Jeff Bezos - Founder and CEO of Amazon.com

Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, a pioneer in changing the retail industry into a new dimension. He is a graduate from Princeton University and had a lucrative career on Wall Street. But this is not what he wanted to do for rest of his life, so packed his bags and moved to his garage in Seattle where he started something different, an online bookstore Amazon.com, which eventually became the biggest online e-commerce retail store. His vision is simple, customer, customer and customer. He always sets plans to the customer’s benefit and believes that if the company’s focus is on the customer it will make the company a market leader. Bezos revolutionized so many things but these are the three areas in particular that has significant impact on people’s life, 1. “Bring retail stores to customer homes”, 2. “Deliver any book in 60 seconds or less through Kindle” and 3. “Keep IT costs down with web services and cloud computing”.

Bezos brings retail stores to customer homes

“The customer is always right”, using his three principle that he had relied on, “Put the customer first, invent, and be patient." Bezos, perhaps more than anyone, has taken that mantra into the digital era, figuring what customers want before the cash register rings. Bezos is even stricter about what customers don’t want, they hate delays, defects and out-of-stock products, so Amazon constantly collects metrics, and tracks those numbers to make them as rare as possible. Bezos does not hire any third parties to collect customer feedback. He developed a system where customers can write the feedback directly. Bezos forwarded to Forbes a note from a woman recounting how Amazon has touched her life over the past 12 years. First she bought books and compact discs when she was in her late 20s. Now, she writes, Amazon is “helping me choose a mattress and a crib for my son.” She concludes by writing: “Thank you so much for making my life simpler and easier. … They say it takes a village, but, in this case, all a mom needs is Amazon, her Amex and an iPhone.” One of the top leadership lesson’s from Bezos is “base your strategy on things that won’t change” like selling perfumes, fishing rods, e-book readers and data storage etc. It is all part of one big plan with three big constants: offer wider selection, lower prices and fast & reliable delivery. 

Bezos delivers any book in 60 seconds or less through Kindle e-book reader

Bezos strategy is “determine what customers need, and work backwards”. He believed millions of people would want a crisp e-book reader that could download any book in 60 seconds or less, so he can close geographical barriers, a “Kindle” has born, invention of Kindle is defined by customers’ desires rather than engineers’ tastes. While all other executives in the company had slim hopes for the success of such device, Bezos never looked back. When one of the finance executives asked how much he was prepared to spend on the project, the CEO shot back: “How much do we have?” this shows how much he believes in new innovations and his judgment. One of the investors when questioned on Kindle slim profit margins, he explained Amazon's strategy, adding to what is well know about the company's business model: "We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.”

Bezos keeps IT costs down with Web Services and Cloud Computing

After dot-com boom and crash, Amazon’s performance was flat between 2003 and 2007, though the revenue is increasing steadily but due to high operating expenses the company’s profit margins are very slim. Then Bezos took a complete different angle, quietly building a multitude of new growth engines inside his company, all were rooted in the same theory. If Amazon lets customers set the specs, it could conquer any number of consumer products and services. In 2006 he launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a standalone business. It rang up whooping estimated $2 billion in revenue last year. It serves customers ranging from NASA to Netflix with dozens of cheap, on-demand computer services via the “cloud computing”

Conclusion

By making Amazon's stock to all-time highs during the past year, Bezos effectively hushed critics who worried that the company was spending too much on technology and shipping discounts. Now, the company he founded 15 years ago is firmly focused on exactly the kind of new ventures that Bezos relishes. Whether it's online retail service, the Kindle e-book or cloud computing services, Bezos is committed to develop new kinds of revenue streams for the digital future. Bezos is a great inspirational figure in the business world. 

Healthier School-lunch standards are under attack

Michelle Obama is on the edge to improve school lunch standards ever since she took the office as First Lady. In fact, this is one of her first Presidential election campaign slogans. She is upset about the progress not only as First Lady but also as a mother. Due to poor nutritional standards in school lunches, 1 in 3 U.S. children will develop Type 2 diabetes, which is a very serious concern. House Appropriations Committee vote to allow schools to opt out of nutrition rules requiring more fruits and vegetables, less sodium, less sugar and more whole-grain products. Republican controlled House of Representatives, food-industry groups and other stakeholders have pushed to allow schools to delay the new standards. Some of these standards have removed the full-sugar sodas and junk foods from vending machines and every child is required to have at least one serving of fruits or vegetables per meal.

People who oppose this are concerned about how costly this program is to implement, some schools may go bankrupt, some students may not even like the new standards and they tend to buy food outside of schools. Many especially older kids usually don’t like eating vegetables and fruits, which results in producing more compost waste. Supporters of the new standards say adjusting kids plates will take time but are worth the effort. In their view better child nutrition through improved school meals is one of the most important investments we can make in America’s future. A recent study shows that efforts to establish healthy habits at an early age are working; kids ages 11 to 16 are eating more fruits and vegetables and consuming less sugar, getting more physical activity, and starting their days with a healthy breakfast.

Then why this program is facing hurdles, what are the marketing tactics? 

Companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Con Agra and Schwan's are among big suppliers for National School Lunch Program (NSLP). These companies spend lot of time, resources and money on professional lobbying and are trying to kill the school nutrition bill. They simply don't want to divert their core marketing plans and strategies, which they have built for many years, the stakes are in billions of dollars. Coca-Cola or PepsiCo cannot start making fruits and vegetables over night, it's plain and simple. They simply cannot afford to lose a lucrative market.

In order to succeed in new school lunch program, companies have to revisit their core business. Often times it is an expensive process where the outcome is not guaranteed. Even if companies are ready to move in new direction to produce standard nutrition foods it requires planning and research. Market research is an expensive procedure and return on investment (ROI) is uncertain. Companies which are known to produce high sugar sodas, high carbs, and high fat food products are influential and aggressive players to delay or even kill the bill, their core business fundamentals simply does not align with new nutrition standards. 

Promoting healthy eating in schools may reduce as many as 25 percent of adolescent obesity cases. Research data has shown that 36 percent of the children in reduced-price lunch programs are “food insecure” and 19 percent of those children are obese. The current school meal standards are primary catalyst for obesity. Congress must come together and realize the danger for future generations, save from the obesity pandemonium. Both Republicans and Democrats must put politics aside and focus on effective implementation strategies. Congress should form a committee to work with the companies who are opposing this program, perhaps, lay out new business opportunities, design a business strategy and research, and educate townships, schools, students where it is a serious necessity.

In reality this is a tough program to achieve, it is a cultural shift, and kids may not like healthy food such as fruits and vegetables in their regular diet, Kids resist the loss of their beloved fried chicken, whole-wheat tortillas going straight to the trash can, and replacing with a familiar flaky whole grain white biscuits, a “severe amount of rejection”, it takes time and requires lots of patience. Government and other health organizations should promote the program, design and develop marketing campaigns and educating Ads, run those on prime time slots, mainly in Kids TV channels such as Disney and PBS. Schools should also play critical role in promoting this program, conduct different research approaches such as surveys, observational and ethnographic, behavioral and experimental research methods.