Support Activities in Amazon Value Chain Analysis

Secondary activities or support activities consist of infrastructure, human resources

management, and procurement. The support activities of Amazon is essential and it helps
establish, coordinate and facilitate the framework of primary activities to work effectively.
Through these support activities Amazon greatly benefit from the analysis of value chain.

Infrastructure

Amazon is giant in the business field, and no doubt, it couldn't bear its weight without a firm
infrastructure to carry the weight. Amazon has invested finances, time, and efforts to build a
scalable and reliable business model to provide its huge size and market share. It includes
offline structures like shipping, hiring, and delivery. At the same time, the online support and
digital solutions are nothing less than the best.

The firm infrastructure denotes a range of activities, such as- quality management, legal matters
handling, accounting, financing, planning and strategic management. Effective infrastructure
management can allow Amazon com to optimise the value of the whole value chain. Amazon
com can control the infrastructure activities (or commonly called overhead costs) to strengthen
the competitive positioning in the market.

Besides its backend management, the company also has a seamless customer service and
employee management infrastructure.

Human Resource Management

Amazon’s value chain analysis cannot be completed without its HR management department.
Amazon has its in-house employees, international employees, contractors, and temporary
workforce. Amazon has a firm infrastructure supported by technology to ensure maximum
cooperation between the firm and the workforce. Its rewards program and the recognition of
good work have gained loyal employees and the least turnover.

Amazon com Inc can analyze human resource management by evaluating different HR aspects,
including- recruiting, selecting, training, rewarding, performance management and other
personnel management activities. The effective HR management can allow Amazon com Inc to
reduce competitive pressure based on motivation, commitment, and skills of its workforce. The
company can also achieve its cost minimization objectives by analyzing hiring and training
costs with their relative return. The heavy dependence of Amazon com Inc on employees' talent
will increase the importance of this value chain support activity.

Technology Development

Amazon has not only proved its success in physical merchandise but has also not left the digital
front unattended. The processes and solutions like cloud computing and cloud storage that
started as the company's processes to deal with its operations worked so well that they have
become industry standards.
In a modern, technological advanced era, almost all value chain activities depend on
technological support. The technological integration in production, distribution, marketing and
human resource activities requires Amazon com Inc to realise the importance of technology
development. It can be divided into product and process technological development activities.
Some examples are- automation software, technology-supported customer service, product
design research and data analytics. The research and development department of Amazon com
Inc is classified in this category.

Procurement

The sales and Operations (S&OP) process deals with the procurement for the company. The
inventory is managed through this system using forecasting and just time inventory principles.

The procurement in value chain denotes the processes involved in purchasing the inputs that
may range from equipment, machinery, raw material, supplies, raw material and other items
necessary for producing the finished product. Due to its linkage with multiple value chain
activities, Amazon com Inc should carefully consider its procurement activities to optimise the
inbound, operational and outbound value chain.

As mentioned above, the application of Porter Value Chain model depends on understanding
the importance of all activities. After understanding the relative importance of identified value
chain activities, Amazon com Inc should highlight areas where value can be added, cost
efficiency can be achieved, differentiation basis can be set, or processes can be optimised.

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