amazon.com allow tremendous robotics and artificial intelligence devices such as RFID, red laser code, to graciously please Amazon customers by responding to potential clients' valuable goods quickly Currently, Amazon owns more than 200,000 robotic vehicles to increase labor productivity and appreciably reduce shipping time

The e-commerce industry in the modern world is developing strongly and diversifying innovative products and services Technology is constantly changing and developing, causing businesses to constantly innovate and innovate to meet the competitive needs

of competitors in the market in the 4.0 economies If a company stops creating and adopting technology innovation it immediately makes obsolete by a radically various rival in the corresponding markets On the contrary, it will gain an aggressive and firm position in the economy To express the economic importance of technological innovation in today is the modern economy, the author chose Amazon.com Enterprise - one of the leading enterprises in technology innovation trends to study the revolution impact of practical application in this business Therefore, the author chooses the topic

of this research as ―Technological Innovation and its impact on Amazon.com Enterprise: A focus on Business Structure and Business Performance.‖ Amazon is one

of the most enormous business groups in the world, so this research based on analyzing the impact on Amazon will provide many valuable lessons for local and foreign enterprises to develop the business

1.3 Research Purpose

This study aims to uniquely identify and clarify economic issues with the practical application of technological innovation in the Amazon positively affecting business structure and operations results Recognizing the strength of technology innovation reduces inventory costs, labor, Also, increase the revenue for Amazon and reduce the latest price for customers The study is expected not only to highlight the potential benefits of technological innovation in the creative exploration of strategic

management of the Amazon fulfillment centers focused on the US market, but also point out the strength of a corporation when applied technological innovation in all their facilities, which have boosted their business performance results In addition, the academic study also gives some practical suggestions suitable for this American company's business strategy in the long term and in the current Covid-19 pandemic Valuable lessons from Amazon.com can be used for other companies to improve trading performance results and business structure to gain a position in the market, competing with competitors in the same industry In addition, entrepreneurs and start-

up organizations can apply technological innovation to make a difference from others

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN

2.1 Research objectives

In this research, the author will attempt to uncover what is the new innovations that Amazon utilizes and what is the competitive, strategic, and operational advantage it brings to Amazon.com This research needs to discover what are the key technological innovation that can change enterprises, corporations, and the impact of technological innovation on the internal and external specifically in business structure and business performance The results of the research will provide useful recommendations to help drive and discover the technological innovation that will drive Amazon's strategic development in the future

The objective of the research is to evaluate and analyze the technologies exploited in Amazon‘s fulfillment centers from when the customer clicks the button until it is received, to review improvements in Amazon's fulfillment centers technology innovation, thereby bringing benefits to the Amazon organization in business structure and business performance result, especially the Amazon value chain - manufacturers to customers Typically based on that, the main research objective proposes some suitable solutions for Amazon to progressively increase the economic value of corporate strategic management in the long term

In this study, the author properly conducted the Amazon.com corporate The proper subject of this extensive research in common is technology innovation that impacts on the business performance and the business structure of the Amazon.com corporation

2.2 Research questions

In order to complete the purpose of this research, the thesis must answer these research questions:

Question 1: What are the strengths of Amazon that make it different from competitors

in the same industry?

Question 2: How does technological innovation affect the business structure and Amazon.com‘s business performance result?

Question 3: What are further lessons that Amazon and other businesses can learn to benefit from technological changes in the future?

