Introduction
The current concept of Amazon is linked with growing its business through electronic commerce operations. It possesses a significant number of storages, covering the U.S. and other countries, providing a possibility of prompt two-day delivery. Nonetheless, the number of direct sales does not show sufficient growth. The paper is dedicated to the study of Amazon’s long-term goals and analyzing its strategies for future development.
The Future Strategy of the Company
E-commerce is a low-margin business, and Amazon now takes control of around 50% of online sales in the United States (Kumar, 2016). Even though the online sector is Amazon’s strong side, it has to develop offline facilities to be successful in the future. Currently, revenues in e-commerce make just around 10 % of the $5 trillion spent by the Americans, and share of online groceries purchase is just 2% (Dyer, Godfrey, Jensen, & Bryce, 2016). Thus, Amazon has to discover new channels of selling products to secure the future of the company. Even though the company is constantly working on developing customer habits to shop online, consumer behavior in certain sectors remains inflexible. Hence, at the moment, Amazon loses a significant part of its potential clients in spheres where its competitors provide excellent offline experience. Offline giants, such as Walmart, make more than 50% of their revenues selling groceries, and one of the future goals of Amazon is to win a part of their market share (Garner, 2018).
Another important field where Amazon might compete with Facebook and Google is advertising. It is one of the strongest tools of e-commerce, with a potential of opening a huge stream of revenues. Having a strong infrastructure, Amazon plays a significant role in the cloud computing sector. This is a very profitable industry, and experts claim that Amazon’s revenues in this area will triple already by 2022 (Kumar, 2016). Thus, even though offline retail forms a significant opportunity, it makes only one of the many important factors, providing growth of the company.
Resources and Techniques Required for Competitive Advantage Over Time
The strategy of Amazon is in shifting the traditional behavior of users to adopting more innovations, more advanced than primitive discount systems. The structure of user satisfaction has now changed from availability (coverage) and pricing policy to commodity, shifting the offline shopping experiences to the past. Thus, Amazon is entering a traditional offline market, claiming a heavy share of its revenues in the future. Amazon already possesses a big database of clients, unifying information obtained from Amazon Go, Fresh, Prime, Alexa, and Whole Foods. The integration of the information will provide commodity in conventional grocery shopping. The main focus of the company is to provide a possibility to save time doing shopping on-the-go, buying regular groceries, and making purchases being flexible in time. Providing a positive customer experience in all these three sectors will make Amazon an invincible player on the market (Dyer et al., 2016).
Amazon’s Cost and Differentiation Advantages
Differentiation advantage of Amazon is that it pursues cost leadership strategy, compared to traditional bricks and mortar type of retailers. The company possesses a vast network of warehousing facilities, as well as processing infrastructure, giving a big advantage in the form of a physical economy. Amazon company is extremely focused on customer satisfaction, and one of the main competitive advantages of the company is related to its customer focus. The company immediately reacts to the facts of customer complaints, which encourages clients to make more purchases. Thus, the differentiation of the company is linked with its successful marketing (Dyer et al., 2016).
Company’s Corporate Strategy
Concentric diversification builds up the core of Amazon corporate strategy. It is linked with supplying easier access to technological innovations for businesses, in order to promote its success. At the same time, Amazon pursues cost leadership concept, the goal of which is to offer the best value at the lowest price. Final stage is providing coverage, which satisfies customers’ shopping needs (Kumar, 2016). Thus, it can be said that the company is highly focused on providing a flawless user experience.
Amazon’s Vertical Integration
The company has been extremely focused on vertical integration from the very beginning. Its founder, Jeff Bezos, had an idea of giving orders to the publishers or distributors, making them send the ordered books to the clients. In a while it has become clear that their infrastructure fails to deliver the orders on time, causing customer complaints. This was the reason to build an efficient web of warehouse facilities, providing operational promptness. After the system was built, the company gave opportunities to the partner companies to use this infrastructure for storing their products. Eventually, Amazon’s focus covered fresh groceries delivery, for which transport and employees needed to be found. Next stage which allowed to perform business scaling was providing these integrated services to the other companies. Next stage will probably include the options of drone delivery and distribution robotization (Garner, 2018). It turns out that Amazon has reinvented the whole logistics due to the company’s focus on vertical integration.
