Leadership lessons from Bill Gates on complex problem analysis
Today I read the controversial blog post in which Bill Gates argues for a different approach to managing climate change. In short, he argues that addressing and managing climate change remains an important issue, but funding efforts to do so should be secondary to funding efforts to reduce poverty and disease. My post is neither […]
by Bill Carr
Understanding Amazon’s complex retail operation and supply chain
The complexity of Amazon’s retail operation is staggering. Amazon sells ~600 million items, which flow through 175 fulfillment centers (FCs) and ship to pretty much anywhere on Earth. We enabled this with one part customer obsession and two parts operational excellence. When you place an order on Amazon, you initiate a complex set of automated […]
by Bill Carr
Balancing low prices and profitability through operational excellence
Low prices are a critical input to Amazon’s growth flywheel. But it’s one thing to say you care about low prices; it’s another to deliver low prices when you are losing money. Keeping prices low was a constant challenge. One way we struggled was that our brick-and-mortar competitors, like Walmart, rely on a loss-leader strategy. […]
by Bill Carr
Measuring customer experience through meaningful input metrics
Companies can convince themselves that they’re “customer-centric” by talking about it and giving motivational speeches. But they fail because they don’t back their words with action and mechanisms. It is just wishful thinking. Being customer-centric means defining, measuring, and analyzing metrics that reflect the customer experience. This means measuring the speed, cost, and quality of […]
by Bill Carr
Empowering teams with the Andon Cord for customer quality
At Amazon, we implemented an “Andon Cord” system that allows any customer support member to disable the buy button on an item that results in a poor customer experience. This was inspired by Toyota’s Quality Management practices. It worked like this: Toyota has a physical cord on the production line that any worker could pull […]
by Bill Carr
Using the Amazon PR FAQ process to maximize B2B value
B2B companies create value by building products and services that either reduce costs or grow the revenue of the businesses that are their customers. Here is how B2B companies can use the Amazon PR/FAQ process to do this: When writing a PR FAQ, start with customer needs and work backward from there. The objective is […]
by Bill Carr
Why writing a press release before product development matters
When working with clients on how to implement Amazon principles, their most common question about the PR/FAQ process is “But why a Press Release before the product is built?” Here’s why Amazon does this. Amazon writes a press release before building the product because it forces clarity. It forces you to define the customer’s problem, […]
by Bill Carr
How Jeff Bezos’ email habit drove customer obsession
Jeff Bezos spent significant time reading customer emails. If he read about an issue with your product, he would forward you the email with a simple “?”. I received at least one of these every week during my 10 years as VP of Amazon Music and Prime Video. There are two amazing things about this […]
by Bill Carr
How to write a successful problem paragraph in PR FAQ
At Amazon, we would often spend months working on a single paragraph of the PR/FAQ for a new product idea. This was the “problem paragraph”. Done well, it could lead to a successful product. Done wrong, it will lead to failure. Here is how to write a successful problem paragraph: The “problem paragraph” defines the […]
by Bill Carr
The origin and impact of Amazon’s working backwards PR FAQ
Amazon is famous for the Working Backwards PR/FAQ process, but where did this process come from? In the early 2000s, Steve Kessel and I were building Amazon’s digital media business. We’d present plans to Jeff Bezos, using our MBA toolset, which includes spreadsheets with pro forma P&Ls, market size projections, SWOT analysis, etc… Jeff would […]
by Bill Carr