Abstract

This case is about how the leading e-commerce company Amazon, Inc. (Amazon) utilized its big data resources to improve its performance. Being the dominant retailer on the Internet, Amazon had a vast database regarding the tastes, preferences, and previous purchasing history of its customers. Amazon leveraged its big data resources to give more relevant product recommendations and improve its customer care quality. Banking heavily on its big data resources, it upgraded its customer recommendation system. The 360 degree customer profiles developed using big data resources enabled Amazon to create highly personalized marketing messages for its customers. Apart from improving its business performance, big data resources were also put to some innovative uses like preventing theft of merchandise from its warehouses. Amazon also allowed other smaller e-commerce companies with limited resources to use its big data services. In 2010, Amazon launched an innovative service called Amazon Webstore allowing smaller companies to build shopping portals basing on Amazon’s e-commerce platform. This service was highly successful and was adopted by even big big companies like Timex and Samsonite who did not want to develop their own e-commerce system. Amazon’s suite of cloud based Internet services known as Amazon Web Services (AWS) came out with solutions like Kinesis to help smaller companies implement big data easily. Some analysts opined that as of end 2013, Amazon had all the pieces of the big data puzzle but the firm would have to put these together effectively to emerge as a dominant player in this space. This case is meant for MBA/MS students as a part of the IT and Systems. It can also be used in a Business Strategy curriculum.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Analyze how Amazon utilized its big data resources to build a better relationship with its customers.
• Appreciate the importance of developing big data capabilities to improve the performance of a company.
• Discuss and debate how Amazon helped other e-commerce portals to leverage on its big data resources.
• Explore the ways in which Amazon could further utilize its big data resources to improve its business prospects.
• Suggest ways in which Amazon could utilize its big data capabilities to emerge as a dominant player in the big data space.

Keywords

E-commerce, Big data, Big data strategy, Big data process, Big data resources, Big data capabilities, Customer service, 360 degree customer profiles, Service interactions, Personalized marketing messages, Customer service quality, Cloud based Internet services, Analytics, Analytics eco-system, Amazon