The Amazing Amazon Story: Building Markets and Careers

Mr. Raj Raghavan, Director and Country HR Leader, Amazon India, responsible for their India Consumer Businesses and Global Technology & Business Operations Centers across the country, visited MYRA School of Business, Mysore, to talk to the students and give them an overview of the Dream Company — Amazon.

Mr. Raghavan said Amazon is one of the fastest growing and most exciting e-commerce brands today.  He said that Jeff Bezos built the Amazon Empire on strategies and principles that thinks always of the customer, never of competition.  During his interactions, he shared an interesting anecdote to say that when Jeff’s wife called up her husband and requested him to get her The Washington Post on his way back, he bought the company instead of buying her a copy of the newspaper.

The key takeaways of the extempore talk were that Amazonians discuss ideas for new projects, decide on the best solution for a problem and do anything and everything only with a focus on the customers; their board meetings are held with an ‘Empty Chair’ that represents the customer, and their decisions are based on discussions that would meet with the customer ‘sitting’ in that chair; the three pillars on which their mission is achieved are Customer Obsession, Innovation to simplify and Leaders who ‘Think Long Term’ – totally ‘Customer-Centric’; and every contributor —individual contributor or the manager of a large team, is an Amazon leader, he said.

Amazon has grown to include millions of Consumers, Sellers, Content Creators, Developers, and Enterprises. While each of these groups have different needs, Amazon works to meet those needs, by innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better, and more cost-effective. Their mission is to have customers find and discover anything and everything they might want to buy online, conveniently and at the lowest possible prices; as well as have employees who are as important as their customers.  Technological innovation drives the growth of Amazon to offer customers a wide selection of products, most conveniently — by speedy and quick delivery, and at lower prices —offers that customers cannot refuse.

Amazon has branded merchants, third party sellers, partners who leverage with Amazon’s e-commerce platform and Services to power their e-commerce offerings; teams across the world work on behalf of customers at Fulfilment Centres to provide fast, reliable shipping directly from Amazon’s retail websites,Customer Service Centres, and local convenience ‘kirana’ stores with 24/7 support.   He also shared the fact that Amazon India has a number of projects to facilitate loans to local entrepreneurs across the country to purchase delivery trucks, two wheelers and provides all support to ensure timely and quick delivery of products.

Mr. Raghavan invited questions from the audience on women empowerment programs of Amazon; Amazon’s view of the Indian e-commerce industry, Insights on Amazon’s cloud services and many others.

Chairperson, Prof. Shalini R Urs, Executive Director, Dr. Shrijay Urs, MYRA Faculty students, staff and special invitees from local industries attended the session.   Prof. Sumant Bakshi, Advisor, MYRA delivered the vote of thanks.