User:Lahirurandika99/sandbox

Introduction to Amazon
Amazon is a multinational Tech company based in USA. Company was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in his garage. At the beginning, Bezos intended Amazon to be an online bookstore / internet e-commerce marketplace to sell books online. As the company showed steady growth Amazon expanded its business to sell video games, apparels, food, toys, electronics and many varieties on the e-commerce marketplace. In 2015 Amazon surpassed the Walmart group to become the most valuable retailer in the USA. With the growth of the company, they expanded and diversified into many industries such as Cloud computing, e-commerce, Artificial intelligence, consumer electronics, entertainment, digital distribution and self-driving cars.

With 1,298,000 employees all around the world, Amazon is one of the few trillion-dollar companies in the world. Amazon is also one of the five big tech companies in the USA. Also, Amazon is one of the most valuable brands in the world. Amazon has been referred to as “one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world”

Amazon’s turnover for 2020 is $386 billion, an increase of over $100 billion compared to 2019. Net profit for Amazon was up 84% for 2020 as compared to last year. The company has a number of products and services available for their stakeholders such as Amazon prime, AWS, Alexa ect.. Over the years the company acquired several companies, increasing the Amazon owned subsidiaries to over 40.

Amazon.com’s Corporate Vision Statement Amazon’s corporate vision is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” This vision statement underscores the business organization’s main aim of becoming the best e-commerce company in the world. In this regard, the following characteristics are identifiable in Amazon’s corporate vision statement: Global reach, Customer-centric approach and Widest selection of products.

Current Productivity & Performance Challenges & Opportunities at Amazon
One of the top CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) goals of Amazon is ‘supply chain transparency’. Under this objective, Amazon aims to raise the bar for supply chain management by placing people and environment as a top priority. Amazon aims to become the most customer centric company in the world and employees are a crucial element in achieving this bold vision. However, Amazon’s treatment of their employees tells a different story. Lower wages and overworking the staff are only some of the mistreatments of employees that have come to light. An employee described the culture and work conditions inside Amazon as a ‘prion’. These allegations show that Amazon may not be following sustainability guidelines and not on track to reach their CSR goals.

Productivity Challenges & Opportunities:
Challenges:

The retail giant has faced quite a number of criticisms lately. Following are some of them:


 * Low wages. It has been reported that thousands of their employees have been forced to use public housing, rely on food stamps and Medicaid. This can be classified as a classic case of exploitation of labour for minimum wage
 * Another accusation has been that Amazon is directly targeting to eliminate small businesses, especially after their acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 which established their market dominance further.
 * Poor working conditions compared to low wages.
 * Profitability and productivity is directly affected by these factors and their brand name.

Solutions & Opportunities:

Amazon is facing key challenges regarding employee productivity so let's look at how these can be overcome to have increased productivity.


 * Amazon was supposed to do wage increments for their employees around the world. Their starting wages per hour is $15 for full time, part time, temporary (including those hired by agencies), and seasonal employees in the USA. The company has not fully implemented wage increases yet and this may be affecting employee motivation and then in turn productivity.
 * Wages and other compensations for overtime and benefits must be settled in a timely manner to satisfy the applicable labour laws. Suppliers too must follow these guidelines when it comes to employee wages. It's important to remember that payment and wage deductions as a disciplinary measure are not permitted, and such practices must be replaced by more efficient ways to monitor and evaluate employee performance in a regular manner to meet organizational objectives.
 * On the other hand, a company-wide increase in wages adds massive costs to the company’s operational budget, especially when considering that Amazon has over 800,000 employees in the USA alone. Amazon must find effective ways to motivate employees, increase their work condition and increase job satisfaction to yield high performance and productivity levels.

Toxic Culture of Amazon
Let's look at an overview of Amazon’s toxic work culture and how challenging it would be for the company to sustain the business if this matter goes unaddressed. There are also opportunities for Amazon to overcome these obstacles and truly become a global sustainability leader.

