In just 25 years, Amazon has grown exponentially from an online bookstore to a global tech giant. When asked to describe what Amazon is, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos explained that the company is a collection of three success principles (customer obsession, willingness to invent and long-term oriented) that drive everything it does no matter the business lines.

1. The 3 Strategic
Success Principles
That Drive
Performance At
Amazon

2. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Title
Text
Introduction
The 3 Strategic Success Principles
That Drive Performance At Amazon
In just 25 years, Amazon has grown exponentially from an online
bookstore to a global tech giant. When asked to describe what
Amazon is, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos explained that the
company is a collection of three success principles (customer
obsession, willingness to invent and long-term oriented) that drive
everything it does no matter the business lines.

3. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Whether you are a new entrepreneur, the leader of a nonprofit
organization or an executive at a large corporation, you likely want to
understand the secret sauce that fuels Amazon’s tremendous growth
and success.
According to founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, who is now
worth $141 billion and is the wealthiest person in the world, three
principles drive Amazon's success: customer obsession, a willingness to
invent and accept failure, and patience to have a long-term focus.

4. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
From online bookseller to internet enterprise
Back in 1994, Jeff Bezos was a former Wall Street hedge
fund executive who was looking for investors for his
technology company that originally began its business as
an online bookstore.
He learned to accept "no" for an answer and respond to
questions such as "What is the internet?" in those early
days.

5. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Even from the start when he was considering leaving his stable job to
take a gamble on a new venture that many people balked at, Bezos was
living one of his success principles. He said, “I knew that, when I’m 80, I
would never regret trying this thing that I was super excited about and
it failing. If it failed, fine. I would be very proud of the fact that when
I’m 80 that I tried. I also knew that it would always haunt me if I didn’t
try.”
Today, Amazon is the world’s second most valuable company right
behind Apple. Here are three principles of Amazon that drive its
continued success.

6. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Customer obsession
As Bezos explains during an interview at the Internet Association Gala,
there are many successful ways to center a company and become
successful such as a competitor, product, technology or business
model obsession strategies, but Amazon’s preferred method is to
always to be customer obsessed. While there is nothing wrong with
these other strategies and they are also capable of driving great
success, Bezos believes customer obsession is the right one and gets
you to success in a healthy way.

7. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Customer obsession
Every single thing that Amazon does is about making things better for
the customer. If they can figure out a way to cut costs, they do it. If
they can make the customer experience better, that takes priority.
Although Amazon has seemingly a disparate array of business lines
such as original content through Amazon Studios, Amazon Web
Services, consumer offerings that arrive in little brown boxes and more,
the common threads are the three success principles. At the top of the
list is being customer obsessed.

8. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Willing and eager to invent
Customers are always dissatisfied, Bezos explains, even
when they don’t know it. Companies must listen to
customer needs and deliver products or services to fulfill
those needs (part of customer obsession), but Amazon
takes it a step further to invent on the customer’s behalf
and solve problems they never knew they had.

9. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Willing and eager to invent
Along with a willingness to invent, is the acceptance of
failure in the process. Amazon has launched a lot of
tremendous ideas that customers ultimately didn’t want.
Those failures don’t stop Amazon, but they propel them
forward. Many people believe technology is disruptive, but
it’s only when customers adopt a product or service that it
becomes disruptive.

10. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bezos asks his team to think in five- to seven-year
timeframes and not the usual two to three years relied on
by many companies. Amazon's team understands there are
no overnight successes and patience is required to get the
success you desire. The success Amazon experiences this
quarter is based on ideas and initiatives that were "fully
baked" several years ago.
Long-term oriented

11. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Amazon are already working on projects several years
down the line. When you start to think this way, it begins to
change the way you plan, where you put your energy and
your ability to look around corners improves. This concept
of long-term thinking doesn't come naturally, but it's a
discipline that you must teach over time.
Long-term oriented

12. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
No matter what business line Amazon pursues next, Bezos
describes that at its core, Amazon is a collection of
principles and an approach they deploy.
Regardless of the products or services they deliver today or
tomorrow, the constant thread is the commitment to the
customer, invention and focusing on the long term.

13. © 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website
© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website

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hello@bernardmarr.com
www.bernardmarr.com