How Amazon’s mission statement fulfil 9 components of mission statement Amazon.com Cooperation The company selected for this study is Amazon.com which is an American multinational technology corporation providing ecommerce and cloud computing services. It was established in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and is based in Seattle, Washington. Currently, Amazon.com is the global leading internet retailer as measured by both market capitalization and revenue (Sadq et al., 2018). Moreover, Amazon is the second largest ecommerce platform in total sales volume after China’s ecommerce giant platform, Alibaba Group. Initially, Bezos started Amazon.com as an online bookstore but later realized the significance of growing fast and big to succeed online. Bezos sought to capitalize on the internet boom to swiftly expand the company’s product offerings and services. Amazon.com has become a one-stop shop for different products, as well as other business ventures like Amazon web services. One of Amazon’s secret to success is its ability to enhance convenience as it eliminated the need for customer to physically visit retail shops to search or buy what they want (Lai et al., 2022). This aspect enabled the company to build a huge loyal customer base, thus increasing sales volume and profitability (Sadq et al., 2018). Amazon.com platform contains customer reviews that have created customer community, thus making the platform more trustworthy and appealing to many potential customers. Amazon’s vision and mission statements Amazon’s vision and mission statements play instrumental role in influencing the company’s ecommerce and technology business toward long-term success and growth. Vision and mission statements are vital foundational aspects of the company and are also the first phase of the strategic planning process. According to Babnik et al. (2014), mission statement is instrumental in identifying the scope of the company’s operations in product and market conditions. Moreover, mission statement helps to identify the company’s values and priorities, as well as broadly charting the company’s future direction. Therefore, a company’s mission statement serves to remind the management and employees of the purpose of the company’s existence and the values to consider in the strategic planning and decision making process. On the other hand, companies’ vision statements provide organizational direction toward the desired future situation of the business (Babnik et al., 2014). Therefore, Amazon’s success can be attributed to the stringent measures aimed at ensuring the mission and vision statements are fulfilled. Amazon’s vision statement Amazon’s vision statement is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices”( Amazon, 2023). Amazon’s vision statement shapes the direction that the company seeks to follow and where it intends to be within a specified period. Also, based on the company’s vision statement, it shows that Amazon focuses on dominating the global ecommerce market while providing its customers with valuable shopping experience. The vision statement emphasizes various features, including global reach, customer prioritization, and widest selection of products. The company seeks to continue expanding internationally, thus its matching strategic objective is international expansion via market development and market penetration (Barchiesi & La Bella, 2014). The vision statement’s customer-centric component shows that Amazon regards its customers as the most valuable stakeholders in the online retail business. Similarly, Amazon’s vision statement also shows the company’s relentless efforts to broaden its product mix, under its marketing mix approach. Mission statements Similarly, the company’s mission statement is to “serve consumers through online and physical stores and focus on selection, price, and convenience” (Amazon, 2023). This mission statement demonstrates what customers should expect from the company, including services that go beyond satisfying their needs. There are nine components of mission statement that offer parameters under which companies can craft the statement that sells their products and why they sell these products. The 9 components of mission statement and Amazon’s mission statement Target market A good mission statement should indicate the type of the market the company is serving in the mission statement. Looking at Amazon’s mission statement, it shows the company’s target market are customers seeking for convenience, variety, and affordability. Products or services A good mission statement need to indicate the products or services the company deals in. Amazon’s mission statement fulfils this component by indicating that the company deals in a wide range of products (Barchiesi & La Bella, 2014). Furthermore, the mission statement also underscores the company’s effort to offer a wide variety of products to continue attracting different customers on its platform. Technology adopted by the company Also, a good mission statement need to provide a description of the kind of technology the company is implementing to achieve its organizational goals (Rajasekar, 2013). In the case of Amazon’s mission statement, it fulfils this element by describing how the company sells a wide range of products through its online platform to enhance convenience. Philosophy, values, and beliefs Moreover, a good mission statement needs to outline the values held by the company, including bringing innovation and inspiration (Salem Khalifa, 2012). In this case, Amazon’s mission statement manages to outline the company’s value of bringing innovation aimed at enhancing convenience by selling products through online. Concern for employees A good mission statement should also outline the company’s policies concerning its employees to enable them understand their importance in the company (Rajasekar, 2013). Looking at Amazon’s mission statement, it fails to fulfil this component as it hardly mentions any policy concerning employees. Self-concept A good mission statement should define the company’s competitive advantage. For instance, Amazon’s mission statement fulfils this component by defining the company’s competitive advantage as focusing on selection, price, and convenience (Barchiesi & La Bella, 2014). It shows how the company is committed to providing a wide range of products at affordable prices and ensures customers get what they want at their most convenience place. Moreover, the company’s mission statement also focuses on enhancing convenience, which is a prevalent measure used by customers to evaluate the quality of an online retail service. Location of the company A good mission statement should indicate the location of the company where customers can find its products (Salem Khalifa, 2012). Amazon’s mission statement fulfils this component by stating that it serves consumers through online and physical stores. This statement informs customers where they can find Amazon’s products. Concern for public image The mission statement should also indicate the company’s concern for public image by describing the company’s present and prospective responsibilities towards public (Rajasekar, 2013). Looking at the company’s mission statement, it fulfils this component by describing its present and