1. Amazon.com : Adopting Change
Management Through Effective
Communication

2. Communication is a
sign of dysfunction

3. Change Management - Definition
Change Management is defined
in 2 main practices
 When companies make
organizational changes
 When companies decide to
make new decisions, services
or offerings in their business
 Recognizing the business
market and apply new ideas
and adapting new ideas and
adapting to new changes and
waves of services

4. Amazon.com – Overview
 Founded in 1994
Headquarter in Seattle
 Largest Internet Based
Retailer in the United States
 Business Model Revolves
around the “EDLP – Every
Day Low Prices” Strategy

5. Popular Products

6. Amazon.com – Early Years
Journey from Cadabra.com to Amazon.com

7. Then and Now
1995 Today

8. Fun Facts – Amazon.com
Relentless.com redirects to Amazon.com
Amazon.com used to send money to
customers
Barnes & Noble served as a facilitator
during the foundation years
Even Apple Pays to Amazon.com
8

9. Amazon.com – Customers
To be Earth’s most customer-centric company,
where customers can find and discover
anything they might want to buy online, and
endeavors to offer its customers the lowest
possible prices

10. Amazon. com

11. Amazon.com – Employees

12. Milestones of Amazon.com
 1995 - Began as an online Bookstore
 1997 – Amazon.com announces their IPO
 1998 – Opens DVD/Video Store
 1999 – Amazon.com Auctions is launched
- Granted the “1-Click” patent
 2005 – Amazon.com launches Amazon.com Prime service
 Unlimited Express shipping for $79 a year
 2007 – Amazon.com introduces the Kindle device

13. Jeff Bezos
 Born in the year 1964
 Princeton Graduate
 B.S in electrical engineering &
Computer Science
 Amazon.com
 Founder & CEO
 Blue Origin
 Founded in 2000
 Space Travel to Paying Customer
 The Washington Post
 Acquired “TWP” in 2013

14. Jeff Bezos - CEO of Amazon.com
Jeff Bezos’ Theory of Communication
 You won’t find a cheaper, friendlier place to get everything
you need than Amazon.com
Obsession with Customers
 jeff@amazon.com
A Notorious Micromanager

15.  Ethos is an appeal to the authority and
personal credibility of a speaker.
 Pathos is an appeal to the audience’s
emotions. Descriptions of painful or
pleasant things work best as natural triggers of
emotions.
 Logos is an appeal to an audience by
using logical arguments, facts,
figures and evidence.
Three Fundamental Elements
of Persuasion

16. SUCCES Model: The Six Principles
of Stickiness
1. Simple
 Strip an idea down to its core.
2. Unexpected
 Use surprises to break a thinking pattern.
3. Creditable
 Using expertise, honesty and trustworthiness to
help an idea stick.

17. SUCCES Model: The Six Principles
of Stickiness
4. Concrete
 Using common, simple, well-known images and
examples to make your point.
5. Emotions
 Get people to care about ideas by playing off their
emotions.
6. Stories
 Well-told stories can help illustrate concepts.

18. Communication Style
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos decided to
announce a future delivery service to
the public, during a 60 minutes
interview with Charlie Rose in 2013.
Bezos revealed a secret R&D project: "Octocopter" drones
that will fly packages directly to your doorstep in 30 minutes.
He dubbed the future service “Prime Air” and said it
could be available to customers in as soon as 4-5
years.

19. Types of Argument
Deductive is taking a general
outcome and arguing that it
will influence the outcome of
a specific scenario.
Inductive is taking a specific
outcome and arguing that it
will influence the outcome of
a general scenario.

20. Bezos’ Style in Communication
Bezos is known to use multiple tactics to capture
his senior managers’ focus during meetings.
Some former executives have stories about Bezos’
obsessive focus on the customer.
You could argue Bezos uses an inductive
argumentative style to convey ideas.

21. Examples of Bezos using an
Inductive Argument
 According to the 2012 Forbes article Inside
Amazon.com's Idea Machine: How Bezos
Decodes Customers:
“Bezos periodically leaves one seat open at a
conference table and informs all attendees that
they should consider that seat occupied by their
customer, ‘the most important person in the
room.”

22. Tina Patterson, a senior Amazon.com brand manager,
remembers Bezos’ reaction when watching television ads for
the Kindle:
“Early versions included a whimsical snippet where a
Kindle-carrying reader transformed into a brave matador,
tossed into the air by a charging bull. Everyone giggled—
except Bezos. He hit the rewind button and silently
replayed the matador scene. Then he turned to the group
and adopted a grade-school teacher’s somber voice: ‘I
know it’s cute, and lots of people will think the bull is
funny. But the customer right there is getting his ass
kicked. We can’t let him get hurt.’”
Examples of Bezos using an
Inductive Argument

23. Basics of Effective Presentations:
The Five S’s
1. Strategy
Formulating a strategy for your specific audience.
2. Structure
Create a clear structure.
3. Support
Supporting an argument with evidence.
4. Style
Combine ideas with an enhancing presentation
style.
5. Supplement
Prepare with informed responses to questions.

