Screengrab from Code Conference video.
Over the years, Amazon has morphed from an online bookstore to an everything store. It even began selling cloud computing services through Amazon Web Services, and set up brick-and-mortar shops to get books into more people’s hands.
Yet underlying Amazon’s strategy are what CEO Jeff Bezos called the three big needle movers – things which will grow the business decades from now. These are: selection, price, and convenience (which includes delivery speed and related attributes).
Bezos mused at Code Conference 2016 that he doesn’t think customers in the future will say, “I love Amazon; I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.”
“All the energy that we put into delivering quickly will still be paying dividends 10 years from now because it won’t ever go out of style,” he added.
Amazon has been investing in same-day delivery, its own freight operation, and airplane leasing.
Think long-term
Turning to the audience, he asked them to think about things that’ll be true for their businesses even a decade from now. While the technology and competitive landscape might change, some customer needs won’t.
“Then you can build strategy around those things,” he said.
That’s characteristic advice from Bezos, a famous long-term thinker who once invested US$42 million of his own money to build a clock that’ll last 10,000 years.
Bezos laid out his business philosophy in a famous letter to shareholders, written before Amazon’s IPO in 1997.
“We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market
leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or
short-term Wall Street reactions,” Bezos declared.
Watch the full interview with Bezos:
Editing by Michael Tegos
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