Zappos Organizational Structure Chart Marketing Essay

Zappos Organizational Structure Chart Marketing Essay All the organizations which meets up with there goals and reach greater heights are because they make there costumers satisfied and do not hang back to fulfill the needs of the costumers. Zappos is one of the upcoming e-commerce web site, which is reaching to greater heights of the success very quickly. It is one of the co-operations that deal in shoes and now expanding towards electronics, fashion and many more products. This company start up was in 1999 and less than 10 years it became a billon dollar co-operation. The question which arises here is that how does Zappos manage to hold their clients for a long run. The trust, honesty and clientage, which Zappos develop in a costumer, is the reason for the same. INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT History, origins, structure, activities (Anna Levina) The history of founding company Zappos began in 1999 with Nick Swinmurn who was working at that time as a Webmaster for Silicon Graphics. Nick was walking around a mall in San- Francisco. He wanted to buy a special pair of shoes with a special colour, style, brand and size. After long searching he was not able to find a pair of specific shoes and came back to home. At home he tried to find online a nice pair of boot, but again he was unsuccessful. At that time there were online stores with selling shoes, but there was no online retailer who focused primarily on selling shoes. He thought why not to be first online shoes retailer. With $150,000, Swinmurn started his online shop Shoesite.com in June of 1999 in San Francisco. Later on Shoesite.com has been renamed to Zappos.com (the name came from Spanish word zapatos which means shoes). In 2000 Tony Hsieh (24) jointed to Zappos.com. At the beginning to fulfil orders that were placed online Zappos redirected orders to major shoes distributors to deliver shoes to customers. In 2000 company already had 30 employees and gross sales of $1.6 million. As Zappos rapidly grew, order fulfilment became a challenge. Zappos could not always guarantee the timeliness of supplier drop shipments to individual customers. To meet the expectations of its online retail customers, Zappos acquired its own warehouse and fulfilment centre in Kentucky. In 2003 gross sales of Zappos rose to $70 million. In 2004 they moved head office from San- Francisco to Las Vegas (Nevada). In the end of 2005 the annual revenue at Zappos.com reached $370 million. By 2006, Zappos.com revenue was $597 million. Since 2007 Zappos extended its product categories with including eyewear, handbags, clothing, watches and kids goods. Ebags.coms footwear and accessories e-tailer 6pm.com is acquired by Zappos.Gross sales at Zappos hit $840 million. Online shop had over 1200 brands and 200,000 different styles (P. Robbins, 2009). In 2008 Zappos Insights is launched to help leaders, managers, and employees from other businesses to learn success of Zappos. Gross sales at Zappos hit $1 billion. In 2009 Amazon purchases Zappos.com for $1.2 billion (Zappos Tony Hsieh Delivers Happiness Through Service and Innovation, 2011, para 17). In 2009 Zappos.com was ranked # 23 Fortunes Top 100 Companies to Work For, 2010- # 15, 2011- # 6, 2012- went down # 11. (100 Best Companies To Work For, 2011-2012) The company has an informal organisation structure. The company represents 10 departments, which include; Zappos.com, Inc. implies Facilities- including the responsibilities of food and vending for Zappos and also shipping and receiving, office supplies and equipment, maintenance, cleaning in Las-Vegas, Henderson. Finance  Treasury And Accounting Help Desk- includes scheduling, travel, shuttle services and the last one organizing events. Human Resources- members contacts, benefits, recruiting. IT- it can help a company to keep systems up and working efficiently. Legal- legal requirements to safe and prevent risks for Zappos Family of Companies. Pipeline Team- The aim is to support growth and learning which involves all system of training (4 week), where teachers teach new workers about Zappos Family Culture and how to amaze customers. As well as they teach management classes like Microsoft Office. Zappos IP, Inc. which is included; Development (Software) Project Management Team Zappos Development, Inc. Content Team- these team are responsible for writing the product descriptions Creative Services drafting WEB design CS creates the look and feel of the site Marketing. The User Experience Humans- Their aim is to always improve the quality of online website with utilization of interface, organization of figures, interactive design, where clients could find everything what they need. Zappos Merchandising, Inc. is included developing relation with vendors and purchasing the products. Zappos Fulfilment Centres, Inc. contains storeroom, logistics and delivery of the products. Warehouse around 80,000 sq.m Conveyors length -280m Zappos CLT, Inc. calls, live chats and emails. Online shop customer service works 24 hours, seven day per week. Zappos Insights, Inc. Culture Training, Customer Service Training. Zappos Gift Cards, Inc. They only can sell gift cards. Zappos Retail, Inc. online store on Zappos.com 6pm.com, LLC -online seller on 6pm.com Unlike other shoe companies, Zappos.com became the first company in the world by free shipping on the next day and return the product 365 days per year (The Zappos phenomenon, 2012). ZAPPOS Organizational Structure Chart Customer Customer Focused Team Customer Focused Team Customer Focused Team Customer Focused Team Professional services Marketing QA / Support System OPS Sales Finance Admin HR Product Chief Operating Officer VP Operations Chief Financial Officer Chief Executive Officer Culture of the company (Paula Prieto Cisneros) That sounds like a Cinderella story and from afar one could see it that way. But there were no guarantees it would work and Zappos could have crashed and burned a few times. Tony summed up the company perfectly when he said Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we really think of the Zappos brand as about great service and we just happen to sell shoes. (A