WORLD'S MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2018
5. Amazon
Amazon
Amazon is a cloud computing giant and the
largest American e-commerce company. It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos.
Originally known for selling books through
its website (and later digital versions via its Kindle e-reader), Amazon has
built up a customer service, inventory, and shipping empire that allows the
site to offer everything from clothes to lawn furniture to janitorial supplies.
It also sells digital content like movies, music, and apps. Its Amazon Web
Services arm is a multibillion-dollar provider of cloud-based services for
millions of business customers around the world, including government agencies
and universities. And it’s a major player in consumer electronics--not only by
offering devices such as Fire tablets and TV boxes, but also via its Alexa AI
assistant service, which made news at the CES 2017 gadget show by being built
into everything from LG refrigerators to Ford cars.
Amazon is even a Hollywood player, taking
home two awards at the 2017 Golden Globes. Yet the basics of Bezos's business
philosophy--focusing on long-term customer loyalty over short-term profits and
never-ending expansion into new businesses--have been surprisingly consistent
over the years. And Amazon's obsession with efficiency explains why it's now
delivering products in just two hours via its Prime Now service, and why it
hopes to be among the first e-commerce companies to deploy its own fleet of
drones with Amazon Prime Air, a future fleet of autonomous aerial vehicles that
will deliver packages under five pounds.
In an interesting twist, Amazon has made
significant investments in brick and mortar, opening its first bookstore in Seattle
in late 2015 and since then expanding to 13 locations. In 2017, the company
completed its acquisition of Whole Foods and in early 2018 opened an Amazon Go
grocery store to the public at the company's headquarters in Seattle.
https://www.fastcompany.com/company/amazon
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