Introduction
Business Process Management (BPM) is the art and science of overseeing how work is
performed in an organization to ensure consistent outcomes and to take advantage of
improvement in opportunities. In this context, the term “improvement” may take different
meanings depending on the objectives of the organization. Typical examples of
improvement objectives include reducing costs, reducing execution times and reducing
error rates. Improvement initiatives may be one-off, but also display a more continuous
nature. Importantly, BPM is not about improving the way individual activities are
performed. Rather, it is about managing entire chains of events, activities and decisions that
ultimately add value to the organization and its customers. These “chains of events,
activities and decisions” are called processes.
Processes in Amazon (company)
Amazon.com uses Business Process Management (BPM) software to automate a
number of mission critical financial and operation processes. These involve disparate teams
across the company and include handling confidential financial data for payment, payroll,
and accounting processes. Typical examples of processes that can be found in this
organization include:
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Order-to-cash: This is a type of process performed by a vendor or an individual
seller on Amazon which starts when a customer submits an order to purchase a
product or a service and ends when the product or service in question has been
delivered to the customer and the customer has made the corresponding
payment. An order-to-cash process encompasses activities related to purchase
order verification, shipment (in the case of physical products), delivery, invoicing,
payment receipt and acknowledgment.
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Procure-to-pay: This type of process starts when someone in an organization
determines that a given product needs to be purchased from Amazon. It ends
when the product has been delivered and paid for. A procure-to-pay process
includes activities such as obtaining quotes, approving the purchase, selecting a
supplier on Amazon depending on cost and reviews of that product, issuing a
purchase order, receiving the good, checking and paying the invoice. A procureto-pay process can be seen as the dual of quote-to-cash process in the context of
business-to-business interactions. For every procure-to-pay process there is a
corresponding quote-to-cash process on the supplier’s side and on Amazon
portal as a commission.
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Issue-to-resolution: This type of process starts when a customer raises a problem
or issue, such as a complaint related to a defect in a product or an issue
encountered when consuming a service. The process continues until the customer,
the supplier, or preferably both of them; agree that the issue has been resolved.
In Amazon, when a customer finds a defective product and complains about it,
according to policy of Amazon the product is replaced by the seller and a new
product is delivered to the customer. In this case both the customer and the seller
agree that the issue has been resolved.
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Logistics: Amazon Logistics is a shipping and delivery service meant to
complement existing providers like UPS, USPS and FedEx. It offers 7-day and sameday delivery options, and it utilizes a host of third-party logistics partners across
the country to make it happen – including walkers, bicyclists and motorcyclists in
some areas. Amazon has certain stipulations for these third-party providers
(regarding licensing, vehicle sizing, safety training and insurance), but it’s
important to remember these are not Amazon employees. They are separate
logistics providers contracted to pick up deliveries at Amazon warehouses and
sorting centre for distribution. They use Amazon tech to guide their deliveries, but
they enjoy flexible schedules and pick up shipments at-will.
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Prime Delivery: Amazon Prime is a membership programme which offers
customers a bundle of premium services including unlimited One-Day Delivery on
millions of eligible items. Customers trust the Prime brand as it stands for
fulfilment excellence and world class customer support. In this process, the all
the sellers keep their products at (FBA) Fulfilment by Amazon centres. Here,
various processes like inventory check, sorting, packing, transportation and
notifying seller and customer are stipulated. In this, there are two programmes
that enable you to add the Prime badge on your products: Fulfilment by Amazon
and Seller Fulfilled Prime. User must pick the optimal fulfilment solution for each
product to maximise the number of ASINs listed as Prime and the orders can be
fulfilled by Amazon, or from your customer’s location.
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Cloud Computing for Amazon web services: There is colossal volume, variety
and velocity of data on Amazon. Increasingly, businesses have stringent
requirements from the time data is generated, to the time actionable insights are
delivered to the users. Therefore, data needs to be collected, stored, processed,
and analyzed within relatively short windows ranging from daily to real-time
Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of compute power, database,
storage, applications, and other IT resources via the internet with pay-as-you-go
pricing. Cloud computing gives the access to servers, storage, databases, and a
broad set of application services over the Internet. A cloud services provider such
as Amazon Web Services owns and maintains the network connected hardware
required for these application services and web applications.
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Blockchain: A blockchain network is a peer-to-peer network that improves the
efficiency and immutability of transactions for business processes like
international payments, supply chain management, land registration, crowd
funding, governance, financial transactions, and more. This allows people and
organizations who may not know one another to trust and independently verify
the transaction record. Amazon Managed Block chain eliminates the overhead
required to create the network, and automatically scales to meet the demands of
thousands of applications running millions of transactions in real time on daily
basis.
