Discussion: Amazon.com’s Purchase
Discussion: Amazon.com’s Purchase
Bargaining Power of Suppliers Suppliers’ bargaining power can reduce a firm’s options and ultimately its profitability. Suppliers often strive to “lock in” customers through the use of systems (and other mechanisms). For example, there are many options for individuals to back up their laptop data, including many “cloud” options. The power of any one supplier is low because there are a number of options. But Apple’s operating system enables easy creation of backups and increases Apple’s bargaining power. Millions of customers find it easy to use the iCloud, and they do.
The force of bargaining power is strongest when a firm has few suppliers from which to choose, the quality of supplier inputs is crucial to the finished product, or the volume of purchases is insignificant to the supplier. For example, steel firms lost some of their bargaining power over the automobile industry because car manufacturers developed technologically advanced quality control systems for evaluating the steel they purchase. Manufacturers can now reject steel from suppliers when it does not meet the required quality levels.
Through the Internet, firms continue to provide information for free as they attempt to increase their share of visitors to their Web sites and gather information about them. This decision reduces the power of information sup- pliers and necessitates finding new ways for content providers to develop and distribute information. Many Internet firms are integrating backward or sideways within the industry, that is, creating their own information supply and reselling it to other Internet sites. Well‐funded firms simply acquire these content providers, which is often quicker than building the capability from scratch. One example of this was Amazon.com’s purchase of Zappos, the shoe retailer. More recently, in 2015 LinkedIn acquired online learning company Lynda.com to add a capability to offer professional development to the company’s business of networking, recruitment, and advertising.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
