Strategic Management and Amazon Essay examples

Words: 9568
Pages: 39

TMA 05
Block 4 Collaborative analysis

Contents

Part 1

External analysis (group A) 2

Internal analysis (group B) 4

Stakeholder analysis (group C) 10

Corporate-level strategy analysis (group D) 14

Competitive-level strategy analysis (group E) 17

Part 2

Critical assessment of the analysis 23

Part 3

Evidencing of contribution to groups 28

Part 4

Reflection on group decision making 30

Appendix 32

Part 1

1. Group A analysis
INTRODUCTION
Each member of team A used one of the many available frameworks to analyse the external environment of Amazon.com,
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It is clear where Amazon is able to create value through efficient activities and a well established process. Since sustainable competitive advantage is based upon resources and capabilities, value needs to be maintained or enhanced for Amazon.com to retain their position of sustainable competitive advantage (Unit 2, The OU, 2010, p.60). Amazon's business model offers a synergistic combination of the following benefits which help them to remain competitive:

• Shopping convenience • Ease of purchase • Speed • Decision-enabling information • A wide selection • Discounted pricing • Reliability of order fulfillment

Amazon.com's combination of services and logistical processes creates value for their customers which in-turn creates sustainable competitive advantage.

Although these links can be hard to substantiate (causal ambiguity) (Unit 2, The OU 2009), Amazon's resources/capabilities are valuable as they are difficult to replicate (e.g. knowledge).

4. Amazon.com's Dynamic Capabilities

Amazon's capabilities can be described as dynamic: processes used to manage resources in response to dynamic environment (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000).

The impact Amazon.com's dynamic capabilities have:

• proactive flexible