Successes and Failures of Amazon’s Growth Strategies: Causes and Consequences

Author(s): KIM, W. Chan, MAUBORGNE, Renée, KOO, Oh Young

Summary:

Started as an online bookstore 22 years earlier, Amazon had achieved unceasing growth, becoming the largest internet bookstore, the largest online marketplace, a global media company, and the most successful IT service provider. In 2015, the online retailer expanded to the brick-and-mortar retail business, launching Amazon Books across the US and beta-testing Amazon Go in Seattle. As of May 2017, Amazon was ranked ‘the most innovative company’ and the world’s fourth-largest company by market capitalization.

To achieve this multi-faceted growth, Amazon has made countless strategic moves. The case explores Amazon’s 20-year path for growth and introduces both successful and failed strategic moves. Successful strategic moves are Marketplace, Prime, Amazon Web Services, and Kindle; failed strategic moves are Auctions, A9 Search Engine, Endless, and Fire Phone. It analyzes commonalities and differences among them; to thereby understand the roots of the company’s high and poor performance. Blue ocean strategy concepts are applied to analyze Amazon’s market-creating strategic logic for future growth.

The case comes with a teaching note and a lecture slide pack.

Get the one page summary of the case and teaching objectives here.