Lesson from Zappos , 2011) Zappos as an individual company has their own unique culture, which is based in the Zappos Family Core Values. Zappos has grown a lot as a company and it became more important expressing the essential values from which Zappos development three of their most important things inside of the company: culture, product and industry strategies. Zappos company has ten values but the ones that are related to the employees and the actions that happen inside if the company are: Pursue Growth and Learning, which means that employees need to grow in two areas: personality and professionally. Yet no matter how much better we get, well always have hard work to do, well never be done, and well never get it right. (Zappos.com) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit. This is one of the most important aspects of their culture inasmuch as they place a lot of emphasis on it. Zappos family believes in while employees work well in their own, they need to be able to work better with people from the company and also with each other outside the office atmosphere. Be humble: as the word humble says, Zappos are always concerned that doesnt matter if they have grown quickly and with success, they will always have challenges to overcome. Furthermore, they have a sentence that says that no matter what kind of challenges they have because they need to be considerate with their co-workers. Another of their values in their inimitable culture is what they call do more with less. This means that their tasks are never complete or fixed and employees need to do as much as they can with big labours. Furthermore, those operations have to be done seriously. And while the company tries to become the best company worldwide, they want their employees to be the best. The last value that affect the internal environment of the company is what they call be passionate and determined, which means that workers need to be positive and optimistic in order to become a better company. This is reflected in the position of Zappos corporation. EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT Paula Prieto Cisneros: Historical and social perspective of Zappos Zappos website had made a huge progress in the past few weeks- Nick said. Zappos was getting $2000 worth of orders a week and the number of clients was growing. First of all, Zappos was not making money because when a command was ordered, the owner ran to the resident shoe shop, purchase the product and then transport it to the costumer. After that, the owner (Nick) decided to start a website to demonstrate that costumers would be enthusiastic to buy their shoes on the Internet, therefore Zappos corporation would take commands from clients online, then transfer the order to the creator of the different brands and styles, which would send the product directly to the clients of Zappos. This was what they called drop ship relationship, which existed in many businesses dedicated to other fields. However, they were the first shoe company. Furthermore, drop shipping was one of the most important causes that made costumers buy Zappos products. (Hsieh, 2010) According to the social perspective of Zappos, the owner of the company wanted employees to use the social networking sites and the internet to create a real relation with costumers in order to overcome one their core values, which is called build open and honest relationships with communication. Hence, Zappos employees Hence, Zappos workers have presence in different social sites such as: The first one is Twitter, as we know nowadays Twitter is the second social networking site worldwide, after Facebook. Zappos corporation has its own Twitter account with five hundred worker recorded. Furthermore, the owner of the company is one of the most followed people on Twitter, with 1.85 million of followers. The aim of this, apart of creating relation with costumers, is the employees to use their accounts in order to have a spontaneous communication instead of the classic communication such as promotions or advertisings. (Kelly, 2011) Another social site that Zappos use is YouTube. As a modern company, it has subjects in it, which complements their other nets. In their YouTube account, Zappos can post videos, which show their culture, family and the company itself. Furthermore, they also post clips, employees interests, experiences, etc. Zappos has an account in the first social networking site worldwide called Facebook. They use it, apart of promote their business, to discuss with costumers about the outcomes of their corporation, in an effectively and realistic manner. The last social site that Zappos use are blogs. Nowadays, many companies use them in order to have a closer relation with the clients. Zappos use them to discuss with their costumers about different topics. Some examples of Zappos blogs are: CEO blog, Fashion Culture, etc. Cultural, geographical and financial perspectives (Sajal Garg) What is culture? Cultural in a business considering external environment can be defined as the relationship between the consumer and the service provider. Zappos has a great relation with their customers. They provide a WOW service to them, which is entirely a different way, which can even, be beyond ones imagination. The service department works on innovative and unconventional ideas for the same. The current director of the company also mentioned that WOW service is something, which is not related to the money directly. This kind of service is good for the companys status and customers attraction for the long run. All the customers are treated in the same way and in a better way. There are 24*7 hot line services, which provide one to one live chat service. Zappos build a strong, positive and honest relation with the customers, which normally lacks in many of the service providers working in the same field. This is one of the reasons why Zappos is growing on a faster pace. They want every customer to be emotionally attached to them and provide the kind-hearted, welcoming, loyal treatment. This accomplishes the hardest task of the company, which is to build trust between the consumer and Zappos. The communication between the buyer and the seller