2.3 Research methodology

This research consumes mostly secondary data stemmed from different sources are used in this study to answer the research questions The researcher uses both qualitative and quantitative to analyze and evaluate the data and materials This study utilizes secondary data collected from different sources and from previous studies Particularly, first, secondary data are sourced from scientific studies on technology innovation management, strategic management definition, the definition of technology innovation are used to develop research ideas, research model and research questions Second, the data gathered via both academic and non-academic channels such as Google device, Google Scholar, ProQuest The Proquest web index are collected to quantitatively illustrate the author‘s arguments Specifically, the data collected to build up CPM matrix are from Amazon.com and its rivals in the hardware retail market The author also makes different calculations based on those secondary data collected from Amazon's business performance results from five consecutive years from 2015 to 2020

2.4 Expected contributions of the research

Exploring the research carries out a significant role in the clarification process of applying technological innovation at Amazon.com Furthermore, the academic study clarifies the impact of technology innovation on the enterprise's business structure and business performance From there, acknowledge the importance of technological innovation for Amazon's business and propose some suitable strategies to make Amazon.com's business more efficient In fact, SMEs can involve this research to develop, progressively improve quality, operational efficiency, and capacity in the market to create a competitive edge with business competitors, industry, especially entrepreneurs In addition, entrepreneurs can develop their businesses in a way that

applies to this technology Theoretically, the research results of the topic remain, moreover, references for the following researchers Furthermore, the findings of this investigation will broaden the research's knowledge and enrich the theoretical basis for future research

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW

According to previous research by many academic scholars, many organizations are applying high technologies and technological innovation to accomplish rivalry and automation in order to produce tremendous differences in the market

This literature review of this thesis provides a general overview of two relevant literature variables that are affected by technological innovation: business structure and

business performance

3.1 Concepts and related studies

3.1.1 Concepts of technological innovation

Robert Solow‘s book theory shows that technology is an endogenous variable that promotes economic growth, it appeared after capital and labour variable in the economic market If the technology increased, the economy also experienced growth (Solow, 1970)

Robert Solow, an American economist, wrote a paper titled ―A contribution to the theory of economic growth‖ in 1956 The Solow growth concept was conceived Solow required a production function that captures the aggregate relationship between inputs and outputs (Solow, 1970).The Cobb–Douglas function is suitable for this In its most basic form, it assumes that total output Y is proportional to capital input K and labor input L as follows (Solow, 1970):

Solow incorporates two considerations into the model after introducing technology to the economy in order to have sustainable expansion: labor growth and technical growth At time t, output Y t is calculated by capital and labor inputs, as well as technology A, using the following production function (Solow, 1970):

Technological innovation preciously is the practical application of disruptive technology to innovative products, services, and production processes in order to minimize economic costs for a profitable business Simultaneously, to promote the upgrading of existing products and services to make a difference in the market (Rogers, 1998) Applying technological innovation maintains both benefits to an enterprise that

is not only increases added value but also changes the organization of that enterprise (Cohen, W.M.; Levinthal, D.A., 1990)

Besides, during the time willingly spent effectively reacting to the market and growing new technologies, technological innovation will triumph as far as the sustainable management of successful businesses (Van de Ven, 1986) Technological innovation is hence a significant general thrust for improving the competitiveness of a business and the profitability of the business overall, prompting the financial development of the whole nation and more inventive society Accordingly, it is critical to have the ability

to deliberately deal with this process to guarantee successful innovation (Yun, J.J.; Jeong, E.; Lee, Y.; Kim, K., 2018) Technological innovation was at first described as a movement of wonders that lead to the creation and offer of innovative products or services through a novel mix of the creation cycle, the market, materials, and affiliation (Yam, R.C.M.; Lo, W.; Tang, E.P.Y.; Lau, K.W, 2010)

Technological innovation has furthermore been described as the movement of information used to make and execute thoughts and the exercises inside the economic cycle as a rule, from the innovation of the products and processes to the regulation systems Exploration on revolution and corporate execution has revealed product development gives an upper hand to associations through technological predominance and improved product execution, measure rearrangement gives an upper hand as far as more noteworthy productivity and viability (Yam, R.C.M.; Lo, W.; Tang, E.P.Y.; Lau, K.W, 2010) The technological innovation of an organization is instantly perceived as a critical factor in making sure about its fierce competitiveness and progressively improving its academic performance (Hertog, 2000)

