Questions on the case material

6. State accurately and fully the company's "strategy" put forward by the authors at pages

C-10 and C-11. You are a student of the discipline of strategic management. Is this the

appropriate use of the term strategy? And what indeed is the business-level strategy of

Amazon.com Inc.? (3 marks)

7. Identify accurately in separate and numbered paragraphs and describe five specific ways

in which the business model of Amazon.com has changed significantly over time. And to

what specific concept in Chapter 1 of your textbook do these relate? (6 marks)

8. According to Brian Dumaine, author of the 2020 book, Bezonomics, Jim Collins told Jeff

Bezos that "When you first start pushing, it takes a lot of effort to get that flywheel going

one revolution. And you don't stop, and you keep pushing and you get the second turn

and you start building momentum and then it starts to compound upon itself, and you get

four turns and eight and sixteen and thirty-two and then thousands and millions, and the

flywheel has its own momentum built into it. And you keep compounding that

momentum." Now, in separate and numbered paragraphs, provide your answers to the

following: (a) What exactly is a flywheel in mechanical engineering? (b) Quote fully the

statement in the case material which describes the Amazon Flywheel (c) Please now

review the first set of pages of Jim Collins' monograph, Turning the Flywheel, on

amazon.ca and quote fully what the author has stated there in the sixth paragraph. (The

link to the monograph is indicated hereunder.) (d) Offer a statement whether you have

found doing Question 8 to be personally instructive to you, as a student of strategic

management. (8 marks)

https://www.amazon.ca/Turning-Flywheel-Monograph-Accompany-Great/dp/0062933795/ref=pd_lpo_3?pd_rd_i=0062933795&psc=1&asin=B07JFT5G7N&revisionId=8ca71551&format=1&depth=1

9. Few companies tend to be too "academic" in terms of what information they make public

with respect to the management/leadership principles which they embrace. Go to the

website of Amazon.com Inc. How many leadership principles are presented there? Select

and state fully the three principles which are most directly related to the topic of decision

making. And do you think that you yourself would embrace these three principles if you

were to become an entrepreneur with the expectation that you would be building a

successful business enterprise. Be sure that your answer is properly formatted. (6 marks)

10. Please quote fully the statement made by Jeff Bezos that included this observation:

"many of the problems we face have no textbook solutions ...". (2 marks)

Questions based on the YouTube videotaped interview with Jeff Bezos: The link to the

interview (entitled as "How Did Jeff Bezos Start Amazon? His Background, the Internet &

the Future of E-Commerce (2001)") is as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znRDRovYXgo

11. Was it Jeff Bezos's original intention to sell just books on Amazon.com? If so, what was his

fully-stated rationale for it? And do you agree with Jeff Bezos, from your personal

perspective as a graduate student in a Business School? Do explain your agreement or

disagreement fully. (2 marks)

12. What exactly is the business model of Amazon.com, as explained by Jeff Bezos? (2 marks)

13. Kenichi Ohmae wrote the famous book, The Mind of the Strategist, in 1982. According to

one reviewer of the book, Ohmae "goes beyond the standard formula for success into the

mind of the corporate thinker". Based on your very careful review of the videotaped

interview with Jeff Bezos, please offer two fully-stated and distinct observations of yours,

in separate and numbered paragraphs, to support the view that Jeff Bezos did possess the

mind of the strategist. Perfunctory answers will be awarded a score of zero. (4 marks)