Amazon Mission Statement

This is Amazon Inc. mission statement overview in 2013. For more information on how to write a mission statement, please refer to our article.

Company Background

NameAmazon.com, Inc.
LogoAmazon.com logo
Industries servedInternet, Online retailing
Geographic areas servedWorldwide
HeadquartersU.S.
Current CEOJeff Bezos
Revenue$ 61.09 billion (2012)
Profit$ -39 million (2012)
Employees88,400 (2012)
Main CompetitorseBay Inc., Netflix, Apple Inc., Barnes & Noble, Inc., Wal-Mart.com USA, LLC.

Amazon Inc. is an American online retailer that primarily sells products over its online marketplace and offers many other products and services through its subsidiaries. Amazon.com sells in 11 countries and ships internationally. It is one of the biggest retailers and is steadily growing every year.
You can find more information about the business in its official website or Wikipedia’s article.

Mission

Amazon mission statement 2013

“We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators.”
Evaluation
Does it include…?
CustomersProducts/ ServicesMarkets
YesNoYes
TechnologyConcern for survivalPhilosophy
NoNoYes
Self-conceptConcern for public imageEmployees
NoNoNo
Does it mention values like…?Customer or product-oriented?
CitizenshipTeamworkCustomer-oriented
NoNoScore
ExcellenceIntegrity
NoNo1.7/4.5

(This evaluation framework is composed of the guidelines listed in our article: Mission Statement for Success)

Overview

Amazon mission scored only 1.7 points, which is a very low score. The company doesn’t mention its products, technology, concern for survival, self-concept, concern for public image and employees in its mission. It provides little information for firm’s stakeholders of what is the firm’s ‘reason for being’ in the business. Amazon also uses this mission as a vision statement, making it even less valuable as a communication tool. In addition, the company makes no mention of the values in the statement or somewhere else on their website (except for leadership values) so it’s a bit unclear as to what guides organizations actions or major decisions. Nevertheless, the mission is customer-oriented, inspiring and enduring.

An unofficial Amazon’s mission statement that can be found on the internet is:

“To continue to offer quality products and services using the best technology available and at a reasonable price. This results in highly loyal customers, while maintaining shareholders interest and company profits in mind. We also want to expand geographically, increasing the number of customers and to keep improving our main competitive advantage – infrastructure. By working hard and having fun we seek to offer the best working environment to our employees, promoting career opportunities, and to increase our responsibility towards environment and the society.”

This mission is not confirmed by the company and Amazon makes no mention of it in its official website. Still, it serves as a good comparison and shows how an official statement should be crafted.

Sources

  1. Amazon.com (2013). FAQs. Available at: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-faq
  2. Wiki Answers (2012). Available at: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_Amazon_mission_statement
  3. Strategic Management Insight (2018). Amazon swot analysis

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