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Supply Chain Management: Amazon has a number of factors that go into serving
up the right product to the right customer. While Amazon inventory
management can drive one factor in the search results, there are many factors to
be considered. There are two inventory options. First is Fulfilment by Amazon
(FBA), where Amazon tells the merchant where to send the product, then
manages distribution throughout their fulfilment locations based on sales.
Second is self-fulfilment, where the merchant or the retailer manages their own
supply chain and fulfilment.

Inventory Management: When the seller opts for FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon),
products from a particular seller are stocked at the Amazon warehouse. Here,
the management of the inventory is as per the space occupied by the products at
warehouse. Bar code scanning system is used for allocation and sorting the
products. In western countries, prices of the warehouse vary according to the
climate. For example, prices for inventory rent are high in winters because
transportation is difficult in that season. For every order placed by a customer,
seller is notified from warehouse which is a part of warehouse management
system.
As the above examples illustrate, business processes are what Amazon does
whenever they deliver a service or a product to customers. The way processes are
designed and performed affects both the quality of service that customers perceive
and the efficiency with which services is delivered. An organization can outperform
another organization offering similar kinds of service if it has better processes and
executes them better. This is true not only of customer-facing processes, but also of
internal processes such as the procure-to-pay process, which is performed for the
purpose of fulfilling an internal need of the organization.
WHY AMAZON.COM AND PRIME LOGISTICS
Amazon.com is a typical B2C (business to consumer) company. It sells products and service directly
to customers, and that always happens on the internet. So in this project we choose India’s
Amazon.com as a project topic. E-commerce business through the internet to provide consumers a
new type of shopping environment like online stores, customers‟ shop on the internet and online
payment. This mode saves the time and space of plan, greatly improving the efficiency of the
transaction, especially for busy office workers, this design can save valuable time. Logistic is an
important part of electronic commerce, and it support the development of electronic commerce. If
the goods cannot be delivered to the customer on time, the customer will choose safety and
traditional shopping way. So without the support of logistic, electronic commerce cannot happen.
Electronic commerce and logistics is related closely.
In the US, Amazon has become mature. But India as a developing country, more new ecommerce
companies have been developed, and more comparison has been happened. So in this situation, for
a fast and steady growth the companies should solve the bottleneck between e-commerce and
logistics and have a co-ordinated relationship. This is the reason of why we choose this as our
subject.
But there still have many problems need to solve, like logistic companies compete, focus on price
first; more new e-commerce enterprises establish with more competitive challenges than other
countries. Some spaces need to improve the logistics aspect.
Today, E-commerce is one of the buzzwords in the recent years. E-commerce technology, is different
and more influential from other technologies that we have seen in the past the century. E-commerce
technology develops quickly with the development of Internet and people can enjoy convenient life
by using ecommerce. But today many of the new e-commerce companies have failed or are
struggling for economic survival, and the failure for many companies in e-commerce can be in part
accounted by the neglecting of logistics. Electronic commerce is the buying, selling, and exchanging
of goods and services over computer networks through which transactions or terms of sale are
performed electronically.
How to deliver the commodity to consumers is an important issue and the logistics should not be
neglected, and the prominent role for e-commerce companies is especially in the logistics segment
should be of pivotal importance.
In the commodity production and sales process, only 5% of the time is using for processing and
production, the remaining 95% of the time used for storage, loading and transportation. Logistics
costs accounted for 30% to 50% of the total value of goods, accounted for 20% to 80% of the funds.
So logistics is called the enterprises‟ gold mine. Logistics part of economic growth is the “dark
continent”, is “the final frontier to reduce costs, is the “the third profit source” after reduce resource
consumption and increase labor productivity. In addition, some European and American scholars
believe, the role of logistics activities does not lie in cost saving for the plan, but to increase the
enterprise level of service to users, thus improving the competitiveness of enterprises. the rise of
electronic commerce is inevitable, but if the customer wants to buy real products from the virtual
system, the logistic is needed. And the rise of electronic commerce is greatly accelerated the
development of the logistics industry. The Electronic commerce sparked the way of trade
innovation, especially the circulation pattern changed. In the process of developing E-COMMERCEcommerce, logistics played a vital role. Without an efficient and reasonable, expedite logistics
system, electronic commerce‟s benefit will be difficult to play, the electronic commerce also hard to
get the efficient development. At the same time, the electronic commerce in promoting India’s
logistics industry from the traditional mode to the modern design development, also play an
irreplaceable role. As the system technology and application development, electronic commerce and
the logistics is increasingly close relationship. On the one hand, the system development to logistics
development provides a very broad development prospects and technical support, it could say no
system is no modern logistics, on the other hand, the system to modern logistics and provide a new
direction of development and new customer demand, modern logistics has become an essential part
of the system and support the modern system of business applications.