24. Bezos Communication to
Employees & Investors
During a shareholders meeting in 2012:
“Jeffrey Bezos gave his presentation, we heard that Amazon.com was
going to spend $52 million to install air conditioning in some of their
fulfillment centers. This presentation, given with a bit of a defensive
edge, was the answer to criticism about Amazon.com's horrendous
workplace conditions.”
“We even got to see video of the helicopter flying in the air conditioning
units, and heard Bezos remind us not once, but twice, that it was very,
very, very expensive to put air conditioning units into existing fulfillment
centers,” according to a 2012 Crooks & Liars article.

25. Communicating Information
to Employees
Brandon Watson joined Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire team in 2012.
After three months with the team, he shared the company’s
communication process:
“In any meeting where a decision is to be made, or a review
of any kind, there is a set document type which is to be used
to drive the meeting,” Watson said. “What makes this
process so interesting is that there is little to no
preselling/politicking of decisions.”

26. Employees were given 15 to 30 minutes to read the document before
“an informed discussion begins.” Watson continues:
“This structure forces clarity of thought, refined thinking, and
organization of ideas. It’s easy to hide that you don’t know what
you are talking about in a PowerPoint deck. “ I much prefer this
as a device for driving decisions in a company where projects
have many stakeholders.”
Communicating Information
to Employees

27. How has Amazon.com Survived?
 The Dot.com crash of 2000
 Rapidly increase in stock prices of internet
.com companies
 Too many internet companies raked in
benefits and money
 Plummeting from $107 to $7 a share

28. How has Amazon.com Survived?
Amazon.com staying ahead of the curve
 Amazon.com’s rapid change and adaptation to new ideas based on the
markets
 Communicating to investors their intentions for the company
 Looked to expand their business outside of online-retail
 Always keeping the customer in mind
“I would define Amazon.com by our big ideas, which are customer
centricity”
 Learned from competitors like Walmart
“If you go to Amazon.com, you can find relatively inexpensive prices…”

29. Share Value of Amazon.com

30. Practical Model of Planned
Change
Structuring the Problem
Contracting with the Key Parties
Collecting Data & Feedback
Implementation of Change
Evaluating & Institutionalizing Change

31. Structuring the Problems
Who is the customer of change?
 People working in warehouses
What is the scope of change
 Warehouses all over the country will be affected
Contracting with Key Parties
VP of Supply Chain & other engineers
Opportunity or Performance Gap
Practical Model of Planned
Change

32. Collecting Data & Feedback
 Understanding how the Organization is currently functioning
 Feedback was provided to Jeff Bezos & top level management
Implementing Intervention
 Changing Algorithms in the software and FIFO
 Communicating the change to the employees and warehouse
supervisors
Evaluation & Institutionalizing Change
 Effectiveness of the process
Practical Model of Planned
Change

33. Change Management
Kotter’s 8 Stages
Create a Sense of Urgency
Form a Guiding Coalition
Create a Vision
Communicate the Vision
Empower Others to Act on the
Vision
Create Quick Wins
Build on the Change
Institutionalize the Change

34. How Kotter’s 8 Step Model
applies to Amazon.com
 Amazon.com’s sense of urgency with change
 Recognizing the market and changing services
 From books, then to music and video, onto selling almost everything!
 From dot.com survival to survival of the fittest
 Competing now with the likes of companies like:
 Netflix, Apple, eBay
 Bezos’ Visions of Change
 Communicating and making decisions based on the changing market
 Communicating the Vision
 “The empty chair”

35. How Kotter’s 8 Step Model
applies to Amazon.com
 Empower others to action the vision
 Customer Service
 Create Quick Wins
 1-click patent
 Building on the change
 Starting from a book seller, to music/video seller, to almost everything
you can think of….

36. Amazon.com’s New Changes
Over the Years
 Moving from Books to selling everything
 Amazon.com Kindle
 Utilizing the power of advertising
 3 days after launch, Yahoo puts Amazon.com on their
“What’s Cool Page”
 Orders off of their site soared within the end of the week
 1-Click Ordering
 Allows you to buy something with just one left-button
click on mouse!
 Decision to Allow Customer Feedback
 Ability to post their own reviews of books
 Received negative feedback initially from people asking
 Why are you allowing negative reviews on your Website?
 Bezos responds “we will sell more if we help people
make purchasing decisions”
 Enabling cookie-based algorithms to track and figure
out customers’ past habits into custom
recommendations for new customers

