Think Like Amazon: 50 1/2 Ideas to Become a Digital Leader

Book description

The former Amazon executive who launched and scaled Amazon Marketplace delivers the ultimate playbook on how to “think like Amazon” and succeed in the digital age.
“What would Jeff do?” Since leaving Amazon to advise start-ups and corporations, John Rossman has been asked this question countless times by executives who want to know “the secret” behind Amazon’s historic success. In this step-by-step guide, he provides 50 ½ answers drawn from his experience as an Amazon executive—and shows today’s business leaders how to think like Amazon, strategize like Bezos, and beat the competition like nobody’s business. Learn how to:

•Move forward to get back to Day 1—and change the status quo.
•Become a platform company—with the right platform strategy.
•Create customer obsession—and grant your customers superpowers.
•Experiment, fail, rinse, and repeat.
•Decentralize your way to digital greatness.
•Master the magic of small autonomous teams.
•Avoid the trap of past positions.
•Make better and faster decisions.
•Use metrics to create a culture of accountability and innovation
•Use AI and the Internet of Things to reinvent customer experiences.

In addition to these targeted strategies, you’ll receive a rare inside glimpse into how Jeff Bezos and Amazon take a remarkably consistent approach to innovate, explore new markets, and spark new growth. You’ll understand the unique mindset and inner workings that drive Amazon’s operational excellence, from its ground-up approach to new digital markets to its out-of-the-box attitudes on innovation. Along the way, you’ll learn specific game-changing strategies that made Amazon stand out in a crowded digital world. These include actionable ideas that you can use to transform your culture, expand your business into digital, and become the kind of platform company that customers obsess over. Rossman also offers invaluable insights into the latest technologies, e-commerce marketing, online culture, and IoT disruptions that only an Amazon insider would know.

If you want to compete and win in the digital era, you have to Think Like Amazon.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. Introduction: What Would Jeff Do?
  6. Part I Culture
    1. idea 1 Reset Your Clocks: Your Journey Will Not Be Short or a Straight Line
    2. idea 2 Mercenary or Mission Driven? Be Strategic and Honest in Your Obsession, and Then Obsess to Win
    3. idea 3 Move Forward to Get Back to Day 1: Change the Culture of the Status Quo
    4. idea 4 Obsessed is Different: Create Customer Obsession in Your Business
    5. idea 5 Don’t Go Along to Get Along: The Risk Social Cohesion Poses to Achieving Hard Results
    6. idea 6 Deliver Results: Own Your Dependencies to Overcome and Succeed
    7. idea 7 Ownership for Everyone: Compensation Strategy to Drive Enterprise Optimization
    8. idea 8 Avoid Country Clubs: Stay Hungry Even When You’re Successful
    9. idea 9 Make the Elephant Dance: Portfolio Strategy and Governance for Innovation
    10. idea 10 You are the Chief Product Officer: The New Management Science of Being a Builder
    11. idea 11 Are You Willing to Be Misunderstood? Lessons from Amazon’s Biggest Innovations
    12. idea 12 Get to Yes: Finance, Tax, Legal, and HR Teams That Matter
    13. idea 13 Blow Up the Org Chart: Don’t Let Your Organizational Structure and Titles Get in the Way
    14. idea 14 Games for Innovation: Spur Invention in Fun Ways
    15. idea 15 The Door Desk: Forcing Innovation Through Frugality
  7. Part II Strategy
    1. idea 16 Introduction to Mission Impossible: Being Digital
    2. idea 17 Experiment, Fail, Rinse, Repeat: Plan and Operate Your Experiments for Digital Success
    3. idea 18 So You Want to Be a Platform? Platform Strategy for the Rest of Us
    4. idea 19 Yes, You are A Technology Company Decentralize Your Way to Digital Greatness
    5. idea 20 Pizza for All! The Magic of Small Autonomous Teams
    6. idea 21 Never Say Never: Don’t Let Past Positions Create a Trap
    7. idea 22 Relentless.Com: Next-Generation Operational Excellence
    8. idea 23 OPW: The Strategy of Other People’s Work
    9. idea 24 The Magic of Forcing Functions: Get These Right, and Your Teams Will Take Off
    10. idea 25 What’s Your Flywheel? Systems Thinking in Strategy Development
    11. idea 26 Why is This so Hard? Innovate by Reducing Friction
    12. idea 27 Granting Customers Superpowers: Dreamy Businesses and Durable Needs
    13. idea 28 Think Differently: Improve Your Questions for Disruption
    14. idea 29 Launch and Learn: Business Expansion the Amazon Way
    15. idea 30 Don’t Give Away the Operating System: Partners, Vendors, and Strategy
  8. Part III Business and Technology
    1. idea 31 Lies, Damn Lies, and Metrics: Use Metrics to Build a Culture of Accountability and Customer Obsession
    2. idea 32 Process Versus Bureaucracy: Create Processes That Scale
    3. idea 33 Do the Math: The Path to Automation and AI Starts with Formulas
    4. idea 34 Customer Experience Matters: Design and Measure the Customer Experience to Win
    5. idea 35 What’S Your Just Walk Out Technology? Use the Internet of Things to Reinvent Customer Experiences
    6. idea 36 Information Security Must Die: Making Security Everyone’s Job
    7. idea 37 OP1: The Painstaking Process of Planning
    8. idea 38 Strategic Headcount Planning: Scaling and Innovating Through People Allocation
    9. idea 39 Architecture is the Business Strategy: Win Through Technology and Architecture
    10. idea 40 The Questions You Ask: Ask Your CIO These Questions—for Everyone’s Benefit
    11. idea 41 The End of Artificial Artificial Intelligence: Prepare for a Future of Machine Learning
  9. Part IV Approach and Execution
    1. idea 42 One-Way or Two-Way Door? Make Better and Faster Decisions
    2. idea 43 Raise the Bar: Avoid the Biggest Hiring Mistakes
    3. idea 44 A Narrative About Narratives: Ditch the PowerPoint and Gain Clarity
    4. idea 45 The Future Press Release Define the Future and Get Teams on Board
    5. idea 46 FAQS: Answer Others’ Questions for Your Benefit
    6. idea 47 Write the User Manual: Start with the Customer and Work Backward
    7. idea 48 You are What You Eat: Create Change Via the Executive Team Reading List
    8. idea 49 Finance for Fools: Free Cash Flow, Accounting, and Change
    9. idea 50 The Last Word on Becoming Digital: Trust
    10. idea 50½ Principles are Not a Poster: The Pursuit of Speed, Agility, and Digital Leadership
  10. Notes
  11. Index
  12. About the Author

Product information

  • Title: Think Like Amazon: 50 1/2 Ideas to Become a Digital Leader
  • Author(s): John Rossman
  • Release date: May 2019
  • Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill
  • ISBN: 9781260455502