Amazon: The Corporation'S History And How It Came To Be

A company that needs very little introduction, Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, launched their website by 1995, and began their ascent to becoming the second company to be worth $1 trillion. But before Amazon became what it is today, it is important to look at the corporation's history and how it came to be.

The business started selling books online with the primary goal of becoming the world’s largest bookseller. Eventually, the business grew and expanded to include many different departments and competed against retail giants like Wal-Mart and Target. Now, Amazon is the world’s leading ecommerce organization and top provider of cloud computing with its own production and distribution company, Amazon Studios. To further boost their brand, the organization developed and released multiple tech products, such as the Kindle, an e-reader, the Fire Stick, a home entertainment-streaming device, and Echo, a personal digital assistant, to name a few. By the numbers, Amazon has more than 300,000 employees worldwide that ship more than 1 million packages every day, making up over 43 percent of all online sales.

It has only steadily increased with the benefits that Amazon has provided with their Prime membership. Having a Prime account enables the customer to have free two-day shipping along with benefits and discounts for signing up, which has started to include groceries and streaming home entertainment. It is estimated that 1 out of every 4 US adults has Amazon Prime. There is even a Prime Day that Amazon holds every year because of the success of the Prime membership. Because of these reasons, they have surpassed the physical brick-and-mortar shops, and their overall value became larger than Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Sears, and JCPenney combined. And they do not have plans to stop; the business has recently acquired Whole Foods, an organic supermarket, and has opened Amazon Go, their first physical grocery store in Seattle, Washington. After looking at Amazon’s background, the organization seems to follow Archie Carroll’s theory of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Amazon supports CSR initiatives to focus the interests of its main stakeholder groups: customers, employees, and communities.

Brand recognition and image preservation are key components to their business model, so concentrating on people and how to appeal to them comes first. Having customers affects every part of an organization; so, making customers their highest priority is a must. After customers, employees are the second component. In order to service people, there have to be people to assist in those needs. Treating the employees with respect and with the right compensation gives any firm a competitive advantage. They are the face of the company, so to speak, so it is crucial to have people that want to help others. Lastly, forming a community around a common goal sets a business apart from the rest. Reaching out to charities or partnering with other brands to raise awareness about a topic goes with the philanthropic responsibility that Carroll presents.

All this being said, Amazon is certainly profitable; by providing many different products and services, it has become the world’s largest ecommerce website. Unfortunately, there have been red flags, such as the harsh treatment of workers, privacy invasions, and the avoidance of paying taxes. So, there are still some areas that Amazon can improve upon, but there have been steps taken to work on those capacities. In closing, Carroll’s ideology focuses on more than just making a profit. It takes a well thought out strategy with people willing to work together to balance a business. There are several components that enable a business to be well rounded when it comes to corporate social responsibility. There is no perfect company, but companies can work to improve themselves to get pretty close. With Amazon taking the steps that it has and moving forward, it can ultimately reach that equilibrium of being profitable, ethical, legal, and socially responsible.