Retail Service Operations talk by Easaw George

MBA sem 3 Operations students of Alliance school of business Bangalore were in for a surprise on Tuesday 11 April 2023 in the 2.20 pm class as  Amazon executive Easaw George was talking to them on how service Operations were being optimised at Amazon. 

While Amazon is recognised as a platform where sellers and buyers from across the world meet, reading of the superior world class technology which helps Amazon to remain ahead of the competition, offering complete satisfaction to customers and doing this at a fourth the cost at which competitors do, was a real treat to students. Amazon having been at this business almost twenty eight years earlier and established the first mover advantage, the only credible competition it has is only in the physical commerce sphere from Walmart.

As of April '23, Walmart at $620 billion (market cap of $350 billion) and Amazon at $514 billion (market cap at $1800 billion) are the only top two global Fortune 100 companies to have crossed $ 500 billion annual revenue mark. The Walmart low market cap, one sixth of Amazon does not paint a bright future for Walmart. Amazon's comparitively low investments in physical infrastructure compared to Walmart gives it the high market cap and valuation.

On student query whether Amazon will take to Blockchain technology earlier than other competitors remains to be seen. Amazon has resources and the wherewithal to adopt and test any of the latest technology anywhere in the world, be it drone delivery, environmentally sustainable transport fleet, human-less Amazon GO autonomous stores or robotic warehouse package management. Another student query was on why Amazon was destroying good quality customer returned products in UK instead of returning them to the manufacturer or supplier, Easaw said he was unaware of such actions and would not pass a comment till he read the news.

Easaw was also talking of how Amazon understands the customer psyche and moves products nearer to the customer before even the customer decides to go for the purchase. That is the level of extraction Amazon makes about customer perceptions and purchases.

Will Amazon remain the numero uno in the retail market over the next decade or will it bow down to a still nimble and agile mobile / ecom startup, only time will tell. The high throughput rate of packages passing through the facilitation centre and warehouse in Manchester ensures faster and safe delivey of products. 

Easaw was quick to reiterate, whatever be the technology, manpower or infrastructure Amazon would develop and build in the coming years, it would never dilute or go back on the customer obsession and customer retention aspects of its operations, focusing on helping customer drive more value through the Amazon network. 

Easaw made a comment on Amazon's very innovative and intensely customer focused business model,

Amazon.com's success is due in part to its innovative business model, which allows customers to buy anything from books to furniture to electronics online (anywhere in the world with a very efficient forward and backward supply chain working on the best artificial intelligence and other technologies available at the lowest cost and easy customer-friendly return policies). The company has also been successful in its efforts to expand beyond its core retail business into other areas, such as cloud computing and streaming media. - onepatch.com

George