Amazon

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has been growing throughout its 17-year history. The company began selling books online when the founder Jeff Bezos launched the website amazon.com in 1995. It is named after the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world. An online bookstore was the first choice by Amazon, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and more. Amazon has separate websites for nine countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and China. As this paper is about a current event report, I will be summarizing what recently was published on the Wall Street Journal about Amazon as well as connecting the topic to chapter eight, Global Management, in the book.

17 Feb, 2012 – The Wall Street Journal published that Amazon.com is about to purchase a huge property in the heart of Seattle. Amazon is planning to construct, closely to its current headquarters, about three million square feet of office space. The area represents three large contiguous blocks. The space is considered a huge expansion for the company. The plan also is to build three office towers on the properties; each tower will be located on one million square feet. For the first time, Seattle will have such a huge construction project and it belongs to Amazon. The cost for the project will be announced at the end of this year.

The construction company said that Amazon is planning for the future. Amazon also has options to acquire "significant" parcels of adjacent property in the future to accommodate further growth. Amazon has just reported that the company ended 2011 with an increase in employees 67% comparing with the last year. Actually, both the increase in employees and Amazon’s spending on data infrastructure have affected the company dragging down its profits in the fourth-quarter of 2011.

Not only does Amazon represent global business...