The Importance of Strategic Alliances
In order to break the line separating online and offline shopping experiences, Amazon works on encouraging product manufacturers to build strategic alliances. Such companies as Whirlpool, Brother, and Brita have already become Amazon’s partners as a part of DRS (Dash Replenishment Service) program, the aim of which is to implement innovations into household appliances. Such collaborations are designed to build a stronger connection of Amazon with its customers and to spread the e-commerce market. Alliances of Amazon with other companies are based on a win-win strategy, strengthening relations between the company and its suppliers, at the same time providing exceptional products and services to the customer (Garner, 2018).
Detail the Company’s Competitive Advantage
Amazon’s competitive advantages include brand’s positioning, unique user experience, customer policies, user reviews, personalized approach, low prices, reinforcing activities, a wide range of products, a system of distribution and warehousing, loyalty programs, and other aspects. Brand positioning covers the fact that Amazon not only has become a leader in its category but also makes its customers acquainted with a vast range of new categories of products (Kumar, 2016).
Organizational Chart of the Company
Amazon has a hierarchical organizational structure, where the senior management team is represented by two CEOs, three Vice Presidents, and a Worldwide Controller. The team is responsible for the most important aspects, reporting to the Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos (Garner, 2018). Despite the fact that Amazon is a business giant, the company shows high flexibility and adaptation to changes.
Conclusion
In a course of two decades since the company was founded, Amazon managed to incorporate itself in the life of every American, having ruined the standards of conventional bricks-and-mortar retail trading. A while back online shopping was know-how, giving flexibility and even exclusivity, nonetheless, now online retail has traces of applying limitations on business. Expanding to the offline market and modifying it gives a way to provide the highest standards of customer experience.
References
Dyer, J. H., Godfrey, P., Jensen, R., & Bryce, D. (2016). Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Garner, B.A. (2018). Amazon in the global market. Journal of Marketing and Management, 9(2), 63-73.
Kumar, R. (2016). Strategic financial management casebook. London, England: Elsevier.
Opioids And Alternative Treatments Of Chronic Pain
The investigators are interested in the evaluation of alternative treatments for managing chronic pain in various groups of patients. The topicality of this issue comes from the growing concerns about traditional opioid therapy and multiple negative aspects. That is why, Penney, Ritenbaugh, DeBar, Elder, and Deyo (2016) conduct a qualitative study aimed at the evaluation of outcomes of alternative therapies regarding pain management. The hypothesis offered by the authors states that acupuncture and chiropractic can be effective options for patients who suffer from chronic pain. This statement also preconditions the objective of the study which is to identify practical issues patients might face while trying to use non-pharmacological pain management methods.
To collect the relevant information for the discussion, 129 participants are engaged in the study. All individuals were interviewed with the primary aim to understand their attitudes to the proposed alternative treatment, its efficiency, and problems they face while trying to refuse using opiates (Penney et al., 2016). The research was conducted within a care organization in the Pacific Northwest (Penney et al., 2016). The reason for the selection is the reported benefit from chiropractic and acupuncture interventions.
Thus, in the course of the research, the authors conclude that the selected ways of managing pain can be effective in struggling against chronic problems. The majority of participants outline their dissatisfaction with the prolonged use of opiates and their negative impact on their health. For this reason, they might prefer utilizing these methods to resist pain.
References
Penney, L., Ritenbaugh, C., DeBar, L., Elder, C., & Deyo, R. (2016). Provider and patient perspectives on opioids and alternative treatments for managing chronic pain: A qualitative study. BMC Family Practice, 17, 164.
Nursing: Rogers’ Science Of Unitary Of Human Being
Nurse practitioners (NPs) can identify different theories and apply them in their respective units to deliver high-quality care. This nursing critique paper analyses Martha Rogers’ Science of Unitary of Human Being. It begins by presenting the theory’s meaning. The next parts examine the model’s origin, usefulness, and testability. The last section gives an evaluation of this framework.
Meaning
Rogers’ Science of Unitary of Human Being has several assumptions that nurses can consider to deliver exemplary care. The first idea is that humans should be treated as integral parts of the universe. Nursing procedures should also focus on individuals and the subsequent manifestations emerging from their interactions with the environment (Baumann, Wright, & Settecase-Wu, 2014). These assumptions will ensure that caregivers focus on the best practices to restore energy fields. These assumptions dictate how this theory operates.
