Arbetsmaterial till case 1 Amazon.com

Amazon Organizational Structure

Amazon organizational structure can be classified as hierarchical. Senior management team include two CEOs, three

Senior Vice Presidents and one Worldwide Controller, who are responsible for various vital aspects of the business

reporting directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. There are seven segments such as information technology, human

resources and legal operations and heads of segments also report to Amazon CEO.

Hierarchical structure at Amazon has developed due to the immense size of the business. The largest internet

retailer in the world by revenue employs 560,000 people worldwide[1] and it has more than 300 million customers

globally.[2] Amazon organizational structure integrates many small teams that deal with various aspects of the

business. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is credited with the introduction of ‘two pizza rule”. According to this

rule, meetings should be held in teams small enough that could be all fed with only two pizzas.

The figure below illustrates Amazon organizational structure:

Amazon Organizational Structure

It is important to note that despite its large size,

unlike many other companies with hierarchical

organizational structure, Amazon remains highly

flexible to adapt to frequent changes in the

external marketplace. Moreover, the online

retail giant leads changes in external business

environment, it has caused disruptive

innovation in e-commerce and currently it is

about to cause a disruptive innovation in global

logistics industry. This is mainly due to visionary

and efficient leadership by Amazon founder and

CEO Jeff Bezos.

It can be forecasted that with the acquisition of Whole Foods for USD13.7 billion in 2017, Amazon organizational

structure is going to change in the foreseeable future. Moreover, due to the company’s adherence to business

diversification strategy in an aggressive manner, its organizational structure will remain dynamic, being subjected to

certain changes in a regular manner.

[1] Annual Report (2017) Amazon Inc.

[2] How Many Products Does Amazon Sell Worldwide – January 2018 (2018) Scrape Hero, Available

at: https://www.scrapehero.com/how-many-products-amazon-sell-worldwide-january-2018/

Source: Posted on Reseachgate, August 1, 2018 by John Dudovskiy

Amazon Organizational Structure 1

Marknadsföring och organisering - 15 hp (FE1000)