From cloud computing to e-readers, online grocery shopping, video streaming, and gaming, Amazon has worked its way through various stages of development. Since its inception, it has been serving a diverse portfolio of customer value propositions and now there is no escaping from Amazon in the digital economy.
Top 5 Effective Innovations by Amazon
The main reason why the giant, who has been in business for 26 years and counting, is so effective and relevant is innovation and experiments with new trends and technologies. We listed out few innovative ways Amazon has changed lives:
Prime
This was an offer you could not refuse. With Amazon Prime, the company became the default provider for virtually everything. The formula was simple yet most disruptive. If I am comfortable with online shopping, why wouldn’t I pay $99/year for free and fast shipping. Now that I have paid for the privilege, I am going to use it again and again for all it is worth. Suddenly, it was not about free shipping anymore. The company made Prime valuable to its customers by offering movies, music, free photo storage and more. By tying these services to Prime, Amazon was able to incentivise people to adopt the company’s own services and absorb their original content.
Prime Now & Prime Air
The company continued to upgrade and work to make shipping even faster with Prime Now which enables individuals to get certain Amazon items in two hours for free or in one hour for $7.99. This doesn’t stop here. Sometime in the near future, Amazon customers will be able to receive their Prime orders in 30 minutes or less as they would be delivered using unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones. Your future Amazon packages could be delivered by a flying robot through Prime Air.
‘‘
The AWS success story has redefined tech industry in such a way that it has radically altered the business blueprints of some of the biggest names in the history of technology.
Kindle & Kindle Fire
Amazon came out with its first consumer device-Kindle, an e-book reader. The device is an example of innovation in the retail book market using a system-based solution. While it wasn’t the first e-reader out there, it helped usher in e-books after several other failed attempts to popularise the format. Then came Kindle Fire with more digital screen and less-paper-like. Amazon also introduced Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) which helped thousands of authors get published.
Alexa
Everyone who has brought Alexa into their homes has gotten hooked. This virtual assistant AI technology developed by Amazon, is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports and much more. Amazon has opened up Alexa to the masses with Alexa Skill Blueprints and integrated the digital assistant even more with families.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS reinvented the way IT was done. It is a collection of remote computing services that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet. The AWS success story has redefined the tech industry in such a way that it has radically altered the business blueprints of some of the biggest names in the history of technology, such as Microsoft, Google and Oracle. AWS blossomed into an industry-shifting technology that lets companies rent computer power and offer tools to businesses and other organiSations over the internet.
What’s in it for me?
We chalked out four learnings from Amazon’s success story:
First, Amazon’s biggest strength is its customer. The company never fails to satisfy its customer which is exactly what a millennial business or a start-up needs to focus on.
Second, do not be afraid of competitors. Amazon always displays the price of its competitor’s products. This smart move gave customers’ the choice as they could easily compare and look at Amazon as the most reasonable in the market.
Third, get the customers’ reviews. Amazon was the first venture which started customer reviews on products. The decision was criticised by the team but led to constant innovation.
Fourth, never stop experimenting. Amazon is the most prominent example of how experimenting excels start-ups in the market. So, experimentation in business must always be the primary objective and be done without the fear of being failed.
