Introduction
Jeff Bezos, born on January 12, 1964, is an American investor, technology and retailer entrepreneur and a computer scientist. He is the founder, the chairman, and CEO of Amazon.com, which is the world’s largest online shopping retailer. Amazon. Com started as an internet bookselling merchant but later expanded to many varieties of products and services including video streaming and audio streaming as its most recent products ( Rossman, 2016 ). The company is currently the most extensive online business in the world. Other products that Amazon.com have specialized in include the aerospace and newspapers. Bezos is also the founder of the Blue Origin which was introduced in 2015 and he plans to venture into the commercial human spaceflight. Bezos is currently regarded as the best CEO in America after having led Amazon.com to the highest ranks in the world. His leadership abilities and strategies which focus on innovation and long-term goals has enabled him to turn what initially started as an online bookstore to what it is today. Bezos’ leadership practices are based on the customer value, innovation, long-term goal setting, and persistence.
Bezos Successful leadership
Focus on long-term visions
Jeff Bezos has demonstrated high leadership qualities since the founding of Amazon, expanding it from an online bookstore to a diversified firm and the leading online store in the world. The first aspect that Bezos has based his leadership on is the long-term visions. He stated that he would take long-term visions and goals rather than the short terms. In 1999, he said that “Our vision is to use this platform to build Earth’s most customer-centric company, a place where customers can come to find and discover anything and everything they might want to buy online” ( Stone, 2013 ). This long-term customer vision of Bezos still applies today to the company. The company obsesses the customer, they put the customer first and then work backward on it. He has brought in the culture of the customer-centric theme into the organization, and every employee of Amazon knows that the customer is the king. He was once quoted saying, “There is no rest for the weary. I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified. Not of our competition, but of our customers. Our customers have made our business what it is, they are the ones with whom we have a relationship, and they are the ones to whom we owe a great obligation. And we consider them to be loyal to us — right up until the second that someone else offers them a better service.” (Bezos, 1998). As the CEO of Amazon, he has been willing to forego the short-term benefits and focus on the long-term commitment to customers. While every company has a vision and cares for their customers, Bezos does this passionately, being customer-centric and making every member of his team to develop the long-term commitment to customer satisfaction.
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Based on his commitment to long-term visions, Bezos has introduced in his team members a culture of having a clearly articulated long-term vision. He states that one of the keys to his success is having a clear long-term vision for his business and then introducing communicating that vision to the employees of the company. Frequent and clear communication with both the internal and external stakeholders is necessary to keep all of them up to date on the vision of the company. When making the product decisions, focus on the long-term vision of the organization and always remain customer-centric. This is the leadership style that Bezos has adopted to ensure that his company becomes top in the global market.
Stay Committed
Bezos has always focused on the need to remain committed and determined at all times. The first step to stay committed is to develop a solid plan ( Mudambi& Schuff, 2010 ). The long-term plan has to be clear and specific before starting the journey towards it. He has induced the culture of determination and commitment to his team members. Once the business has gone top, it is important to defy the criticisms and remain true to the principles. Amazon, like any other company, has experienced a range of struggles and challenges but the CEO has taught his team to stay committed to the vision and overcome the first signs of trouble. Remaining committed to the long-term visions at the time of problems can sometimes be so challenging, but determination can keep one going through. The company has stayed committed to its course, making significant steps ahead day by day. The culture of commitment has been well induced amongst the team members, and this is what keeps the company going.
Constant Innovation
The success of Amazon can be attributed to its culture of innovative technologies and practices, all which have been championed by the CEO. The company started as an online bookstore and later introduced other range of products. The CEO has provided leadership that focuses on creativity and coming up with new ideas and new products that can fulfil the need of the customers. An example of an innovative technology that Amazon had introduced is the Echo, a voiced command device which can be used to research on sports or play favorite songs. This technology became one of the greatest investments for the company, generating millions of dollars in revenue after 22 million units were sold in 2017 alone. Bezos always believe in making new innovations because the needs of the customers are rapidly changing as the world witnesses the advancement in technology. He has built a mindset of innovation and creativity to ensure that the company is always doing something new, introducing a new product that is unique to the customers.