3.1.2 Technological innovation and Business structure

Innovation is a significant wellspring of development and a vital determinant of the position for some businesses Accomplishing advancement requires the planned endeavours of various actors and the reconciliation across expert capacities, information spaces, and settings of utilization Thus, organizational creation is rudimentary to the process of innovation (Van de Ven et al 1999) The capacity of an enterprise to create is a pre-condition for the effective usage of innovative assets and new advancements In contrast, the presentation of innovation frequently presents complex chances and difficulties for enterprises, prompting changes in administrative manages and the development of new hierarchical structures (Schumpeter, 1950) saw organizational alterations, new products, and processes, just as new market sectors

Organization structures are created by individuals who guarantee that such work is highly accomplished Undertaking obligation and dynamic are given to singular individuals and groups and courses of action are made to arrange, immediate, facilitate, and control them (Armstrong and Stephens, 2008) As indicated by Armstrong and Stephens (2008), the organization structure is open frameworks that change inputs to results and are consistently subject to and impacted by their surroundings Essential issues looked at by businesses are those identifying with design, connections, and relationships The socio-specialized model created by the scientists at the Tavistock Institute prompted the improvement of the fundamental open frameworks hypothesis which expresses that in any hierarchical framework, specialized or task perspectives are interrelated with the human or social angles, zeroing in on the connections between the specialized processes of change inside enterprises just like the organization of workgroups and the administration construction of the business (Lewin, 1951) (UKEssay., 2018) characterizes the business structures as including all the unmistakable and routinely happening highlights which help to shape the conduct of its individuals According to Armstrong and Stephens, business structures give the system

to accomplish the objectives of enterprises Organizations comprise of individuals working agreeably together Thus, it is inescapable that, at the administrative level, a

business structure may be changed in accordance with fit the qualities and characteristics of the individuals accessible

3.1.3 Technological innovation and Business performance

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, a serious social clash emerged at the moment when laborers were supplanted by technological innovation However, because of the fact that mechanical development produced more interest and therefore expanded creation, it made greater business and increased the value of the economy Thus, the dominant scholarly and policy view is that technology innovation can give underestimated laborers new business open doors as a type of pay inside the market (Hertog, 2000) Accordingly, exploring the result of innovation regarding both financial and social performance will not just emphasize the significance of innovation but also give a significant establishment to the primary hypothesis that technological innovation adds to corporate development and competitiveness (Santarelli & Vivarelli, 2007) In the turbulent business world, technological innovation has become a principal focal point of top administration levels in different organizations (Zhang, Y.; Khan, U.; Lee, S.; Salik, M , 2019) It is contended that those organizations can succeed by implementing modern technology to their products and service (Coccia, 2017) From a strategic management viewpoint, especially from a resource-based view, a firm with unique capabilities and resources can achieve a reasonably serious substitute for a violent business showcase and outflank its industry rivals (Anwar, 2018) Technological innovation can assist organizations with building up an assortment of new products and services that are significant elements for high performance and profits In a turbulent market, those organizations which have high innovative abilities become heads of the market and rise high profitability (Chae, H.C.; Koh, C.E.; Park, K.O., 2018) Especially, in developing business sectors, a company's objective for high profit and survival can be accomplished through technological innovation (Li, Y.; Zhao, Y.; Liu, Y , 2006) Technological innovation is not just practicable in a particular industry but different modern industrial sectors, for example, manufacturing and services, improve their performance by receiving technological innovation (Sirilli,

G.; Evangelista, R, 1998) Technological innovation is viewed as a significant driver factor that essentially adds to business performance (Hervas-Oliver, J.L.; Sempere-Ripoll, F.; Boronat-Moll, C.; Rojas-Alvarado, R., 2018) The significance of a company's technological innovation capability, which can be gainful to the organization and prompts improved competitiveness, has been confirmed by numerous

investigations (Zhang, Y.; Khan, U.; Lee, S.; Salik, M , 2019)