Through the internet, logistics companies can be found by greater range of customers can develop
business in the nation and even the whole world scope. The commercial companies can find the
most suitable price for the Logistics companies quickly. Online logistics to worldwide can attract the
maximum number of a logistic's business, and the owner of the plan provides logistics service
together, helps logistics in both part. At present, there are more and more clients through online
logistics market found customers, found the partner, found the overseas agent.
In addition, electronic commerce affairs will be a business revolution; it broke boundaries, opening a
huge online industrial business, as a guarantee of e-commerce, logistics will have big development.
The development of logistics in India’s enterprises to participate in the international competition of
need is to reduce the gap between developed and developing countries of the logistics industry.
Amazon being the prime site will add to the cause eventually providing happiness at customers’
doorstep with its prime logistics.
We want to change how India shops,” said Samuel Augustine Thomas, director of
transportation for Amazon in India. “The logistics arm has been set up to aid in last-mile
delivery as products can be shipped faster,” he said. Products sold on the Amazon
marketplace are now shipped to some 19,000 pin codes. Experts are of the view that
“lastmile delivery” will increasingly be a crucial front in the war for leadership in India’s
ecommerce industry, which is expected to be worth $43 billion (Rs 2.5 lakh crore) by 2018.
The Business process architecture for ‘Amazon Prime Logistics’
 Value Chains
1. Value Chain of Core Process
a. Inbound Logistics
b. Outbound Logistics
c. Distribution
d. Vendor Management
e. Market Research
2. Value Chain of Management Process
a. Warehouse management
b. Transportation Management
c. Inventory Management
d. Suppliers Management
3. Value Chain of Support Process
a. HR
b. Finance
c. IT
d. Reverse Logistics
e. Disposal Logistics
 Core Process Level
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
BPMN Models
The primary goal of the BPMN effort was to provide a notation that is readily understandable
by all business users, from the initial drafts of the processes, to implementing the technology
that will perform those processes, and finally, to manage and monitor those processes. BPMN
creates a standardized bridge for the gap between the business process design and process
implementation.
TYPE OF PROCESS CHOSEN: ORDER-TO-CASH
The amazon prime logistics process starts when amazon prime user logs into his amazon
account and select prime delivery option to deliver the products and place the order.
As-is Model
We have identified the following as the core processes (as-is) of the Delivery of Goods
process.
Process 1: Purchase of the product
The process starts with customer logging in amazon with their prime account. After browsing
through the product available on the portal, customers purchase the desired product. Once
the order is placed amazon logistics works according to their business process and deliver the
products to the customers.
Problem identified: the as-is amazon prime logistics process enables the customer to
subscribe amazon prime account and browse through multiple products, in addition to the
normal goods that are available to the non-prime account holders. The entire process of
logistics for prime account holders and non-prime account holders varies to quite an extent.
This gave us an opportunity to closely study their business process and understand the
differences in terms of both customer as well as business value addition perspective.
Process 2: Internal packaging and delivery of goods
TO-BE (Re-engineered) Model
In order to improve our current amazon prime logistic process payment after delivery of
product to the customer, we plan to introduce new feature of rendering credit amount in the
amazon pay wallet of the customer in the event of a cash change issues. The main aim of “tobe” is to illustrate the re-engineered process in such a way that it explains how to streamline
the present process and improve it to make the activities more automated and easier for
controlling.
Learning from the Project and Suggestions
The first thing we learnt is about the level of complexity that is involved in the amazon
prime logistic process. It does look like a simple business with straight forward processes that
are followed, but the complexities involved at the micro level are certainly not simple.
What we specifically learnt from the subject and from the project are as follows:
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Method to use the most efficient business process modelling tool – Signavio. We got
hands-on experience in using this tool to create BPMN models for the admission
process.
This project helped us to understand the business process modelling starting from
process identification, giving a hierarchal framework of the admission process to the
process redesign using Signavio.
It has given us an experience of applying the theoretical knowledge to the practical
application in the admission process and gain more realistic understanding of the
subject as such.
Various vendors, suppliers, customers and their significance in executing the business
activities are involved in the operations of amazon prime logistic process.
The steps involved in logistics processes such as material sourcing, inventory tracking,
goods movement optimization delivery of goods etc.
The significance of the above mentioned steps such as inventory management,
delivery of goods, payment processes and the underlying architecture of the
admission process.
The consequences of making mistakes in the above mentioned processes.
These have helped us understand not only the processes involved specifically in the
amazon prime logistic process but the logistic process at any ecommerce website as a whole.
Suggestions for Improvement:
In order to improve our current amazon prime logistic process, we suggest introducing
new feature of rendering credit amount in the amazon pay wallet of the customer in the event
of a cash change issues. Also, it is suggested that the online system should provide effective
support using phones. Similar to email phone support preferably toll free number can be
provided for the candidates to get their queries cleared.