Convenience

Case Questions
1.
Describe Amazon’s
product
–
service mix
. Which
areas of Amazon’s operations are characteristic of
a
manufacturing
organization? Which areas are
characteristic of a
service organization
? How do
both areas relate to the marketing of Kindle and
Kindle-related products?
2.
Describe the role of
technology
in both Amazon’s
manufacturing and service operations.
3.
Discuss the nature of Amazon’s
supply chain
in
terms of
control, purchasing management
, and
inventory management
. At what points in the supply
chain does Amazon outsource or contract activities
to outside parties? How does Amazon’s
supply chain
management
affect its revenues and costs?
Chapter 15:
Managing Operations, Quality, and Productivity
4 8 7
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4.
Log on to Amazon.com and select an item that
comes from Amazon itself rather than from a
drop shipper. What kinds of
purchasing
decisions
were necessary to make this product available at
Amazon’s price? What kinds of
inventory-control
decisions were necessary?
5.
What facets of Amazon’s operations allow it to
create and control
quality
, both as a manufactur-
ing organization and as a service organization?
What facets of its operations allow Amazon to
control
productivity
(again, both as a manufactur-
ing organization and as a service organization)?
Give two or three examples of ways in which
Amazon’s
operations
contribute
to
high
productivity.
Case References
Mark Brohan, “Amazon Sales and Profits Boom in
2010,”
Internet Retailer
, www.internetretailer.com,
accessed on January 2, 2014; Robert Hof, “Amazon’s
Brighter Horizon?”
BusinessWeek
, April 26, 2006,
www.businessweek.com, accessed on January 2,
2014; Jeff Cogswell, “Amazon Simple DB a Solid
Choice for Simple Web-Based Data Storage,”
eweek
, www.eweek.com, accessed on January 2,
2014; Steven Levy, “The Future of Reading,”
News-
week
, November 26, 2007, www.newsweek.com,
accessed on January 2, 2014; Amy Martinez,
“Amazon Says Kindle Sales Top Its ‘Most Optimistic’
Projections,”
Seattle Times
, April 17, 2009, http://
seattletimes.com/html/home/index.html, accessed on
January 2, 2014; Joseph Galante and Peter Burrows,
“Amazon.com Kindle Sales Are Said to Exceed
Estimates,”
Bloomberg
, August17, 2012, www.bloom
berg.com, accessed on January 2, 2014; and Claire
Cain Miller, “E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon,”
New York Times
, July 19, 2010, www.nytimes.com,
accessed on January 2, 2014.