Levels of Management

The levels of management are lower level, middle level and the senior level. All the employees are segmented in these levels.

Managers have very important role to play in business organization, certain ways in which managers display some of the below mentioned behaviour are:

• Brevity-Brevity is the art of communicating to the team the work and directions to proceed in the work. Managers practice brevity in the organization by being highly specific in their communication and communicating the deliverables concisely in the very first time(Leonard & Trusty, 2015)
• Variety- Managers display variety in the organization by giving variety of tasks to the team member, this works for the team as it leads them out of boredom and helps to acquire diverse skill sets.
• Fragmentation- Managers display fragmentation in the organization by breaking down the tasks for the team members to make it easy for them. He ensures high fragmentation in the division of work among the team members.
• Life on a speed dial- Managers at Amazon are consistently under pressure and involved in multitasking in all their business activities. They are involved with the team, their peers, senior, management, creating reports for the management and so on. Thus it can be said that life of managers is on a speed dial(Daft & Marcic,2016)

Amazon works in the marketplace which is highly dynamic and keeps changing by every hour. Some of the challenges faced by the managers are:

• Changing customer taste and preferences
• Facing challenges on the sellers end
• Changing policies in the online space
• Conflict handling amongst the team
• Challenge of managing change management(Khanna & Sampat,2015)

Planning, leading, organizing and controlling are the important functions the management in the course of organizational journey (Robert, 2017)

Planning- This is done to make the organization run smoothly, business process and functions are defined to ensure the smooth business functioning of the organization

Leading- The entire organization has to be led by example towards the fulfilment of the business goals and objectives.

Organizing- This is the function where different department are to be created and hiring of the right candidates for the job.

Controlling- This is the process of controlling the business activities and ensuring that the teams are not deviating from the set goals or the intended target (Sandhu, 2017)

1. B)Factors contributing to the success of the company

• Building effective and responsive interpersonal relationship amongst the team, this ensures high productivity and a sense of cohesion among the team. It contributes strongly towards team building which leads to positive synergies in the organization
• Management at Amazon practice clear communication amongst the team member, they do their best in openly communicating any changes in the company and believe in having openness in communication.
• They understand the financial results of the company and then create effective strategies in sync with the financial results.
• Management creates an environment of high job satisfaction at the offices, job satisfaction works as a motivation factor for the employees and they contribute more towards the success of the organization

 A manager according to Mintzberg theory has three roles to play in the organization, the roles are of Figurehead, Leader & Liaison.

Role	Definition	Example
Figurehead	Social , ceremonial and legal responsibilities, people look up to him as the person of authority (Mintzberg, 2016)	Team Manager plays the role by fulfilling all the responsibly
Liaison	Role of liaison is making internal and external contact for the growth of business	Managers communicating with the sellers and the internal team members
Leader	Managing the performance and responsibilities of everyone in  the team	Jeff Bezos sets out objectives for the team for achievement and also leads by example
Entrepreneur	Creating and controlling changes in the organization	Manager brings innovation in the business processes
Disturbance handler	Helps to mediate in disputes	Resolves team conflict and ensures negotiation
Resource allocator	Determine where the organizational resources are allocated(Kumar, 2015)	Different resources are ensured to different department, budgets form a part of it.
Negotiator	Need to take part in the negotiation in the team	Manager ensures that the conflicts are resolved
Spokesperson	Managers represent and speak on behalf of the organization	Leaders representing the organization in public forum or giving interview is an example of it
Disseminator	Communicating useful information to the team	Managers give information to the team members on their business objectives and goals
Monitor	Monitoring the team performance	Managers tend to control if their team is deviating from the desired path.

1. B)The skills relevant to sales manager in order to excel at his work are:

• Technical-Thorough understand of the technicalities involved in registering the sellers on the Amazon platform
• Human Skills- The skill involves proper handling and managing the team by inducing cohesion in the team.
• Conceptual-Thorough understanding of the business processes and using his concepts to drive productivity at work place.

 Efficiency is highly driven in the business organization if all the resources are utilized fully by the team members. For example Amazon utilizes the technology by building on their cloud services, using the same to analyse data, big data analytics, using the same for digital marketing and promoting its products. Efficiency is a high success contributing factor in any business organization.