should be true and Zappos follow the same policy and is honest with their customers which is effective and open too. Good communication always reaches a mile more than a normal communication. (Zappos Family Core Values, 2010) Geographic or location is one of the key factors of any organization. Zappos has a number of corporate offices, workshops and head quarters all over the world. But the most recent and fascinating on is in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. Which is recently built on a large track of land, approximately consisting of more than 150,000 sq. ft. The developer of Las Vegas, Mr. Liberman supports and explains how has the city grown in past few years. When Zappos wanted to shift the headquarters to Las Vegas the council of the city asked the company to make use of the City Hall Building which is the part of the governing body. After spending the amount of $65 million finishes the renovation, the company will hire 1200 new employees and provide them accommodation to almost 2000 employees. (Dodds, 2011) Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has a sharp brain of marketing. He started sponsoring events like start up businesses, first Friday, etc. The repositioning of Zappos headquarter will generate an atmosphere for more people to set up business and will also give motivation to people to life in the city. Zappos employees are happy working in that company and the prove of the same is when a survey tell that Zappos stand at fourth position amongst top 100 best companies to work for. The improvement in the building is not cheap; the expense for the same is $40 million. And during this recreation of the building there will be more than 100 construction job done. This is not finished yet, the businesses which will gain profit because of Zappos plan of shifting the headquarter are: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Food services and drinking places à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Real estate establishments à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Physicians, dentists and other health care providers à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Employment services à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Couriers and messengers à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Private hospitals à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Private household operations à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Retail Stores Food and beverage à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Retail Stores General merchandise (Riggleman, 2012) The tense attention to the costumer and then type of honest service provided to the costumers have helped Zappos to reach to a level of being a billion dollar company per year in less than a span of 10 years. Being the sole proprietor of making and selling a million pair of shoes, not the company is moving to words making more products like electronic products, fashion products and many more. Hsieh also adds that he would enhance the customer experience as it generates customer repetition. Zappos will also spend a small amount of money in advertising as they did last year, which was $18 million. The reputation build of this company is because of the services like free delivery overseas, promotional upgrades, 365 days exchange policy and most importantly 24*7-customer care service. (Borden, 2012) Conclusion Concluding this whole report about Zappos, we can say that Zappos is a company that came up to the greater heights in the shoe market and enhanced their financial and economical position really well in a short span of time. According to the history of the company, Zappos started up the business in 1999 and from 2000 to 2003 the company touched the greater heights of sky and success, which is an impressive progress for a company as in order to grow, expand and be a billion dollar company in a short period of time. Furthermore, the culture followed by Zappos makes it unique, as they always targeted to have a big family (inside of the company with more employees) while having the best communication with the costumers, according to the 10 core values. The most exclusive and matchless service provided by Zappos to their costumers is the WOW service, in which the costumer is being satisfied beyond his or her imagination. Moreover, the owner and the CEO of the company have incredible power of judging a business outcomes and new areas where he could put his feet in, which is seen through the accomplishment of it. In addition to this, the company has a very optimistic, hospitable and a true relation with the cli ents, which makes the working scenario creative, attractive and open to any ideas of suggestions from employees and clients. Adding to Zappos never advertised before but started it few years before and spent a small amount of money ($18 million) on the same in 2010. According to the activities that Zappos perform, the main part is to manufacture and do the marketing for shoes but from 2007 they started mounting their business into fashion industry making different types of products such as bags, sunglasses, clothing, electronic products, etc. One the most important actions that made costumers buy Zappos products was the drop ship, which was a totally new strategy never done before. Furthermore, serving the costumers by 24*7 through a service hotline and live chats, which builds honest relation between clients and Zappos family. We think that this type of service is lacking in most of the companies who are dealing in this business environment. As Zappos decided to shift the headquart er to Las Vegas, promising the government to give employment and use the RGS building, which will benefit the government through taxes and revenues. In contrast to this, businesses like food services, real estate, health care centres, private house holdings, retail stores and many more businesses, were benefited in a positive manner. As this is not the end of Zappos history until now and we live in a modern world, which has a lot of resources and opportunities, Zappos company will keep growing and expanding their business to different countries, and maybe to other continents.