The model presents specific concepts. The energy field refers to a fundamental unit of all organisms and nonliving things. Openness refers to the constant exchange of energy between the environment and humans. The pattern is an abstraction that gives identity to existing energy fields (Phillips, 2015). Pan dimensionality refers to nonlinear domains.
These concepts especially relate to each other. For instance, they all focus on the linkage between the environment and unitary beings. The concepts of resonance, openness, pan dimensionality, and energy field reveal how energy is exchanged between individuals and the environment. The concepts of hemodynamic principles explain how caregivers should perceive unitary beings (Baumann et al., 2014). Nursing is, therefore, a practice aimed at re-patterning energy exchanges.
The theory’s concepts appear to affect each other. For instance, pattern and openness dictate how energies are exchanged. The existing fields will also influence the nature of openness and the pattern of waves (Phillips, 2015). Nurses applying this theory should be aware of these effects. When resonance is altered, chances are high that integrality and policy will change accordingly.
Origins of the Theory
Rogers examined the trends that were experienced in America in the 1980s to develop it. For instance, nurses were finding new opportunities in nonclinical settings. Values such as justice, empathy, and sympathy empowered Rogers to propose this model. She also focused on existing nursing knowledge during the time, including the scope of practice, professionalism, and the four meta paradigms (Baumann et al., 2014). She also examined the works of Florence Nightingale and Betty Neuman. The theorist cited different concepts such as the idea of pursuing nursing as an art and a science.
The four meta paradigms motivated this theorist to write the framework. She wanted to propose a superior model to ensure that caregivers provided holistic care. The author used a deductive reasoning approach (Smith & Parker, 2015). This is the case since she focused on the general knowledge existing in nursing to develop a more specific approach for delivering medical support.
Usefulness
Rogers’ theory is applicable in clinical practice since it presents evidence-based ideas for implementing nursing as an art and science. In nursing, caregivers can consider the presented assumptions to design evidence-based models and transform their patients’ experiences (Baumann et al., 2014). They can also use it to develop additional competencies.
The model contributes to understanding and predicting outcomes. For instance, it encourages practitioners to seek adequate scientific knowledge. This means that they can analyze and understand the existing health situation and predict the possible outcomes (Smith & Parker, 2015). They will go further to implement appropriate practices to re-pattern their patients’ energy fields. Health professionals can use Rogers’ theory in a wide range of settings. For example, practitioners providing services to hospitalized patients can use it to monitor existing clinical guidelines and develop superior care delivery models.
Testability
This theory is testable since it is applicable in different research studies to examine. Scholars can also use it to develop evidence-based procedures for maximizing patients’ experiences. This model has also been found to generate numerous research studies. Phillips (2015) asserts that the theory has influenced hundreds of qualitative and quantitative studies within the past two decades. Case studies have also been completed to examine its effectiveness.
A good example of a study done using this was completed by Elizabeth Barrett in 1998. Such research resulted in the Power as Knowing Participation in Change theory. The title of the study was “Methodological Ponderings Related to the Power as Knowing Participation in Change Tool”. The propositions in this theory are relational statements since they seek to establish relationships between the outlined concepts.
Overall Evaluation
Martha Rogers’ model is a specific model since it focuses on the use of existing knowledge or evidence to re-pattern patients’ energy fields and improves their health experiences. This theory is also general since it uses a deductive approach, thereby making it possible for it to be applied in a wide range of situations or scenarios. Persons with physical, psychological, emotional, and mental problems can benefit from it. These are the model’s strengths: applicability in different settings, understanding, and capable of delivering positive health outcomes (Baumann et al., 2014). Its weaknesses include lack of clarity and presence of abstract definitions.
Conclusion
The above discussion has revealed that Martha Rogers’ model is applicable in different health settings to improve patients’ experiences. I will use this theory in my practice since it will empower me to engage in lifelong learning. This means that I will develop a superior nursing philosophy.
References
Baumann, S. L., Wright, S. G., & Settecase-Wu, C. (2014). A science of unitary human beings perspective of global health nursing. Nursing Science Quarterly, 27(4), 324-328. Web.
Phillips, J. R. (2015). Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings: Beyond the frontier of science. Nursing Science Quarterly, 29(1), 38-46. Web.
Smith, M. C., & Parker, M. E. (2015). Nursing theories and nursing practice (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis.