in house, because if you are trying to optimize for the customer and not each discrete
portion of the operation, then everything
has to be able to fit together. The system is
looking at your order vs. the thousands of
other orders placed around the same time
or currently in the system and saying, OK,
what is the best way to optimize this pool of
orders and distribute it across a nationwide
network? And to do it at the lowest cost that
meets the standard of speed we need to
achieve? Every step of the process, we’re
constantly running another optimization
around the best place to allocate that order
and the best transportation method to allocate to that order and the best package type
to allocate to that order.
Technology is so ingrained in the way we
think about solving problems and the way
we think about creating innovations for
customers that we really don’t have an IT
department. What we have are technology
teams embedded in business teams so they
really work as one unit. Every team is
thinking about innovation on a regular
basis and how to leverage technology for
innovation.
QInteresting. If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway.
A If it ain’t broke, it’s probably just because you don’t know it’sbroken.
QYou’ve had an insider’s view of many of the things that have enabled
Amazon’s growth. What are some of the
major elements that make for a successful
supply chain?
A There are two big things I would point to. One is hiring and developing the best. In fact, that’s one of our core
principles at Amazon—hiring and developing the best talent. We have done it for a
long time and continue to do it because
getting the right analytic and leadership
firepower in your leadership team is critical to being successful.
The second part is integrating technology into the daily life of all the teams. There
is no team that I know of in operations
that isn’t in some way connected to technology or embedded with technology
teams. I think these are two things that I’ve
seen over my time at Amazon that have
really allowed us to be successful. ;