Industry 4.0 is vital to the improvement of reasonable business performance for the organization Components of Industry 4.0 positively affect advancing technology implementation, which helps the sustainable business performance of the organizations since it will not just prompt changes in the service production of the business but enormous changes can also be seen in different areas, for instance, business models and labor markets (Haseeb, M.; Hussain, H.I.; Slusarczyk, B.; Jermsittiparsert, K., 2019) The basic explanation behind adjusting Industry 4.0 into real business practice is to strengthen business competitiveness (Ganzarain, J.; Errasti, N, 2016) Industry 4.0 is no longer a plan to be examined by large businesses only On the other hand, it is fundamental for the association to satisfy the components of Industry 4.0 to be able to create their products and services more proficiently (Vrchota, J.; Volek, T.; Novotná,

M , 2019) Teece argued that innovation is an interactive process between technologically related sub-systems (Teece, 1996) Extensive and comprehensive research on the relationship between the determinants of innovation and a company's innovation performance requires further investigation This makes it hard for organizations to perform activities in improving their technological innovation competitiveness and business performance (Yam, R.C.M.; Lo, W.; Tang, E.P.Y.; Lau, K.W, 2010)

3.2 Previous studies on case of Amazon

Technology fulfills a significant role in business development Amazon promptly began with utilizing 1300 robots in their fulfillment centers in 2011 and the considerable numbers expanded to 30,000 intelligent robots to be taken advantage of in

13 fulfillment centres The lifting capacity of robots total 750 pounds and it allows them 15 minutes to transfer a heavyweight from one place to another in the warehouse (Bogue, 2016) Graciously according to a critical article (Anonymous, 2019), Amazon will also figure out how to fit a current device in robots which encourages them to perceive if somebody's coming from a distance and slowdown in order to avoid any incident; guaranteeing well-being and security at the operating environment Robots help them in taking care of business simpler and snappier and they additionally contribute towards the achievement and development of an organization

Robotics can be valuable in specific ways for an enterprise, for example, they help in decreasing the operating prices of the business which is related to the manufacturing of products or moving high weight things It will also adequately help reduce the direct costs which appropriately include labour costs For example, Amazon has replaced human blue collar-workers with robots which have a direct effect on the organization's various viewpoints, for example, well-being and security, preparing and employee administration If Amazon.com uses robots, at that point, they will have less responsibility as compared to if they have an employee working for them (Wilson, 2014) Additionally, Amazon.com has applied technological innovation which influenced an organization structure in the mentioned above theoretical

The main structures building a business structure design are Formalization, Centralization, Hierarchy, Specialization Amazon uses the hierarchical organizational structure This comprises of senior management team like, but not limited to senior vice presidents and a worldwide controller that report directly to CEO Jeff Bezos According to the above theory, it shows that technological innovation does not have an immediate impact on the organizational structure but in the long run, it will affect the structure of the enterprise The research will highlight the structural changes of the organization, specifically an Amazon.com corporation (Rothaermel F , 2017)

Figure 1: Amazon.com Business structure

Source: (Dudovskiy, 2018)

The above literature review information above shows that the technology impact on corporations, especially the structural business of the organization In this study, the author is going to explore that technological innovation also give various effects on the Business structure and Business performance of Amazon

VP Technical Advisor to

CEO

SVP International

Retail

Jeff Bezos, Chief Excutive Officer

SVP Coporate Development

CEOWorldwide

Amazon Devices Digital

Managemen

SVP & CFO Financial

Administration

Orporate Affairs Global

SVP human Resources HR

Web

3.3 Conceptual framework and hypotheses

Based on the above - mentioned literature and research questions, the author proposed the following research hypotheses for this study as the following:

Hypothesis A: Technological innovation powerfully affects Amazon‘s business

Hypothesis B: Technological innovations possessed in common by Amazon correctly

are their economic strengths to make a difference to compete economically in the online retailer industry

(H5) Technological innovations have carried out a critical role in labour productivity

to improve Amazon.com‘s business performance results

(H6) Technology innovation experiences a significant impact on the market development of Amazon.com‘s business performance result