Know Your Market
The market is the most crucial factor that determines the success of a new business. One could have a great product, but if there is no market, the product will fail. Products can only succeed if there is market ad demand for that particular product. This is the culture that Bezos has introduced to his team members. He shows a deep comprehension of the market, the existing opportunities and how to capitalize on such chances. “Consider this most important point: the current online shopping experience is the worst it will ever be. It’s good enough today to attract 17 million customers, but it will get so much better. Increased bandwidth will result in faster page views and richer content. Further improvements will lead to “always-on access” (which I expect will be a strong boost to online shopping at home, as opposed to the office) and we’ll see significant growth in non-PC devices and wireless access. Moreover, it’s great to be participating in what is a multi-trillion dollar global market, in which we are so very, very tiny. We are doubly-blessed. We have a market-size unconstrained opportunity in an area where the underlying foundational technology we employ improves every day. That is not normal.” (Bezos, 1999). This letter shows that Bezos understands the current market while at the same time seeing a vision for where he is headed to. As a leader, he can understand the market and built this skill to his team members. He has encouraged his team to understand the market in which they operate, understand the future trend and predict how these trends could affect customers in the future.
Customer Service and Personalization
Exceptional customer service and personalization are one of the ways that Bezos has used to make Amazon the largest online store in the world. Bezos as the CEO believes in the value of offering customers the best services and creating products that are appealing to them. The online showing website of the company has been made simple in a way that customers can easily make purchases. The customer service team of Amazon had won several awards for their commitment to solving the problems facing customers. This is in line with its mission which is to become the most customer-centric company in the world. The company also uses social media platforms to engage with its customers and enhance the quality of service delivery. Bezos has introduced to his team members the need to give customers the best, and this has since become a company culture and mission. The company is also focused on customer personalization and enhance the customer experience. This has all been attributed to the long-term customer commitment that the CEO has set for the company. The company has witnessed increased sales due to enhanced customer personalization and better customer service delivery.
Bezos notes that customers can never be satisfied and business usually has a new opportunity to please the customers. The CEO has always led his to get ways to not only satisfy the customers but also impress them in a way that they did not expect. Happy customers will always come back, not alone but with friends. Thus impressing customers can help the company acquire more customers and maintain a competitive advantage. Customer-centric is actually the legacy that Bezos focus on for his company to be known. The mission statement of the company states that “We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience” ( Brandt, 2011 ). The significant components of the mission statement are the lowest prices, best selection, and utmost convenience. The low pricing strategy of the company is what makes it attractive to customers who get the best services for a reduced cost thus getting the value for their money. The mission statement also mentions the best selection which shows that there are a variety of best products on the website of the company for customers to choose from.
The vision statement of the company also tends to focus on the need to satisfy customers. The corporate vision of the company is “to be earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they want to buy online.” While the vision statement also focuses on the need for global reach, it aims to do this through a customer-centric approach ( Lunenburg, 2012 ). This further shows Bezos focus on customer satisfaction. He has included this in the vision so that he communicates to the team members their primary purpose, which is to impress the customers. This is what directs the activities of the organization, and everything that is done must have customers in mind. This approach has enabled the company to be one of the leading in customer service in the world. As a result, the company has maintained a competitive advantage over its competitors and remained to dominate the online stores for the past years.
Take the opportunity to Self-Promote
Jeff Bezos displays a leadership trait of great leaders, focusing on self-promotion. He has influenced his team to focus on the promotion of the company and make the customers know its products. The company through the leadership of the CEO has set up a department that is charged with the responsibility of promoting the company. The employees of the company have adopted this culture, and whenever they are giving an interview, writing a book or a letter, they do not fail to promote the new products from the company. Whenever the CEO is facing an audience, he never misses to promote his company. He always gets visibility and utilizes any chance to promote the company. This has made his company be known worldwide, operating in several countries across the globe. Self-promotion helps the company expand its market base and maintain a competitive advantage within the industry. Bezos further focuses on his own long-term vision and customers rather than focus on the competitors and what they do. He notes that while many online companies are usually obsessed with the competitor, he is focused on the customer rather than on the competitors. Based on his goal to listen to customers problems, the company was able to build Amazon Web Services, a business which generated a large amount of revenue to the company ( Ignatius, 2014 ). He has instilled in his employees the culture of focusing on customers rather than on the competitors. He believes that the only way to get ahead in the market is to think about yourself and your customers.
