Bus302 - Comparing the Management of Amazon.Com and Borders Books

Comparing the Management of Amazon.com and Borders Books

By: Ariese J. Nelson

BUS302

July 30th, 2012

Comparing the Management of Amazon.Com and Boarders Books

When someone says Amazon.com or Borders Book, what generally comes to mind? Of course the first thing for both places we think of is books, music, and movies. Separately when you discuss Amazon, you think or buying anything used or new online. Then as soon as you hear Borders Books, you think of coffee shop, and books at an expensive price. In this paper the writer will be discussing the following: the description or history of the businesses, the comparison and contrasting the management & leadership styles, the reason Amazon is so successful & why Borders failed, how the businesses adapted to change, and lastly some recommendations that would help them be flexible.

In this section, the writer will discuss the brief description or history of Amazon.com and Borders Books. Amazon.com is an American multinational electronic company that is currently located in Seattle, Washington. It is known as one of the world’s largest retailers online. Amazon is also famous for the development of the cloud computing service and of course the Kindle –book. The owner of this famous & well known company is Jeff Bezos, and he started making the company officially go online in 1995. The company Borders was originally located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971. The original founders were Louis and Tom Border, during their college years. In which they developed and had an inventory based on what the community was interested in reading. Borders Books was known as one of the most famous international book and music retailer. It was noted that the first Borders Bookstore was just a two-room store that just sold used books.

Comparing and Contrasting Leadership and Management Styles

In this section the writer will explain & discuss, comparing and contrasting the leadership and management styles of these two company CEO’s.

When you start reviewing and analyzing the leadership & management style of Jeff Bezos, you at first seem almost puzzled and somewhat confused on his type of style & technique. Some of his leadership style was known as complex in which for example he was focused on metrics, took time for projects to develop; also another one is that he is a public figure of the company and provided his company with innovation and a driving force. But to me instead of just saying he has a complex leadership style & I would better define it as first supportive in which for example after a company meeting he stayed behind and cleaned the trash & papers that were laying around. In another instance, when his employees worked 10 hours past their shift, the employees received a cash bonus. Another is participative in which at the time when the company started off, Jeff Bezos himself was assisting the employees answer phone calls & emails. But when it came to his management style it was described as one that uses a root-cause analysis model to get to the bottom of issues. This was made noticeable at a 2010 commencement speech at Princeton University. As he gave his speech he got personal and recounted the impact and significance of his life choices. In which after this his management style is therefore guided by integrity and the desire to do the good things, he also processed various management principles such as the discipline, unity of command & direction, and also the division of work.

Next week come to Borders Books CEO Mike Edwards, whose leadership and management styles were also obsolete when it came to keeping the Borders stores intact and afloat. When you first start analyzing the reviewing the leadership style of Mike Edwards, you see that in the beginning he attempted to process and maintain the supportive leadership style to at least reinsure his employees that the company’s current financial situation would be properly taken care of, and then he sort of very much lacked the style of participative leadership on in which he didn’t try to even consult with other employees into finding a way to uncover a solution on how to help the company make decisions. But we then come to review the management aspects of Mike Edwards, it seems at times that he failed to maintain order with the employees or even to provide a Esprit de corps which was to show that Borders Books had unity and morale about itself & encourage the employees that all isn’t or wasn’t lost.

Amazon.com became successful for approximately three reason, the first one was the use of their review system, in which is where they encouraged their customers to leave reviews on the products they purchased whether the review was good or bad. This way they knew what to improve on or keep the same. Secondly they utilized the section on