Challenges:


 * 1) Amazon had already announced publicly that they will ensure that real value and fundamental rights of every person involved in the supply chain will be respected and well taken care of. They have even gone to lengths to increase hourly wages to a certain extent, but still continue to overwork their employees and treat them as a means to an end.
 * 2) Workplace injuries are significantly higher than their competitors and breaks during work hours are closely monitored, and in some cases subject to job termination as well. This shows a gap between their claims of ‘employee well being first’ agenda and actual execution of it.
 * 3) Furthermore, the challenge is to increase productivity while maintaining this kind of toxic culture which is no way sustainable in the long run. Soon more employees will speak out and there will be serious legal issues regarding labour exploitation.

Opportunities:


 * 1) Amazon may need to do some internal marketing to promote a culture where employee satisfaction comes first. It is obvious that a customer-centric company cannot be built with employees who feel exploited for corporate profits.
 * 2) Employees must feel that they are working for a company that cares for them and they can count on it. Job satisfaction directly affects motivation and performance. Amazon has an opportunity here to do a 180 degree turnaround of company policy that is very much employee focused, as much as it is customer-centric externally.
 * 3) Long term CSR goals of Amazon can include lasting solutions for ethical employment treatment and employee welfare. The toxic work environment of Amazon is a glaring weakness of its corporate profile and it could be an opportunity in disguise to change the corporate culture of the company.

Operation Management Challenges and Opportunities
With over 800 logistical centers globally, Amazon has classified their warehouses such as; Library, Case Flow Prime, Pallet Prime, Random and Reserve. To an external part, a retail giant such as Amazon who has placed high end technology to fast tracks its supply chain would have little to worry about. But the sheer amount of orders it handles within just a day could also push their error and misdelivery margins higher as well. Let us look at these challenges and opportunities to overcome them.

Challenges:


 * 1) If the demand/ supply forecasting proves to be erroneous then we have the challenge of mobilizing more than expected (or less than expected) resources, where there are losses and wastage in both scenarios. Losses in money and time both, but what’s worse is customer dissatisfaction.
 * 2) Data driven systems can accurately predict numbers when it comes to seasonal events, but fail to predict black swan events such as COVID-19
 * 3) Amazon’s official website can sometimes be overwhelmed during seasonal times, which can be disappointing for customers and employees alike.

Opportunities:


 * 1) Constant innovation to stay on top of supply and demand. This can be achieved by creating contingency plans for multiple scenarios along with suppliers and partners.

Challenges and Opportunities Related to Human Resources
Amazon’s HR mechanism has a glaring weakness that may be part of the employee treatment issue. This weakness being that the HR system is heavily automated, and therefore loses the human touch when it comes to delicate issues of employees. Employees have trouble conveying their problems to AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven chat bots that look at employee issues as ‘another problem to solve’. Staff feels less prioritized compared to the customers they serve. Amazon looks to solve HR issues as efficiently as possible, but in some cases there really aren’t quick solutions. Amazon must recognize that such practices will only lead to further employee dissatisfaction. Not everything can be automated and employing more staff to resolve HR issues will be a good solution, and an opportunity to prove to loyal employees that they are valued.

Recommendation and Conclusion

 * Amazon should give more attention/ consideration to the employees who are the backbone of the company.
 * Amazon mentions CSR goals publicly but is not sticking to them. Their claims of proper treatment of employees and the actual execution shows a large gap.
 * Employees should be given freedom of speech and their constructive feedback must be taken into account when optimizing operational functions. They must feel valued and an important part of the company, where customer centricity is complemented with employee centricity.
 * Amazon needs a sustainability leader who keeps the company’s long term sustainability on track. Sustainability leads to profitability, rather than profitability leading to sustainability.


 * Culture needs to be changed and HR needs to be more connected with staff. Changing the culture at this level will help Amazon be a more sustainable organization in the future.
 * Operation management needs Improving in Technical Infrastructure, Ensuring Supply is Sufficient for the Demands.