Written ASSIGNMENT #3 Now that you have some practice, based on the work in you in your group, as to the content and process for doing a SWOT analysis, please complete the following written assignment

Running Head: FOUNDATIONS OF MANAGEMENT

Amazon.com, Inc

Cambridge College

Amazon company has its operations based in Seattle in the United States. It is one of the biggest technology companies globally. It deals with products such as electronic commerce and digital streaming. It also provides cloud computing services to companies globally. It has the most valuable brand worldwide. Amazon is known for its great diversification strategy. Besides technological products, it deals with a wide variety of products ranging from music to books to foodstuff. It has achieved this kind of variety through acquiring firms that deal with these types of products. An example is Whole Foods Market. The company, therefore, operates both retail and non-retail business lines (Goel, Verma, Al Mutairi, Bhardwaj, & Tyagi, 2020).

Its non-retail business lines mostly entail technological products such as cloud services and artificial intelligence. The retail business lines involve goods and services that are not very differentiated. These include foodstuffs and books. The company adds very little value to these products and therefore puts more effort into making the customer experience better as a source of competitive advantage. Using its technological resources, the company has an electronic commerce platform through which it distributes these products worldwide. It has the biggest online marketing platform globally. Following the breakout of the coronavirus pandemic, the company's operations have been adversely affected (Goel, Verma, Al Mutairi, Bhardwaj, & Tyagi, 2020). This paper explores some of the challenges it has to overcome to maintain a competitive advantage in its industry.

Challenges Facing Amazon Company

Businesses are faced with various challenges while carrying out their operations. Challenges vary depending on the type of industry a firm is in. Amazon, being in the e-commerce business is faced with similar challenges like those of other firms in the industry. They may be grouped into two, that is, those that the company faces on a normal basis and those that have been brought about by the coronavirus pandemic (Reddy, 2017).

One of the challenges the company is facing is competition. In recent years Amazon has been less aggressive in promoting its products and therefore its competitors such as Walmart seem to be taking advantage of the situation and growing their market share. The company should, therefore, intensify its efforts of promoting its products and improve its pricing to remain competitive. The company has also exhibited slow growth in e-commerce. The Coronavirus pandemic has resulted in higher demand for e-commerce as people reduce traveling to curb the spread of the disease. This shows that the competition for the company's operations becomes even more intensive. This poses a challenge for the company and it needs to take the necessary measures to ensure that it accelerates its growth and to exploit the opportunities presented by the pandemic for businesses in E-commerce (Schlosser, Boissier, Schober, & Uflacker, 2016).

Problems that Amazon Should Solve to Remain Competitive

One of the problems that Amazon faces as a global marketplace is antitrust. The company manages the marketplace and still competes with third-party sellers who sell their products through its platform. It has been accused in the past of manipulating the search engines of the platforms in such a way that its products appear on top whenever clients search for products intending to make purchases. This has been a source of criticism against the company since it is considered unfair competition against the third-party sellers. The stakeholders, therefore, have somehow lost trust in the company's operations (Ezrachi & Stucke, 2017).

Another problem Amazon is facing is the loss of the trust of its customers. This is because many third-party sellers sell their products through its platform. This leads to a lot of counterfeits and fake products which may be damaging to its reputation. The customers cannot distinguish between Amazon's products and those of other firms and therefore it is Amazon's image that is tainted. It may reach a point whereby a mechanism is developed for the customer to know which firm sold the products to them. Amazon has to, therefore, deal with these problems of antitrust and mistrust to maintain a competitive advantage (Ezrachi & Stucke, 2017).

Amazon company has maintained a good competitive position over the years. It has ranked the largest online marketplace globally for several years now. However, there are several problems it has been experiencing that might threaten its competitive advantage. Besides a slow growth in e-commerce and increasing competition, the company is faced with antitrust matters and mistrust among customers due to compromised quality of products and counterfeits. This is a very critical risk to the company's public image since it has no way of proving that the fake products do not belong to it. The company should, therefore, find ways of solving these problems otherwise its competitive position in the marketplace may continue to deteriorate over time.

References

Goel, P., Verma, P., Al Mutairi, Q., Bhardwaj, R., & Tyagi, S. (2020). Customer Experiences, Expectations, and Satisfaction Level Towards Services Provided by Amazon. International Journal of Tourism and hospitality in the Asia Pacific, 3(1), 89-101.

Schlosser, R., Boissier, M., Schober, A., & Uflacker, M. (2016). How to Survive Dynamic Pricing Competition in E-commerce. In RecSys Posters.

Reddy, B. S. (2017). Evolution, Growth, and Challenges in E-commerce Industry: A Case of India. ITIHAS The Journal of Indian Management, 7(2), 43-50.

Ezrachi, A., & Stucke, M. E. (2017). Emerging Antitrust Threats and Enforcement Actions in the Online World. Competition L. Int'l, 13, 125.