37. How Change Management practices
apply to Bezos & Amazon.com
 The ability to read and act on signals
 The Customer is the #1 Priority
 Bezos stresses that understanding
customers needs
 He himself started answered emails
 Determining the new wave market share
 Amazon.com Prime
 The ability to experiment
 Amazon.com Kindle
 Amazon.com Web Services
 1-Click
 “Charting a path ahead will not be easy. We
will need to invent, which means we will
need to experiment”
 The ability to mobilize
 Quickly requesting the patent for 1-Click
 Bezos philosophy was to get to the market
quickly

38. Communication to Change Management:
Customer Service Story
 People handling emails were
overqualified and underpaid
 Paid only $10-$13 an hour
 One week, the staff was a week and a
half behind in answering emails
 The best employees could answer 12 emails
a minute
 Those who dropped below 7 emails were
fired…
 Bezos Solution
 They dedicated 1 weekend to competing with
each other
 To see who could get through the most
unanswered emails
 Were granted bonuses for the ones who
came on top

39. Amazon.com’s 14 Leadership
Principles
 Customer Obsession
 Ownership
 Invent and Simplify
 Are Right, A Lot
 Hire and Develop the Best
 Insist on the Highest Standards
 Think Big
 Bias for Action
 Frugality
 Vocally Self Critical
 Earn Trust of Others
 Dive Deep
 Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
 Deliver Results

40. Amazon.com’s 14 Leadership
Principles

41. Love or Hate Bezos?
 Love:
 Confrontational culture and find they can’t work
effectively anywhere else
 “The pace of innovation is thrilling”
 “There is fierce competitiveness in everything you
do”
 Confrontational culture and find they can’t work
effectively anywhere else
 Innovation from Leadership
 Willing to take risks
 Making decisions and communicating to employees
when new innovations, changes in the infrastructure
 Survivor
 Bezo’s main principles of business are apparent
through surviving the lows of the dot.com 90’s to
the high’s of becoming the “Everything Store”
 Hate
 Gladiator Culture
 “Not a friendly environment”

42. Ask the Audience
 Does Bezos’ authoritative and aggressive nature when
communicating to employees exemplify survival and
success for a company?
 Does he defy the principles we have been taught in class?
 Do you feel Change Management principles and techniques
are highly emphasized in Amazon.com’s Business culture?

43. Questions?

44. Bibliography
 Stone, Brad. (2013, October 10th). The Secrets of Bezos: How Amazon Became the Everything Store. Retrieved January
25th, 2015 from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-10-10/jeff-bezos-and-the-age-of-amazon-excerpt-from-the-
everything-store-by-brad-stone
 D’Onfro, Jillian. (2014, May 10th). 14 Quirky Things You Didn’t Know About Amazon. Retrieved February 4th, 2015 from
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-facts-story-history-2014-5?op=1
 Stone, Brad. (2011, September 28th). Amazon, the Company That Ate the World. Retrieved January 25th, 2015 from
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/the-omnivore-09282011.html
 Hagey, Keach and Bensinger, Greg. (2014, August 6th). Jeff Bezos’s Tool Kit for the Post: Amazon Founder Brings Skills in
Data Gathering, Software, E-Commerce. Retrieved January 25th, 2015 from
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323420604578652391165965364
 Woo, Stu. (2012, June 19th). What Makes Jeff Bezos Tick? A $42 Million Clock, for Starters. Retrieved January 25th, 2015
from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304543904577395164138218638
 Baldwin, Timothy T., William Bommer, Robert S. Rubin, and Timothy T. Baldwin. Managing Organizational Behavior: What Great
Managers Know and Do. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2013. Print.
 Anders, George. (2012, April 4th). Inside Amazon.com's Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes Customers. Retrieved February 7th, 2015 from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/04/04/inside-Amazon.com/
 Karoli. (2012, May 24th). Inside The Amazon.com Shareholders' Meeting -- ALEC, Mic Check And More. Retrieved February 9th, 2015
from http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/inside-Amazon.com-shareholders-meeting-alec-mic
 Bishop, Todd. ( 2012, June 5th). An inside view of life at Amazon.com, from a Microsoft veteran. Retrieved February 9th, 2015 from
http://www.geekwire.com/2012/glimpse-Amazon.com-fr/
 Anders, George. (2012, April 4th). Inside Amazon’s Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes Customers. Retrieved March 2nd, 2015 from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/04/04/inside-amazon/3/
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2013/08/05/will-posts-culture-love-or-hate-bezoss-values-heres-one-take/
 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203914304576627102996831200
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2013/08/05/will-posts-culture-love-or-hate-bezoss-values-heres-one-take/
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/04/04/bezos-tips/
 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323420604578652391165965364
 http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/the-omnivore-09282011.html
 http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-facts-story-history-2014-5?op=1