Amazon.com’s European distribution Strategy

ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS from reading an article from my Harvard business account

AMAZON.COM’S EUROPEAN DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

1. What are Amazon’s primary sources of competitive advantage currently? Analyze

how they built their competitive capabilities over the years.

2. Describe (and also show diagrammatically) Amazon’s order fulfillment process in the

US, and provide your evaluation of Amazon’s order fulfillment strategy in terms of its

strengths, weaknesses, perceived effectiveness, etc. How does Amazon monitor

the performance of their order fulfillment execution?

3. Assess the pros and cons of the centralized versus decentralized approaches for

Amazon’s distribution and fulfillment strategy. Given Tom’s mission of surpassing

the US in 5 years, should he replicate the type of centralization they have in the US,

or should he essentially keep it decentralized in Europe?

4. Assess the benefits and drawbacks of the three proposed alternatives to design the

EDN. In light of your recommendation in 3(b) above, which alternative would you

recommend to Tom Taylor for Europe?