Effectiveness is ensured in the organization by making right decision at the right time yielding in right results. For example, Amazon realized lacunae in the online video space and thus quickly launched in Amazon prime video services for its customers. The content platform changed the entire landscape of high people consume high quality content.

 General environmental impact on the organization

Bargaining power of suppliers	This factor determines if the suppliers have a strong bargaining power or weak	Makes a strong relationships with the suppliers, rewards them for ensuring high quality
Bargaining power of customer	This factors talks about the switching cost for the customers.	Keeps on adding new product lines, being customer centric in approach and offering loyalty rewards for their association
Competitive rivalry of the firm	This shows the competition in the marketplace	Amazon ensures that it stays ahead of the competition by ensuring fast delivery, new product lines, pushing the service envelope.
Threat of new entrant	This factor shows the threat Amazon faces from any new entrant in the market	The chances of new player in the market are less due to high marketing costs, Amazon keeps its customers loyal reducing the risk
Threat of substitution	This factor explains how Amazon faces the threat from the substitutes product	Low switching cost is a big reason why customers can opt either to go to different websites or to a retail store, Amazon keeps conducting sales on the portal to ensure that the customers get the lowest price.

Specific environmental factors impacting the organization

Political	This factors shows the influence that political forces can cause to the company	By establishing in politically stable organizations
Economic	These factors include the GDP, economic condition of the nation, purchasing power and so on.	Ensuring that the pricing of products is in sync with the purchasing power of the people
Social	This factor includes the lifestyle, culture, behaviour of the people and the society.	Ensures by providing products relevant to the lifestyle of the people
Technological	This factor includes the impact change in technology can cause to the business	Ensures by adopting to new technology
Legal	This factor comprises of the legal functionalities in setting up and functioning of the organization	Ensures by complying to all the compliances
Environmental	This factor includes the impact on the environment due to the organization	Ensures by doing CSR activities helping the environment

Efficiency and effectiveness in the organization is ensured by following the processes and the set procedures. There are management theories which help in ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization

Scientific management theory: This theory is ensured with careful inspection of all the business activities. Careful measurement and specification of each and every task of organization ensures effectiveness and efficiency. Amazon has managers who ensure the same.

Bureaucratic management theory: Weber propounded the theory in line with the scientific management theory; he said that an organization should be broken into different hierarchies for careful monitoring and inspecting of the business activities.

Managerial Functions

Human Relations Movement: This theory said that humans should be given maximum attention to and their needs have to be satisfied if the goals of the organization have to be fulfilled.

Contingency Theory: This theory says that whenever manager takes a decision he should ensure that he carefully investigates all the possible aspects his decision can cause and thus take a calculative decision.

Resources have to be utilized fully to ensure effectiveness in the organization, the resources which Amazon uses are:

Human Resources: One of the most important components of the organization ecosystem, Human resources has to be utilized fully for maximum productivity with assured effectiveness.

Capital resources: Amazon is backed by strong venture capitalist and investors, it ensures that the funds are utilized towards business development and are not wasted in some useless activities.

Technological Resources: Amazon web services are the biggest cloud services, even bigger than Google, the company utilizes technology to gather data, store data and provide highly targeted content to its consumers.

 People focussed approach and task focussed approaches are used by the organization for the delivery of the set objectives.

Task focussed approach: A task focussed approach could be understood in the way that managers structures the team according to the tasks, he in this approach is not concerned with the career development of the employees or their skill set before putting him into a team

People focussed approach: People focussed approach means that the organization cares what the people need, provide them with the resources, provide a right environment and then the employees take over the task of achieving the business objectives.

It has been proven that none of the approaches are wrong and both of them contribute value to the organization. Amazon though uses people focus approach, as it highly believes in the theory that if a company takes care of the employees of the organization, the employees then takes care of the business customers. Amazon provides to its employees an environment filled with learning and growth, they are motivated and are rewarded for their goals achievement. Amazon provides an environment of high Job satisfaction and it is one of the strongest reasons why Amazon is the largest online marketplace in the world.