(H7) Technological innovation impacts on products and services development to improve Amazon.com‘s business performance result

Figure 2:The conceptual Framework of the thesis

Source: Collected by the Author

In the conceptual framework, the author outlines seven hypotheses that technology innovation impacts to change business structure and business performance Accordingly, organizational structure, monetization activities, total assets, and shareholder's equity will impact on business structure, and labor productivity, market development, and products and services development will impact business performance Clarifying seven hypotheses mentioned by the author will generally determine the impact of technological innovation on business structure and business performance of Amazon.com corporation

Technological

Innovation

Organization Structure

Monetization Activities

Business Structure Total

Assets

Share Holder Equity

Labour Productivity

Business Berformance

H1

H4 H2

H5 H3

Market development

Products &

Services Development H6

H7

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS

In Chapter 4, the author is going to answer two question in research question in Chapter 2 First, she is going to answer the question what are the strengths of Amazon that make it different from competitors in the same industry? Then, the following question will be answered: How does technological innovation affect business structure and Amazon.com‘s business performance result? Based on the answers to these two questions, they author aims to point out that technological innovation brings about various opportunities to develop a specific corporation, especially Amazon.com

4.1 Amazon‘s Competitive Profile Matrix Analysis

Competitive Profile Matrix (CPM) is one of the strategic management tools to identify the difference between objects in the same industry (Rothaermel F T., 2017) Based on the key success factor, the CPM table identifies the strengths and the weaknesses in relation to the strategic management of the competing firms This thesis uses CPM to compare Amazon with other competitors in the same industry

Amazon is a technology corporation multinational, engaged in various sectors of the e – commerce market In each field, Amazon has its various competitors

Firstly, economic rivals of Amazon in Offline retailing (physical store): Although quite focusing predominantly on e-commerce sales, Amazon is still expanding bricks-and-mortars to develop more diversified direct distribution channels in the US market In the offline retail markets worldwide, one of the giants that Amazon faces is Walmart, Costco, Tesco, etc.,

Secondly, rivals of this American company in Web services: Amazon efficiently provides a web services market especially in cloud computing Major competitors of Amazon in this industry are Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc.,

Thirdly, potential rivals of Amazon in streaming services: In this specialized field, Amazon's popular with Amazon Prime Video competing with online video streaming channels that are Netflix, Youtube, etc,…

Lastly, potential rivals of Amazon in E-commerce: a gentle giant in the retail electricity market in the US, the UK, and other developed countries around the phenomenal world But Amazon has always faced an equally strong competitor in the UK and lucrative US markets are eBay, Barnes & Noble, and Alibaba in the China market

Although there are many competitors in different sectors; Amazon is still highly focused on developing the online retail market and the competition in this market The competitors in the retail sector, the author chose Barnes & Nobles and eBay to compare with Amazon.com to find out the strength of the biggest corporation in the worldwide

4.1.2 Barnes & Noble Introduction

Barnes & Noble founded by Leonard Riggio and run by CEO James Daunt in 1971, the headquarters located on Fifth Avenue in New York City Barnes & Noble is that the world's most wide retail owner, a number one retail merchant of content, digital media, and education merchandise (Brown, 2020) The company operates almost 800 bricks and mortars, and 50,000 publishers surrounding the US Furthermore, Barnes & Noble also sells a great deal of technologies platform consists of Spark Note and Nook to provide for e-readers The company is known for its retail outlets which contain cafes and Starbucks to serves the customers (Rahman, 2020) The price of items in Barnes & Noble is higher than other online booksellers, but they claim that all their books have a high standard and authentic (Brown, 2020)

4.1.3 The comparison between Amazon, eBay and Barnes & Noble

The economic reason why the author determined to carefully compare the above companies is because of the fundamental similarity between the business models: online retailers and similar products: books Although Barnes & Noble only just sells books, newspapers, and educational equipment, it is also one of the aggressive competitors to Amazon in the electronic retail market eBay has not also the same business model, but only its company has the auction model to compete economically with other rivals about the ultimate price Base on the great deal of practical reasons which has mentioned above, the author carefully gathers the valuable information in

the comparative table below

Table 1: The comparison between Amazon, eBay and Barnes & Nobles

Product quality

Over 66% of consumers choose Amazon for a new product because of

There are both old and new products

Not restrict the products sold on the

Mainly sell books and other items such as toys, magazines,

the quality product

(Master.K, 2019)

web should not check the quality of products Sellers can sell almost everything including prohibited items (eBay.Inc, 2020)

newspapers put up

on top quality and are committed to product quality (Brown, 2020)

Price

Always provide extremely price competitive with all products

(Master.K, 2019)

Auction model for products including new or old, bring competitive prices for products sold on eBay

(Matthew.McPherson, Carl S Bozman, Dan Friesner, 2015)

Higher than Amazon and claim that all their books are authentic (Njogu, 2019)

Market share

In 2018, Amazon hits 56.1% of the market share in the

US

In September

2020, Amazon represented 37.9 percent of online retailers in North America and 47%

market share worldwide

(Sabanoglu, Global

19.7% market share

in the US still leading the second position after Amazon in

2018

Until 2020, eBay continuously is in the second position with

a 6.6% market share

in the US (Watson, 2020)

Reach to 17% in the market share with almost 800 brick-and-mortars,

50000 publishers surrounding the

US (Rahman, 2020)

market share of Amazon 2020, 2020)

Innovation

Amazon is a leader

in technological innovation,

manufacturing process, and product

innovation For example: using

fulfillment centers, Amazon Prime service and Amazon Kindle, Alexa, Amazon Fresh,… (Njogu, 2019)

eBay launched an innovation lab for a number of products such as WowWee IMP, 3Doodle, Holho,

Bublcam,…etc

(English.M, Penfold.L, Crampton.L, 2015)

Only have two innovations are Spark Note and Nook provide for e-readers (Njogu, 2019)

Customer

Loyalty

Amazon strives to maintain loyal customers by embracing and driving customer experience, quality

of customer service and products,

especially

customers repurchase

at eBay (English.M, Penfold.L,

Crampton.L, 2015)

According to Forrester Research Barnes and Noble

is considered the leading company

in the field of care and customer satisfaction

Barnes and Noble are offering free

investments in technological innovation

(Njogu, 2019)

programs such as ship and introduce new policies to promote demand to become loyal customers Every loyal customer is a 10% discount for each of their orders (Gregory, 2018)

Brand Equity

Amazon's centered brand image and brand equity are a significant

client-wellspring of the competition for the brand It has figured out how to make a significant level of trust depends on the quality of items and services it sells (Minh, 2020)

EBay's brand equity

is confirmed through

an unique auction model As a result, customers have a positive visual about the price they want

(Matthew.McPherson, Carl S Bozman, Dan Friesner, 2015)

Brand equity is confirmed by the quality of the source of the Barnes & Noble

in the third quarter

First-quarter of 2020, the net revenue of eBay was 2.374

Barnes & Noble was under Covid-

19 pandemic

of 2020 increased

by 37% compared

to last year to reach 96.1 billion USD, profit by 197% to reach 6.3 billion USD

(Minh, 2020)

million USD, but this figure was lower than previous years about 2% because of the Covid-19 pandemic

(eBay.Inc, 2020)

influence The consolidated sales

of 256.9 million USD dropped

compared to the last years (Brown, 2020)

Global Presence

Operation globally

in every state in America and in over 130 different countries around

(Master.K, 2019)

Operating in 190 markets around the world

Just launched in the United States and had 778 retail stores in 50 States But only operation

in America market (Rahman, 2020)

Customer

Service

Diversification services for customers to choose the product such as: Alexa, Amazon

Prime,…etc

Valuing the customer first and always concentrate

on the customers

(Master.K, 2019)

