Hot topics about innovation in Amazon
Discuss about the hot topics regarding innovation in your chosen Orgnisation.
Amazon Inc. is an electronic commerce company and they follow customer centric approach. With the help of this approach, organization has reached to the leading position in the international e-commerce industry. With regards to the innovations made by the organization, organization has invented drone delivery system, usage of artificial intelligence in order to enhance user’s experience with the website and integration of Amazon Prime video services with Alexa (recent innovation by organization) (Drucker, 2014).
- Amazon Air Prime: Drone delivery system was invented with the objective of providing quick services to the consumers. Yet it is in testing stage and it is the first autonomous in the United Kingdom. This system is invented with the objective to deliver packages to the customers in safe and secured manner within a set time limit. Currently, the time limit has been set for 30 minutes which ensures that the customer will receive their package within 30 minutes or less with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles. This service will boost up the reliability for organization amongst the consumers along with making it safe, secure and an efficient transportation system. Though this system is in testing stage so that the safety and security measures could be enhanced in order to make it the most sophisticated delivery system. In the trial stage, data and information is being gathered in order to improving safety and reliability in our operations and systems (Huang, 2017).
- Usage of artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence has been adopted by the Amazon to enhance their services’ effectiveness. Along with this, organization has also adopted big data analysis to analyse consumer behaviour and on the basis of their behaviour, organization provides them attractive offers and deals in order to enhance user experience with the organization. For example, if a consumer is mainly interested in shoes and jackets, thus, as per the user’s searching history, organization will gather appropriate information as per consumer’s interest. This will be done with the help of artificial intelligence and big data analysis. With the help of this innovation, organization is being able to uplift user’s interaction with the organization (Doloto & Chen-Burger, 2015).
- Integration of Amazon Prime Video with Alexa: Amazon has made its position in the most innovative companies and company always seeks to invent new ways so that the desired goals and objectives could be attained. Organizational objectives in relevance with Alexa are providing an artificial assistant to the users who will take for the appointments, schedule, meetings, etc. Along with this, Alexa is capable enough to entertain its users from various sources such as Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, etc. channels. There are numerous functions which will be performed by Alexa. Collaboration of Amazon Prime Video with Alexa will help the users to show their content in visual format. For example, user asked Alexa to play trending music on Amazon Prime Video and Alexa takes command and being the smart device, first it seeks for available devices at the particular place such as television, smartphone, etc. to play trending music of the user. In the situation, where no such options will be available, Alexa will play the trending music on its device only (Obwegeser & Bauer, 2016).
With regards to the organizational strategies, technical capabilities, amazon has become breeding ground for innovative ideas. In terms of the innovation of Amazon Prime Air services, with the help of advanced techniques, drone will send an automated notification to the consumer while leaving the fulfilment centre regarding estimated time arrival (Cunningham, 2004). This will ensure consumers regarding their delivery pf the products as well as they could get ready to taking delivery from the drones. Apart from this, the artificial delivery system will be capable enough to contact the consumer in case of their non-availability at the time of delivery. For example, drone met thee gate of consumer but as there was not response from consumer end, drone delivery system will send notification to the Alexa and Alexa will contact the customer for further step. This will help the organization to move towards artificial intelligence along with improving customer experience. There will be no need of men power for this type of processes and thus, men power could be utilised in further innovations so that customer satisfaction could be enhanced (Fast Company & Inc., 2018).
Amazon has become breeding ground for innovative ideas with the help of technical, organization and strategic capabilities. Due to its efficient skills and techniques, organization is being able to invent new ideas with regards to improving customer satisfaction. For Amazon, customer satisfaction always on the top, thus, their all innovations and inventions are concerned with the customer satisfaction. Due to this, it has helped the organization to develop its effective image in the most innovative companies across the globe (Anderson, Poto?nik & Zhou, 2014).
User involvement
User is involved everywhere because Amazon’s primary motive of satisfying its user’s needs and wants. With this motive, it has set up its effective brand image in more than 188 countries across the globe along with setting up their physical presence in more than 12 countries. The innovative product under Amazon Prime Air service will be integrated with Alexa and by its own effective features, it will improve customer experience because drone will reach to the consumer within 30 minutes with an assurance of safety and security (Chen & Hou, 2016).
Innovative product
From market research activity to the delivery of the product, user is involved in every stage. User involvement is necessary to analyse consumer behaviour, their taste, preference and current demand. Apart from this, user is also necessary for the marketing and promotional activities because these are the part of target audience and all campaigns are developed to approach them. Further, when a customer places the order till its delivery, user is involved. In order to satisfy their needs and wants, organization focuses over performing certain activities so that user involvement could be enhanced (Wang, 2018).
Fast integration
Innovation is not a speedy process, it takes sufficing time and sometimes, it takes more than sufficient time. But it also ensures that the motive of innovation could be fulfilled in an effective manner with the view of optimum utilisation of innovative techniques. Amazon has planned to introduce an autonomous delivery system with appropriate capabilities to inform customers regarding the estimated time for arrival of the package along with providing appropriate support to communicate with the customers with the help of Alexa. This will help the organization to enhance customer satisfaction along with uplifting organizational capabilities. Thus, it will be require approximately 2 years to play in the outfield after passing all the quality, safety and reliability tests (Sigala & Kyriakidou, 2015).