Problem solving in business organization is really important .One of the problem Amazon identified in its business and how it tackled it is listed as under

Problem identification	Amazon realized that it is losing many customers owing to slow delivery of products. Customer was facing long time to receive the products they ordered for.
Identifying decision criteria	The criteria for the decision was: · Expedite the delivery · Ensure the level of quality · Less investment · USP for the company
Weighing criteria evaluation	Amazon came up with many ideas to solve the problem, some of them were: · Start Amazon prime services for fast delivery of products. · Start drone services for quick delivery of the products. · Open up a warehouse to store the inventory. · Open up its own logistic company to deliver the products. · Shipment on the basis of value of the product, an expensive product to be delivered earliest. · Hire employees from the same regions.
Alternate development	All the options were feasible but some of them were really difficult to implement at the start. Also they require huge capital investment. Company also thought that the option would just cater to one need of the customer without delivering the entire value for its customers. Thus it came up with launch of the Amazon prime services for lightning fast deliveries.
Alternate analysis	The alternate chosen was to launch Amazon prime services. Customer has to sign up with Amazon prime services at a very normal price and provide much benefit to the consumers. Some of the benefits were: · Guaranteed 1-2 day delivery of the product. · Free sign up for the Amazon prime video services (In selected market) · Exclusive deals for the Prime members
Selecting of appropriate alternative	Amazon prime option would bring revenue to the business and help the company to get its lost customers and to attract new customers
Implementing of alternate chosen	Amazon prime services were launched in a maximum duration of 6 months.
Evaluation of the chosen alternative	Amazon prime has pushed the service envelope and has positioned Amazon as the most reliable service provider with assured guarantee of products in the minimum time. It has also added millions of customers on to the platform for Amazon increasing the revenue of the company.

These are the parameters against which the peers of the group are rated. I have mentioned the score for my colleague who is involved in the project with me.

• My colleague ranks high on participation, he is regular in meeting, reaches for the group meeting on time, freely participate among the group member and proactively contributes his ideas wherever required. He also has this smart way of working, even at night if he thinks of some idea he drops a message to everyone without caring a little about the time. Hence, I would say he is extremely participative in his working style.
• My colleague is has a good commitment towards the team, he is considerate towards the feeling of others, works towards the standards of team and the objectives and also helps to sort out the problems of other team members. But I still feel that there is a lack of commitment to the team, he is more focussed on achieving his part of the job role and focuses less on the team.
• Communication is one of the strongest contributing factors amongst the team member for building strong team cohesion. He is proactive in giving feedback to other, is moderate in understanding others and openness to ideas of others. It can be mentioned that there are at times when he weights his ideas more than the other and shows little apathy towards other team members.
• My colleague is an excellent performer, he meets deadlines for tasks, and he is pretty well organized and has a strict professional approach towards his work. He pays attention to details and has an outstanding contribution in the completion of the report. He likes to do an inspection of other’s part as well so that the quality of the report does not hamper.
• It can be definitely said with utmost certainty that he is extremely enthusiastic with his work, is always in high spirits and has a strong motivation to keep going in his work. He ensures that the morale of the team and the members is absolutely high.

References

Chou, M. (2016). An Analysis of Buyers and Reviewers Community in Amazon. com Through Wenger’s Domain-Practice-Community Framework.

Daft, R. L., & Marcic, D. (2016). Understanding management. Nelson Education.

Hassan, M. K., Shakthi, S. P., & Sasikala, R. (2017, November). Sentimental analysis of Amazon reviews using naïve bayes on laptop products with MongoDB and R. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 263, No. 4, p. 042090). IOP Publishing.

Khanna, P., & Sampat, B. (2015). Factors influencing online shopping during Diwali festival 2014: Case study of Flipkart and Amazon. in. Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 24(2), 5.

Kumar, P. (2015). An Analytical study on Mintzberg’s Framework: Managerial Roles. International Journal of Research in Management & Business Studies (IJRMBS), 2, 12-18.

Leonard, E. C., & Trusty, K. A. (2015). Supervision: Concepts and practices of management. Nelson Education.

Mintzberg, H. (2016). 10 The age of the management gurus. A History of Management Thought, 257.

Robert, C. (2017). Five functions of management & leading. Chron, a Hearst Newspapers, LLC.

Sandhu, H. (2017). Ecosystem Functions and Management. Springer International Publishing.