The eBay customer service was rated poorly by most calls product claims were rejected or the client receives the answer completely different from the vendor

(eBay.Inc, 2020)

In all Barnes & Noble provides coffee and a Café

to served readers Made them feel the convenience

phenomenon, therefore made them spent more time at stores (Gregory, 2018)

Distribution

Network

Expanding distribution

Distributions around the world reach to

Distributions only based on the

Source: Collected by the author

According to various evidence mentioned above, the researcher can assess the rating and calculate the weight score for Amazon to compared with the other critical success factors of eBay and Barnes & Noble to witness the economic strength of Amazon's business

4.1.4 Competitive profile matrix of Amazon, eBay, and Barnes & Noble

The author speculated on a great deal of information derived from several online sources, websites such as Amazon.com, google scholar,… According to various accumulated evidence information in the table 1 above As the results being collected – ten factors affect these companies which is allowed the author calculates the weight, scale for table below The weight and scale are estimated following the rules: each success factor should be doled out a weighting from 0.1 to 1.0, with a lower weighting implying that factor is not especially significant in deciding the accomplishment of a business, and a higher rating implying that factor is fundamentally significant in deciding the achievement of a business (Rothaermel F , 2017) The author scored the

scale between 1 to 4, define as: Significant strength, Minor strength, Minor weakness,

Significant weakness (Rothaermel F , 2017)

network and fulfillment centers not only in the urban areas but also in rural areas, and around the world (Master.K, 2019)

31% in the US, 29%

in the UK, 15% in Germany, and 12% in China,…etc

(Sabanoglu, 2020)

United States (Gregory, 2018)

Table 2: CPM of Amazon.com, eBay, and Barnes & Noble

Critical Success

Factors Weight Rating

Weight Score Rating

Weight Score Rating

Weight Score

Source: Collected by the author

Based precisely on the collected shreds of evidence and statistics in Tables 1 and 2, the author has assessed the matrix of the competitive profile (CPM) of Amazon and its two competitors, eBay and Barnes & Noble In terms of total, Amazon consists of the most extraordinary figure of about 3.82, eBay is 3.18 – in second place and Barnes & Noble

is 2.68 As shown in Table 2, Amazon's key success factors almost all reached a maximum rating is positively 4 In order to have advantages over its competitors, Amazon has always innovated in the manufacturing process, organization, and business method under the leadership of Jeff Bezos The reasons are Amazon has applied technological innovation to all of its manufacturing processes, distribution

processes, and the organization of its enterprise management The research relied on table 2, to highlight Amazon's successes from its competitors in the competitive market and found the impact of technological innovation significantly affects the business structure and business performance of Amazon.com From the evidence given above, the author continues conducting research to clarify the issues mentioned in the title of this graduation thesis Technological and its impact on an Amazon.com enterprise: The unique focus on business structure and business performance

4.2 Impact of technological innovation and value chain analysis of Amazon.com

The following diagram presents a Amazon.com value chain analysis in technology stream in four primary activities they have focused on developing company operations

in logistics field

Inbound Logistics

2 Device and content creation

Software Developmen

t

4 AWS Operations

Outbound Logistics

1 Order Fulfillment

2 Order handling and dispatch

3 Invoicing

Inbound Logistics

1 Amazon Prime

2 Earth‘s most customer centric company

3 Hassle free return

4 Customer services

5 Promotion

6 Order&Customer tracking

7 Segmentatio

n

Innovative technology: Advanced client information base and insightful

apparatuses for practical suggestion and personalization Adaptable

Amazon Web Services for Amazon.com's innovation framework to serve

B2B, B2B clients Fully optimized as well as warehouse and distribution

center automation with robotic technology Advanced delivery with drones

Familiar voice shopping with Alexa AI and modern Echo device

Augmented reality to observe matching products and how to examine them

look like

Procurement: Valuable lots of exclusive suppliers integrate vertically

HR & Finance & Legal: Recruit extraordinary talent, carefully create

sustainable operating cash flow and typically reduce possible risk

Foundation by creating new income streams Additionally, Amazon.com‘s fulfillment centers, for the most part, utilize robotics to lessen the inactive time of blue-collar workers and expand operational effectiveness by adequately reducing working expenses by about 20%, for example, which is a saving of 22 million USD Furthermore, the Kindle Direct Publishing programming assists writers with properly distributing and profitably sell their books in an extraordinary moment (Schreiber, 2016)

