External and Internal Environments: Amazon

Current Market Conditions Competitive Analysis of AmazonHistory of Amazon and their Products

Amazon was created by an entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos, in the year 1994. This business initiated from his garage, but eventually, additional investments were made by Tom Alburg and Nick Hanauer (Saunders, 1999).With this investment, Bezos was able to design an even more user-friendly website which millions of the individuals use today. As the percentage of the customers started increasing, more varieties of products were included on the website by Bezos. Furthermore, another idea was implemented by Bezos which allowed the customers to write their own book reviews. This idea was a major success. Amazon went public in the year 1997, and it continued to include more products in the website including, toys, movies, CDs and more products (Jarvenpaa, & Tiller,2000).). Amazon was going successful until the year 2001 in which it suffered fiscal loss and had to lay off more than 1000 workers. However, Bezos did not lose hope; he formulated an idea to join forces with other retailers so that they can sell their products online via Amazon's website. This led Amazon back on track. The simple online bookstore became a global phenomenon through determination and hard work.

Q1) Choose the two (2) segments of the general environment that would rank highest in their influence on the corporation you chose. Assess how these segments affect the corporation you chose and the industry in which it operates.

There are six segments of the general environment which include Political, Economic, Environmental, Legal, Socio-cultural, and Technological. The two important segments of the general environment that might affect the Amazon and the entire on line shopping industry include the Economic and Socio-cultural. Although there are also other segments of the general environment like Political that might too affect Amazon, but the impact of the Economic and social factors ranks high than all the other segments of the general environment. The economic conditions throughout the world are yet not stable. The economic recession of the 2008, had severely affected the most of the organizations and the industries. Similarly, it also affected the Amazon and the entire on line shopping industry (Andriopoulos, & Dawson,2008). Even today most of the European nations have not come out of the economic recession. This was the storey of the developed countries, on the other hand, the people in the developing countries of Asia and Africa have not yet developed their economies due to which the people are not very economically sound this will also affect the organization and the industry as a whole. Due to this phenomenon the overall on line consumers will decline.

The social factor is that although the on line shopping has gained a lot of popularity but even then most of the people do not prefer to buy on line and this trend is on the rise. The research has confirmed that most of the people do not like to buy on line (Chamberlin,2009). Moreover, they like to go in the shopping ...