Case 19: Amazon.com2018

www.amazon.com, AMZN

Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the year 2017 was phenomenal for Amazon that over the last twenty years has grown from being solely an online bookstore to a worldwide powerhouse, selling virtually everything today to everybody. Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world as measured by both revenue and market capitalization. The second largest online retailer is Alibaba Group located in China. Led by their CEO, Jeff Bezos, Amazon has expanded heavily into smart homes and through its Alexa platform, and even into machine learning. In 2017, the firm shipped over 5 billion items with Prime worldwide with more paid members joining Prime in 2017 than any previous year, both in North America and worldwide.

Amazon reported record revenues in 2017, up 31 percenthelped in part by Fire TV Stick and Echo Dotthat were the bestselling products across all of Amazon's products sold. Tens of millions of Echo devices alone were purchased, but a portion of the revenue increase can be explained through the acquisition of Whole Foods. Amazon hired 130,000 new employees in 2017, globally, and employs over 17,500 veterans and their spouses in the United States. In 2017, Amazon Prime Video reported over 18 million views from customers in 11 NFL games across over 200 countries on their smart TVs and other devices. Amazon also now holds the global TV rights to The Lord of the Rings. The company even launched two furniture brands in2017.

A template is provided to help with answering and posting the case answer. Please answer each part H-M individually and using the template provided for each part.

For example, if a part has a chart please answer using the chart.

H. Grand Strategy Matrix

Identify where this business is on the Grand Strategy Matrix and why. Grand Strategy Matrix: Include the focal firm and two rival firms in your matrix.

Quadrant II: Market development Market penetration Product development Horizontal integration Divestiture Liquidation	Quadrant I: Market development Market penetration Product development Forward integration Backward integration Horizontal integration
Quadrant III: Retrenchment Related diversification Unrelated diversification Divestiture Liquidation	Quadrant IV: Unrelated diversification Related diversification Joint ventures

I. Internal-External Matrix

Identify where the business is on the IE matrix and why.

Quadrant I	Quadrant II	Quadrant III
Quadrant IV	Quadrant V	Quadrant VI
Quadrant VI	Quadrant VI	Quadrant VI

J. BCG/QSPM

Explain where this company is on the BCG matrix and why.

Relative Market Share Position High 1.0 Medium .50 Low 0.0 High +20 Stars Question Marks Industry Sales Growth Rate Medium 0 Cash Cows Dogs O O Low -20 O