In this unit, you will conclude your analysis of your Client Organization with one page introduction

Running Head: AMAZON- ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS 0

Unit Four Assignment – “Team Assignment”.

Brightpath Consulting

Team B

Kaplan University

GM 504: Organizational Excellence and Change

Dr. Barbara- Leigh Tonelli

August 14, 2019

Introduction

Amazon had humble beginnings as an online bookstore in 1994, but with the increase in demands and needs of the consumer it catapulted to the world’s leading online retailer. Amazon is known for their exceptional customer service and their ability to promise two-day shipping. In order to understand the organization as a whole, Brightpath Consulting will analyze the group level of this corporation.

Our team will analyze Amazon’s ability to provide online shopping with a variety of products and services to customers by looking at its group composition, structure, and technology. This will include explaining how management at Amazon Corporation wants to continue making improvements with online shopping and services they provide to customers while diagnosing individual and group behavior. The paper will examine behaviors, structures, and processes that are implemented within Amazon Corporation and how the individual/group attributes to them.

Group composition and structure

Although Amazon sells products to a world filled with a diversity of needs and thrives in many regions of the world, the company’s composition is very homogenous in race and gender breakdown with the majority of the employees being white males. 63% of Amazon’s employees are male, while white employees make up 60% of the workplace, and those percentages are even higher for employees in managerial positions, of which 75% were male and 71% were white (Mac, 2014). Blacks make up 15% of Amazon's global employees, but only 4% of its managers Hispanics comprise 9% of the total workforce and only 4% of manager positions (Mac, 2014). Asians are the only race and ethnicity group to have a larger percentage of managers (18%) as compared to its overall percentage of workers (13%) (Mac, 2014). Women represent 37% of the workforce and 25% of the total number of managers (Mac, 2014). Amazon’s consumers can benefit from a diversity of thoughts. Teams that are more heterogeneous on factors such as culture, education, age, gender, and race are often more creativity than homogenous groups (Harrison, 2005).

The company’s structure has been built around Jeff Bezos’ resistance to the forces he thought exhausted businesses over time — bureaucracy, profligate spending, lack of rigor (Mac, 2014). Over time, Amazon has developed a particular structure, a sense for bluntness verging on conflict and an overwhelming confidence in the power of metrics. One of the most distinctive management beliefs is that there is an over exaggeration of harmony in the workplace, smothering honest critique and encouraging courteous approval for imperfect concepts (Mac, 2014). The Amazon culture is to disagree and discredit fellow employees’ ideas in order to tear apart faulty concepts and hold to the company’s irrationally extreme standards. Healthy competition consists of conflict embedded in cooperation, but the atmosphere at Amazon is more like a fight where the objective is to exterminate the opponent and rules are obsolete; however, Amazon seems to think conflict brings about innovation (Ackoff, 1999).

Amazon poorly manages talent and only the few who stick around make it to the top with the company. These athletes are held responsible for a staggering array of metrics, a process that unfurls in an anxiety provoking atmosphere where team members are ranked and those at the bottom are purged every year (Mac, 2014). It is in the employee's best interest to outperform every other person keeping in mind the end goal is to flourish to remain with the company. This process is ignited by the employees’ ability to rank other employees through Amazon's Anytime Feedback Tool, the gadget in the company directory that enables employees to send positive or negative feedback about colleagues to management (Mac, 2014). The quintessence of the company has a foundation on Darwin's principle of natural selection where only the fittest survive. The so-call natural selection weeds out the employees labeled weak and maintain the best which makes Amazon aggressive and versatile to its environment.

Technology

Amazon transformed the online retail market with its ability to innovate new technologies and ways to expedite the process creating a better shopping experience. To name a few of their innovations they were the first to implement automated emails, user-generated ratings and reviews and recommendations based on previous purchases (Reda, 2016). Since their launch in 1994 as an online book seller, Amazon has transformed their retail empire to be the most well-respected organization in America despite their high employee turnover. In 1997 Amazon created “1- Click Shopping” which allowed the consumer to save credit card information for a quicker purchase (Reda, 2016). This technology made the shopping transaction seamless encouraging shoppers to join Amazon as a time saver. Third party sellers joined the company expanding the Amazon Marketplace because of its popularity and demand. Amazon is currently drone testing in the United Kingdom for its latest technology adventure and plans to introduce this concept in the United States very soon. We will expect to see greater innovative transformations from this organization well into the future.

Work processes

Amazons mission is to be the most customer centric company globally. They do this by using the consumer as a “driving force” in the decision-making process that occurs among their home office (Farfan, 2017). They build a culture of centering the work process around the consumer and their needs. The consumer will also compare other associated elements, such as satisfaction in choosing and buying or the confidence in the seller (Baba, 2015). Amazon ensures customer satisfaction through two-day shipping, same day shipping and encouraging reviews on their products to help other shoppers find the perfect item. Although the customer centric culture has been a success for its customers, Amazon struggles to retain its own employees because of this factor effecting group effectiveness at the front line. Amazon is known for hiring “contracting” positions for only 11 months to avoid paying benefits such as medical coverage and paid vacation days (Mahapatra, 2013). For the front-line employees, the average time on the job is only nine months. Employees admit there seems to be a gap in the job description of what is to be expected versus the reality of the demanding and stressful environment to push those packages out the door.

The critical aspects of group effectiveness for diagnosis depend on the primary problems and challenges facing the groups and their main tasks, goals and standards (Harrison, 2015). Amazon should consider offering employee evaluations and finding ways to show appreciation to the employees especially in harsh times. Employees would be motivated to work harder if they had more words of encouragement and a positive work environment. According to Harrison (2015) job satisfaction is triggered by job security, fairness and adequacy of pay, working conditions, interpersonal relations and meaningfulness and challenge of work. Amazon is too quick to point out the flaws in their employees and push numbers or quotas to their employees. On the employees point of view they are not being paid for the demanding needs of the company and do not feel valued.

Conclusion

Amazons retention strategy should involve the front-line employees more in order to accelerate their quick delivery process and make a more efficient team. The new retention strategy should encourage employees to help Amazon reach their goals and to help them understand how critical their input and contribution is to the success of the company. Amazon continues to impress the world with their innovative implementations but will the innovations outweigh the continued loss of talent in the long run seems to be the lingering question among giant corporations in the race. The real question that corporate leaders ask is could they be more successful with an effective employee retention strategy and is the current practice holding them back.

References

Ackoff, R. (1999). Re-creating the corporation: A design of organizations for the 21st century, Oxford University press. ISBN: 0195123875

Baba, M. C. (2015). Cost reduction analysis in the online retail as compared to the classic retail. Bulletin of The Transilvania University of Brasov. Series V: Economic Sciences, 8(1), 141-146.

Farfan, B. (2017). Amazon.com mission statement: Focused on the customer. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/amazon-mission-statement-4068548

Harrison, M.I. (2005). Diagnosing organizations: Methods, models, and processes (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications.

Kantor, J. & Streitfeld, D. (2015, August 15). Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=1

Mac, R. (2014, October 31). Amazon Releases Diversity Numbers for The First Time And Surprise, It's Mostly Male And White. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/10/31/amazon-releases-diversity-numbers-for-first-time-and-surprise-its-mostly-male-and-white/ - 96cdb3f24cfb

Mahapatra, L. (2013). Amazon.com second highest turnover in Fortune 500. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-has-second-highest-employee-turnover-all-fortune-500-companies-1361257

Reda, S. (2016). 21 ways Amazon changed the face of retail. Retrieved from https://nrf.com/news/21-ways-amazon-changed-the-face-of-retail