prospective responsibilities towards the public as that of offering customers a variety of products at affordable prices to their most convenient locations. Company’s concern for survival A mission statement should also describe the company’s concern for survival by outlining its economic objectives. Amazon’s mission statement fulfils this component by how the company is focused on offering its products at affordable prices. Amazon’s SWOT Analysis SWOT analysis model is a framework that enables companies to analyze both the internal and external factors. The model explores the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats in the external environment (Bull et al., 2016). Companies can control internal factors, but external factors tend to be beyond the company’s control. The table below shows Amazon’s SWOT analysis. Strengths - Strong brand name/image - High differentiation and innovation - Customer-oriented culture - Cost leadership - Excellent global distribution and logistics operations - Global presence - Strong financial position - Largest merchandise selection - Large number of third-part sellers - Going global and acting local strategy - Large number of acquisition Opportunities - Availability of developing markets where the company can expand its operations - Expand physical stores to enhance competitiveness against big box retailers and engage customers with the brand - Engage in backward amalgamation by increasing the company production of in-house brands to set apart its products and augment profit margins - Acquisition opportunities for more ecommerce companies to enhance market share and minimize competition Weaknesses - Easily imitable business model - Product flops and failures such as fire phone - Losing margins in few areas like in India - Tax avoidance controversy in UK, Japan, and United States - Lack of physical presence - Harmful reports regarding employees’ exploitation and poor working conditions - Deteriorating consumer safety because of having many product offerings - Unfair use of third party data - Overdependence on distributors - Employees strikes Threats - Controversies have distorted the company’s brand image - Government regulations can also threaten the company’s operations in certain countries - Cybercrime cases can affect the company’s network security system - Aggressive competition from other established retail companies such as eBay, Alibaba, Walmart, and Home Deport - It is easier to imitate its business model - Availability of fake and counterfeiting products sold on its platform - Economic recession can affect its sales - Fake reviews which mislead customers The Short term, medium term and long-term objectives Amazon Companies develop plans to attain their overall goals. They tend to separate these plans into short-term, medium, and long-term objects to enables them track immediate improvements while evaluating progress toward eventual goals and targets (Rajasekar, 2013). Short-term explores the company’s situation in the present and develop strategies for improving them. Companies seek to solve immediate issues through short-term objectives (Rajasekar, 2013). Medium-term objectives compare more long-term objectives to short-term objectives to ascertain the progress towards the company’s long-term objectives. Therefore, medium term objectives are the link between the short-term and long-term objectives. Finally, long-term objectives provide the company’s forward vision and focus over a longer period (Salem Khalifa, 2012). Long-term objectives are company’s reaction to competitive position in its business environment. Therefore, these objectives develop strategies that can enable the company to adapt and influence its position to attain long-term goals. Amazon’s Short-Term Objective - Attract more customers - Increase brand awareness - Increase sales Amazon’s Medium Term Objectives - Expand customer base - Increase customer satisfaction - Increase market share Long-Term Objective - To dominate the global ecommerce market while providing its customers with valuable shopping experience Strategies to be implemented to accomplish the above objectives Amazon’s objective is to focus on the long-term growth to become the world’s most customercentric company. However, to attain this long-term goal, there is a need for the company to undertake generic strategies as well as interactive strategy to offer the utmost convenience to its customers and a wide range of products and services to select from at affordable price without negating product safety and quality. Therefore, there are various strategies the company will implement to accomplish the above objectives, including: - Implementing strategic objective seeking to minimize the company’s operational costs to enable Amazon sell its products at very low prices. This strategy will enable the company to attract more customers. - Provide a wide range of product selection and increase customer convenience to enhance customer shopping experience, further attracting more customers to the company. - Invest heavily on innovation and technology, as well as Research and Development to determine ways of enhancing customer convenience and customer experience. - Acquire related ecommerce companies to eliminate competitions and increase market share - Invest in digital marketing to increase brand awareness, thus attracting more customers to visit the company’s digital platforms. Underline the Potential Challenges You May Face While Implementing Your Suggested Strategies Implementation of strategy is a process of transforming strategic intentions into actions that lead to desired results. Therefore, strategic execution is vital to the attainment of the company’s objectives. However, it is important to understand that strategy implementation requires one to consider human resource requirements, resources to be utilized, systems, and structure, among others. One of the potential challenges that I may encounter while implementing the suggested strategies is the resistance from individuals working in the company (Downes, 2011). Such individuals are likely to make it difficult to implement the suggested strategies, such as investing in innovation and technologies. Many employees tend to resist any form of change when they believe the change may threaten their roles in the organization. Furthermore, some of the suggested strategies, such as investing in technology and digital marketing tools may require a lot of resources to successfully implement them. Therefore, one is likely to encounter the challenge of securing these resources to successfully invest in new technologies and innovations that can enable the company attain its long term objectives (Downes, 2011). Moreover, the company is likely to encounter the challenge to identifying profitable related ecommerce companies to acquire to eliminate competitors. I am also likely to encounter the challenge of convincing the company management to support the implementation of some of the strategies such as investing in digital marketing to enhance brand awareness or acquiring other ecommerce companies. According to Downes (2011), lack of management goodwill can offer a serious challenge to the implementation of the above suggested strategies. 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