Get amazed into the enterprise world of Amazon

I found the week 3 activity quite interesting, since we had to research on an organisation of our choice, to relate the implementation and benefits of Enterprise 2.0. So I took up this research by consulting an employee who works at ‘Amazon’. I discussed the various operations that take place within the organisation. To brief out on this organisation, Amazon is an American international E-Commerce company and is one of the world’s largest online retailer. The organisation is notable for selling softwares, games, electronics, apparels, furniture, jewellery etc.

After analysing the 10 ‘Value Levers’ of social technology published by McKinsey, I came into a conclusion that, Amazon has been implementing Enterprise 2.0 to sort out most of its operations in and out of the organisation. Be it a customer, seller or an employee, every operation is supported by an Enterprise module. This is the reason why Amazon is one of the successful online retailers worldwide, and all thanks to the pioneers behind the development of its business infrastructure, since they have wisely used Enterprise 2.0 in handling most of the business aspects of the organisation.

How has Amazon implemented Enterprise 2.0?

As per the discussion I had with the Amazon employee, the organisation utilizes Enterprise 2.0 mainly to focus on their Sellers, Customers and Employees. In order to manage all the business processes between these three entities it has developed three different platforms pertaining to Enterprise 2.0. These platforms are the base for support, marketing, enquiries, requests and a knowledgebase. The platforms are as follows:

i) Seller Forum

ii) Amazon Wiki

iii) Seller Central

The above Enterprise 2.0 implementations, serve the various functional areas in the business value chain of the organisation such as Operations and Distributions, Product Development, Marketing and Sales, Customer Service and Business Support. Following is a brief description on each of these platforms:

i) Seller Forum

This is like a forum generally for Sellers who would like to sell their products over Amazon. This platform specially serves as a communication medium between the sellers and the Amazon representatives. This forum basically offers services such as ‘general selling questions’, ‘help for new sellers’, ‘listing management and reports’, ‘questions on shipment’, ‘orders and customer service’.  'Customer Service' is the functional area which is taken care of in this platform. 

There are dedicated representatives who offer support to the authenticated sellers who are authorized to use this platform. Every seller has to create his/her profile before making use of this feature, so that the sellers required information is stored in the database for various business processes. You can visit the following link in order to view the ‘Seller Forum’.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/index.jspa

ii) Amazon Wiki

Amazon wiki is accessible only to the employees within its organisation. Employees need to sign up and create his/her profile to access the functionalities of this platform. Amazon Wiki basically consists of all the business processes and products that are available within the organization. Employees get detailed information and knowledge on various business modules. There is also a specialized department which provides live support to the employees based on their departments and their work profile. This platform is not available publicly over the internet, since it consists of confidential information pertaining to the various business modules of the organisation. 'Product Development' and 'Business Support' are the major functional areas handled in this platform.

iii) Seller Central

Seller Central is the extended version of Seller Forum which was discussed earlier. This platform is specially used for marketing products by the seller. Sellers get essential tips from Amazon professionals on how to market their products in front of millions of online shoppers. It also provides support for the sellers to develop their own website to market and display their products. Using seller central the seller can manage his products, orders, payment, inventory and customers online. 'Operations', 'Distributions', 'Marketing and Sales' are the functional areas focused in this platform. You can visit the following link to view the Seller Central:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/homepage.html?

There is no second thought why Amazon has been one of the leading online retailers today. The way they utilize and implement Enterprise 2.0 in their business functional areas is truly remarkable. McKinsey’s 10 value levers of social technology are well reflected in the business functional areas of Amazon. Do you think there are any other organisations similar to Amazon which have been gaining success and popularity with the similar application of Enterprise 2.0?