Diversification
Amazon through its CEO has focused on the need to diversify their revenue generating sources rather than focus on a few products. The company started as an online bookstore but later grew to the levels of being the largest online stores in the world ( Kantor &Streitfeld, 2015 ). There are thousands of products that are offered on the Amazon website thus providing the customers with a range of products to choose from. Bezos has taught his employees the need to diversify on a variety of products irrespective of the industry in which you operate. Enlarging into the new markets and utilizing other opportunities can help an organization to grow and increase its revenue generation sources. The company currently has 3.6 billion backlinks and 3.8 billion referring domains. This highly diversified link have played a key role in high revenue generation.
Being a big thinker
Bezos has been described as a big thinker. In addition to his own ideas, he receives many other ideas from the team members and analyzes each of them. He encourages his team members to think big and generate more practical ideas that can be converted into business opportunities. He tries to look around the corner and considers some of the areas that can be turned into business opportunities. He gets his teams to think bigger always, and this has kept the company to remain at the top with its new products every time. He gets his team to think outside the box, to look further into the future and to see the potential future opportunities as well as threats.
Take Risks for Market Leadership
Bezos is one leader who believes in trying several times and does not fear failure because it is through failing that one learns to improve. He gets his employees to try out new things, new ideas even if they fail. He never fears to fail. This leadership trait made him get certain products successful after several trials. According to Bezos, it is better to try and fail then learn from it than having not to try at all ( Timothy & Holladay, 2012 ). This is because arriving at the long-term goals does not take one step, but a series of steps that comes with new experimentation and continuous improvement. Learning is the best way to improve continually, and without trying something new, it is difficult for one to learn new skills. He has gotten into his team the culture of working something new and learning from it to achieve continuous improvement. The company did not start at the highest levels it is currently, it began as an online bookstore, and with time, it made improvements until now that it is the largest online store in the world. His leadership abilities and the passion for trying out new things have made him become one of the best CEO.
It took Amazon three trials to make successful the business of selling and fulfilment.it first started as Amazon Auctions which was a less direct model. It then moved to zShops before finally getting to Amazon marketplace. This was due to Bezos’ belief in taking risks and trying something new every time. He was quoted saying, "Given a 10 percent chance of a 100-times payout, you should take that bet every time," Bezos wrote in his very first annual letter (Bezos, 1997). "Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment." “Make bold, rather than timid, investment decisions. Even if they don't work out, you'll learn something for the next time.” This shows his commitment to taking business risks and learning something new every time. It was through this that he managed to lead his team throughout the early days of Amazon to the currently large business that we see.
Making Employees think like owners
The number of employees at Amazon has been increasing every year. Bezos believes in making the employees think like they are the owners by continually engaging them and giving them a stake in the success of the company ( Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015 ). He knows the value of the employees to the success of the company. He has built in his team culture of employee engagement and empowerment. While he aims to attract and retain top talented employees, the CEO believes in making the employees share a stake in the success of the company so that they feel the motivation and make them act like they are the owners. This leadership practice has made the employees of Amazon to be the most motivated group who are always happy to work towards meeting the goals of the organization. Bezos categorizes the decisions of the organization into two categories, the type 1 decisions which are irreversible and are only made by the top executive and type 2 decisions which can be reversed. He prefers to let employees make such decisions at lower levels. For an organization to keep innovating, it is significant to push power down in the organization.
Conclusion
Jeff Bezos has stood out to be an exemplary leader who has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities and build it in his team members to lift Amazon.com from an online bookstore to the largest online stores in the world. His focus on the long-term visions rather than short-term gains has paid off well. His main goals of being customer-centric and the recognition that customers are the most important people for business has also made the company the leading in terms of customer service. He has continuously empowered and engaged his employees, making them share the success of the organization thus motivating them to provide better services for the company. The outstanding leadership qualities and clear and constant communication of the purpose of the organization to the shareholders have made the company rise to be the largest online store in the world.
References
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