Amazon

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Barbara Shogbamimu

09 October 2013

Case Analysis Paper Week 5

Managers in today’s economic turmoil face many challenges. Managers tend to rely not only on their training and skill but on the history of what other managers have done to perfect their decisions. Many borrow from companies that have either failed or have had immense success. One such company that has had a great deal of success in a down market is Amazon.com.

Amazon is relatively a new comer to the corporate world. It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in his garage and began by selling books online. Since that time Amazon.com has become the largest online retailer in the world. Jeff Bezos is no ordinary person by any normal standards. He was considered a very intelligent child and attended a school for the gifted at an early age. While in high school, he managed to accumulate a long list of accomplishments. He was the best science student, the best math student, and won the Silver Knight award for his actions in community service. He also won a NASA competition by writing a paper titled “The Effect of Zero Gravity on the Aging Rate of the Common Housefly” and was Valedictorian of his class of 680 students.(Spector 6-11) When he graduated from high school he started his own camp called “Dream Institute” and then headed for Princeton where he became one of the first students to study computer science. He graduated summa cum laude and bounced around companies until he wanted to take part in the new internet craze since it was exceeding at a growth rate of 2300% each year.(Byers 44)

Jeff Bezos quit his job and after making a number of lists on what to sell begin an online company selling books, a simple enough concept, and settled on a location in Seattle Washington, where the company is still currently residing. As he researched, he wanted to be close to the largest book publisher in the United States and also the largest distributor. He also wanted to stay in a state that...