Use this template as a guide to create a rough outline, sculpted (headings, list
ID: 395672 • Letter: U
Question
Use this template as a guide to create a rough outline, sculpted (headings, lists) document. The document should end up being 3-5 pages long. The document does not need to be finely polished – a rough outline style is fine. Please highlight or italicize your answers.
Company of Choice Case Study Brief
“Plan A” Simulation demo
Case Study Brief. Complete the following sections – based on sources you find.
Company (choose a publicly traded company – it can be one you work for, are a customer of, or simply have an interest in) Wall Street Journal Business and NY Times Business are great places to peruse company news for ideas.
Sources (at least three sources that give revealing information about the company – company websites, news articles from nytimes.com, wsj.com, other business news, Morningstar, Bloomberg, interviews, etc.)
Business Model
Describe company’s value proposition.
What is its product/service?
What consumer/customer need(s) does it meet?
What is its profit formula (revenue sources minus costs à how does it get revenue? What are its costs)?
Competition
Who else provides this product/service (who are its competitors)?
Industry name?
Competitive position? Use Porter’s Five Generic Strategies to plot/describe the company’s competitive position (or a few of its products) à axes = product differentiation and market reach). See slide on this OR use online search for Five Generic Strategies model.
Financials (recent years)
Annual revenue?
Annual EPS Earnings Per Share?
Profit ratios?
Market capitalization?
Other financial ratios and data?
How do the above financials compare to those in its industry?
Operations
Employees?
Countries?
Markets?
Number of factories/facilities?
Current Issues
What’s going on with this company?
With this industry?
What are news articles reporting?
What numbers are changing? (revenue, profits, employees, customers, suppliers, etc.)
Explanation / Answer
Company chosen: Amazon Inc
Business Model: Amazon is a e retailer (aka e-tailer) and is often regarded as the world’s largest online market place. The business relies heavily on the global presence leverage by the power of the internet. The company has a novel concept of no warehousing instead having a strong supply chain system in place with local logistical partners.
Revenue is driven through several channels such as online sale of different items from books to literally everything. In addition, around 40% of revenue comes from third party sellers to whom the company provides a platform to sell. Amazon also has content streaming in the name of Amazon Prime, manufactures consumer electronics such as Kindle and Echo and is also a provider of cloud infrastructure services in the name of IaaS and PaaS.
Value Proposition
The company provides every and any product under the sky at the click of a button. It has a robust supply chain network that ensures that ordered products take minimum time to reach the customer. Also, owing to achieving economies of scale, the company is able to provide high discounts in many of the products.
Service
The company is an electronic retailer and hosts a marketplace on its website. With the rise of third party sellers, the company can also be considered as an aggregator of sellers and buyers.
Customer Need
The convenience that a customer has of sitting in her own home and has access to a global marketplace is a need that Amazon strives to achieve through its business model. Furthermore, with such websites getting optimized for mobile and tab usage and later with the development of apps, the mobility of customers are also leveraged.
Revenue minus Cost
Revenues are driven by the product lines mentioned above. Major costs to the company are incurred in maintaining a robust and strategically placed supply chain management system. Logistical partners are also a major cost which are there to ensure timely deliveries of ordered products. Since the company is based on a web portal, major investments are made on ensuring search engine optimizations are done regularly and making the portal more customer friendly.
Competition
Amazons closest competitor in the e commerce segment are Alibaba and Walmart and eBay.
Industry Name
E Commerce
Porters Model
Cost Leadership
For daily use products, pricing offered is competitive
By the virtue of online sales as a business model, cost cutting is possible
Differentiation
Plethora of products available
Often times, same product has different prices (owing to different sellers on the platform)
Latest products can be found, even before they hit the marletplace (eg., exclusive premiers on Amazon of various mobile phones)
Cost Focus
Economies of scale achieved
Strong relationship with suppliers
Differentiation Focus
Switching cost and discount differentiation against competitors
Financials
Annual Revenue 2017: $177.87 Bn
EPS 2017: 6.15
Gross Profit Margin: 37.07%
Operating Profit Margin: 2.31%
Net Profit Margin: 1.71%
As on Sept 4, 2018, Market Cap: 994.32 Bn
Number of Employees, as on Feb 2018: 566,000 globally and operates in 13 countries
The latest news to hit about the company is that it has reached the 1 trillion dollar mark, after Apple. This has also made the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man.
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