Further, the innovation made by the organization will also require costs. But as Amazon is a big and vast organization in terms of revenues, it invests a huge amount of their income in research and development program so that advanced and effective measures along with innovative products could be invented with the motive of customer satisfaction. Apart from cost and time, organization has all those resources which are required for inventing new products and ideas, thus, innovation for Amazon is easy and effective process (García, Eizaguirre & Pradel, 2015).
Prototyping and testing capabilities
Amazon will focus over the US market for testing the efficiency of the innovation. This is because US market is the largest market for the organization and it is saturated and to penetrate the market, it is necessary for the organization to adopt product development and related strategies to attain growth and competitive advantage. If the innovation made by the organization will pass all beta testing and other quality checks, it will be able to implement in other markets with the objective to enhance organizational capabilities as well as to develop reliable and effective image amongst the target market (Cruickshank, 2016).
Innovation and organizational current capabilities
Cross functional management
Every department is interlinked with each other and in terms of inventing a new idea, service or product, every department needs to provide appropriate and required resources to the research and development department so that the goals could be attained. Major functionalities of research and development team are to uplift organizational capabilities and to introduce new concepts in the workplace so that the existing challenges and issues could be resolved in an effective manner (Hon & Lui, 2016).
Finance department, production department, and other departments of the organization plays crucial role in order to uplift organizational performance. Apart from this, it is necessary for the organization to enhance its image in the competitive and dynamic business environment. This will help the organization to enhance its image along with the motive of enhancing customer satisfaction (Wu & Hisa, 2008).
Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that Amazon always seeks for innovative ideas with the motive of enhancing customer satisfaction and their experience with the organization. In relevance with this, this report concludes trending innovations made by the organization along with the strategies adopted by them in relevance with making the organization more efficient and reliable. Apart from this, report has also concluded an innovative idea in relevance with improving delivery system. Organization is already testing drone delivery system under Amazon Prime Air services but with the help of innovations made by the research team, this service could be improved along with gaining positive outcomes.
The innovative idea discussed under this report could be affected with the help of further innovations such as tracking system fitted in the drone and the link will be sent to the customer in order to get regular updates on the delivery of the package. Apart from this, tracking system will help the consumers to determine the estimate time which will be taken by the drone to deliver the package as consumer will be able to detect the live location.
Amazon is dealing in millions of products and with the help of wide product offering, organization targets numerous target groups. As per the approach of customer satisfaction, we have invented a new idea to enhance the customer interaction and experience with the organization. Motive of this innovation is to build an effective image amongst the target audience. The innovation is in relevance with the Amazon Prime Air services. Under this service, vehicles of unmanned material will be used along with the assurance of safety and security. Apart from this, we have also decided to integrate Alexa with Prime Video services so that the user’s experience could be enhanced. This will help the organization to gain positive outcomes along with gaining positive response from the customers.
USPs of the innovation will be smartness of drones through which customer will get the update for every order that they have placed before 30-45 minutes of delivery. In case, when consumer will not available at their place, with the help of Alexa, drone will contact the customer to ask for the further steps so that the product could be successfully delivered. This innovation will not consume much capital and other resources because we have Amazon Web Services with efficient engineers and technicians who could make this dream come true. This innovation will reduce the usage of men power, thus, men power could be utilised in other tasks where automation does not act appropriately
References
Amazon Inc. (2018). Amazon Prime Air. Retrieved from: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Prime-Air/b?ie=UTF8&node=8037720011
Anderson, N., Poto?nik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Management, 40(5), 1297-1333.
Chen, A. S. Y., & Hou, Y. H. (2016). The effects of ethical leadership, voice behavior and climates for innovation on creativity: A moderated mediation examination. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), 1-13.
Cruickshank, L. (2016). Open Design and Innovation: facilitating creativity in everyone. Routledge.
Cunningham, S. (2004). The creative industries after cultural policy: A genealogy and some possible preferred futures. International journal of cultural studies, 7(1), 105-115.
Doloto, U., & Chen-Burger, Y. H. (2015). A Survey of Business Models in eCommerce. In Agent and Multi-Agent Systems: Technologies and Applications (pp. 249-259). Springer, Cham.
Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.
Fast Company & Inc. (2018). Why Amazon is the World’s Most Innovative Company of 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.fastcompany.com/3067455/why-amazon-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company-of-2017
García, M., Eizaguirre, S., & Pradel, M. (2015). Social innovation and creativity in cities: a socially inclusive governance approach in two peripheral spaces of Barcelona. City, Culture and Society, 6(4), 93-100.
Hon, A. H., & Lui, S. S. (2016). Employee creativity and innovation in organizations: Review, integration, and future directions for hospitality research. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(5), 862-885.
Huang, R. (2017). Ecommerce in Rural Areas and Environmental Sustainability: The Last-Mile Delivery.
Obwegeser, N., & Bauer, S. (2016). Digital innovation and the becoming of an organizational identity. In International Conference on HCI in Business, Government and Organizations (pp. 556-564). Springer, Cham.
Sigala, M., & Kyriakidou, O. (2015). Creativity and innovation in the service sector. The Service Industries Journal, 35(6), 297-302.
Wang, S. (2018). Reflections on the Training Mode of E-Commerce Professionals with Improved Practical Exercises and Innovative Ability. In Recent Developments in Data Science and Business Analytics (pp. 63-69). Springer, Cham.
Wu, J. H., & Hisa, T. L. (2008). Developing e-business dynamic capabilities: an analysis of e-commerce innovation from I-, M-, to U-commerce. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 18(2), 95-11