Amazon recreates the value chain by applying technological innovation in all facilities, the author be able to define that saw an increase in the opportunity in the economic sector which made more value in the value chain and miniature the labor cost

The author gathered from the quality of reliable sources of magazines, reports, economic news to built-up this value chain of Amazon.com According to the diagram below, the value chain consisted of seven steps in the process which were products ordered by customers until they received The complex diagram indicated the vital role

of the Amazon value chain as the third-party in the market; at the first time that Amazon launch, Bezos didn't have enough budget to invest in technical applications like intelligent robots and RFID The majority of stages are done by unskilled employees or manual Thus, Amazon must pay a tremendous salary for labor in facilities each year for the picked, packaged, and delivered

Figure 4: Amazon.com Value chain

Source: Jonhnson (2020)

Applying technological innovation that was given more economic benefit for Amazon.com; for instance, the diminished wage in labor, save time and went up in labor productivities By collected various of evidence that Amazon recreated their value chain is listed below In each step, Amazon applied technology for each stage follow

Firstly, in the first step A1 (application 1) - mobile app: Each truck transporting the goods to fulfillment centers relies on the mobile app to know the location, the time to bring the goods to fulfillment centers this is to minimize the traffic jam issues in each parking slide in fulfillment centers and save time for labor

From fulfillment centers to store inventory, Amazon had three new application, those were A2 (application 2) - Robotic arm: after the truck is enjoyed an unloading site, the products are transported from the vehicle and onto the pallets The robotic arms will obtain these products out of the truck and arrange inventories, the elevator, and the robot arms will lift the inventory pellets to the stock warehouse and store; continuously

Manufacturers

Sellers

Fulfilment centers

Store inventory

A5

A7 A6

A8 A9

with A3 (application3) - Scanning in: when the pellet goes to the arranging zone, every separate box is stacked onto a rack, from which it is uncovered and picked Each crate contains various individual bunches of whatever the things An individual at each station will at that point check the standard containers This process still utilized a hand scanner by their Amazon Go technologies This will carefully distinguish the product, examine the standardized tag from a long way away, and recognize the specific area on the typical case where the item is put away This disposes of one of the means of examining the case area prior to putting it; and the last application in step two was A4 (application 4) – Robots: products come into the fulfillment centers, everything has proceeded onward robots, transport lines, or lifts In the primary stage, the item is stacked into the units, which are contained on the top of robots These robots at that point take the item to a pre-customized area inside the floor Every robot can just move from one QR code on the floor to the following This cycle is altogether robotized It is mechanized to where no individual is permitted inside the automated space without an uncommon vest This vest utilizes either Bluetooth to make them go around

Then, from inventory to package, Amazon had A5 (application 5) - Robot Picking: when the system received the order, it appears on a PC close to a picking station Robots inside the distribution center are provided the request to go to a picking station

at the opportunity that request comes through The robot shows the suitable side of the case, and the item is gotten, checked, and put in a satisfaction container to be packaged and transported; with A6 (application 6) - Computer Routing: each order tracked based

on location and gave packing robot information to move the product to the right station The employee picks up the item from the picking robot and sends it to the packing station; eventually, A7 (application 7): after the goods are packed, the product will be maintained in yellow containers These containers will move on conveyors and sort until the area is set in preparation for the following step

From package to delivery, they have applied two technological innovation that were improved their processes That utilization had more benefit for saving time and reducing the labor for freight to customers There were A8 (application 8) - Package