100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • 9Seamlessly gathered information can be used to save costs,
to provide a tailor-made service to individual clients, and to sell
more—often using the internet.
The idea
The American online retailer Amazon.com has redefi ned
bookselling. Its culture appreciates the potential of technology,
with the company using information in four key ways:
- To minimize risks by analyzing information from millions
of customers to see how and when they purchase, enabling
Amazon.com to reduce the level of risk. - To re du c e c os ts by using technology to control the way it manages
its inventory and suppliers. - To add value and help customers by offering reviews of books and
free downloadable information, and by treating its home page
as an individual storefront for each customer—for example by
tailoring lists of suggested titles that the customer may enjoy
based on previous purchases. - To inn o vat e. Amazon believes that, to rival its competitors, an
innovative approach is essential in order to improve the value
and service offered to consumers.
What matters is not simply what information exists, but how that
information is used to build competitive advantage. Interestingly,
many other retailing companies have now followed Amazon’s