Good Business Practices

Watch any 5 or more Bloomberg shows on featured American businesses and write a 4-5 page paper with a very brief description the legal and ethical issues to the birth and growth of the featured business in America. Part of your analysis should reflect on what it means to practice “good business” and how you will engage in “good business practices” when you enter the work force

Good Business Practices

Ethical and legal concerns always hit the headlines of most organization. These concerns always seek for unravel the right set of skills that would ensure such organizations gain a favorable image to the consumers through showing concerns and by walking the talk of what they claim to do. In some cases, even though a company may be keen on how they will improve their image to the public, they may be overwhelmed by other factors such as the number of customers. These customers may stream in with different requesting some of which may be easy for an organization to handle, while others may be complicated and may only compel a company to use the various ways that are available to them even if it means using crooked ways. Other factors such as the competition levels may not help to explain how these companies conduct their businesses and in some cases they may push organization to opt for different methods to satisfy the huge demands.

On the other hand, media always tries to unravel the mysteries of how organizations serve their customers looking out for both the ethical and unethical practices that may be practiced by these organizations (Bloomberg News, 2013a). At times it may be as simple as an analysis of the profits that these companies make. One such company that looks into how companies raise their profits is the Bloomberg TV show on programs such as the Bottom line. A company that has featured in the headline of the show is Amazon.com, an online trading retailer that is said to have made more than a sale of 302 items per second in 2013 (Bloomberg News, 2013b).

Birth and growth of Amazon

Amazon began 1994 with Jeff Bezos, a former employee of D.E Shaw & Company one of the Wall Street firms. Jeff’s idea was sparked by the fact that growth of E commerce was projected to grow by about 2300%. Jeff quit his job and made a business plan on product he thought had a high demand then. The products he identified were books, discs, computer hardware, computer software and videos. At its inception, Amazon was making its sales in Jeff’s garage only to later gain heat and headquarter at Seattle. In just two months of operations, Amazon made sales to fifty states and more than forty five countries (Amazon.Com, 2013).

Currently, Amazon operates in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Brazil and United Kingdom. The company has also been characterized by changes with the scope of the company’s operation being transformed to accommodate more needs of the customers through a larger product base. The company has also created more platforms which act as its brand points. The most notable of these points are Zappos, Shelfari, Audible.com and IMDb (Byers, 2007).

According to the time Magazine in 1999, Bezos has received numerous accolades including being the personality of the year due to his contribution in developing a company that has become a citadel in its own right. Additionally, Brad (2013) notes that Amazon is known as a leader in inculcating innovation and creativity in almost every faucet of their operations (Bloomberg News, 2013c). This possibly explains why the company is ever successful especially in selling any of the products and always hiring new workforce even in the middle of economic melt downs (Bloomberg News, 2013a). Each of the products that the company has selected is usually in tandem with serving certain product needs (Brad, 2013).

Controversies surrounding the company

            Being so much of a fortress does not make the company win a positive image to the hearts of customers and the governments. On various occasion, the company is noted to have several controversies regarding its existence. One of the most notable controversy are the poor working condition which is quite unethical for a company that has the largest share of the online retailing cake. On some occasions there are ethical concerns that the company has lured customers from other online retailing sites. Not only is such an act unethical, but it goes wayward from the expectation of the society for fair competition (Bloomberg News, 2014b). In other capacities the company is said to make price cuts and discrimination which influences unfair competition from existing small companies. Thus, Amazon is said to make it hard for these companies to compete by driving them away.

In legal capacities, the company has also received numerous allegations that focus on issues such as libel, cockfighting and pedophile behaviors. Some of these fights lead to controversial fights with special arm of the government such as the Federal Trade Commission who feel the company is uncouth on how it performs its operations. Others cases that are noted are enforcing undue pressure on most suppliers to make major price cuts which allow the company to make a high level of profitability at the expense of its customers and suppliers. Bloomberg News (2014a) adds that the fact the company performs tax collection for the Government that is reason enough for the company to have a certain level of advantage being wielded over some of these arms since the company feels untouchable (Bloomberg News, 2012.

Good Business Practices