AMZN news..<<the fact that so many mid-level staff jobs are open, begs the question of just who is running Amazon while the e-tailer staffs up. >>
By Penelope Patsuris
The more than 300 job openings Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN) lists on its "Join Our Staff" pages are a clear reminder that it takes real people to run even the most virtual of companies. Even to the casual observer, the fact that so many mid-level staff jobs are open, begs the question of just who is running Amazon while the e-tailer staffs up.
Then there is the legendary tale of how Amazon managed to meet the high demand of the last holiday season. Each and every Amazon employee, from top to bottom, dropped everything to go to the warehouse and pack books. Vendors in California even flew some of their own employees to Seattle to help, and founder Jeff Bezos and CFO Joy Covey were reportedly spotted wrapping gifts.
As inspiring as all that teamwork may have been, this is clearly a scenario Amazon hopes to avoid next Christmas. The positions Amazon's trying to fill range from top slots such as director of finance operations, risk management director and director of customer experience to nuts-and-bolts jobs such as product buyers, operations managers, software and web developers and administrative assistants. "They even advertised for a new CFO during one the company's recent analyst conference calls," says Pacific Crest Capital's Steve Weinstein. "The executives said that Joy [Covey] was moving on to a more strategic position and that if anybody knew of someone who could handle the day-to-day finances, to E-mail them."
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"There are so many product categories Amazon could enter and become number one in, but they just don't have the human capital to take all the opportunity available to them."
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Sources describe Amazon's staffing problems as dire. One individual who recently interviewed with Amazon for an executive position recalls that the woman conducting the interview, a Microsoft alumna, said: "We have slots to fill everywhere," and that "this place is bedlam." Microsoft's work ethic may be legendary, she added, "but this place makes Microsoft look like a day at the beach." Amazon may be executing well, but it's being held together with Scotch tape and twine.
Staffing is one of Amazon's toughest challenges right now. The company is growing at a mind-boggling clip. Wednesday's quarterly earnings announcement said Amazon employs more than 4,200 people. Exactly a year ago its staff numbered just 1,300. At the top are the celebrity executives who direct the vision; at the bottom, the drones who push the carts full of books and CDs to shipping. As at any large company, it's the folks who fall in the middle that do the lion's share of the work. "I believe very strongly that if they could have launched the toy and electronics stores that launched last week any earlier they would have," says Alan Braverman, an analyst at Banc of America Securities. "Staffing-up had to have been a factor in that decision."
Amazon's recruitment program is currently dictating much of the company's strategy, according to Weinstein. "There are so many product categories Amazon could enter and become number one in, but they just don't have the human capital to take all the opportunity available to them," he says. "They certainly have enough capital and customers." Perhaps board member and Silicon Valley VC star John Doerr put it best when he said the company he helped fund suffers from "insurmountable opportunity."
As a result, Amazon must now decide what new markets to enter based upon which windows of opportunity look like they'll slam shut first. "With eBay crushing everyone in the auction space, it was clear that if Amazon had waited any longer, it would have been impossible to get into it. So they went ahead with it," says Weinstein. "It wasn't an easy business to get into, nor was it one that they had the most affinity with. Software, on the other hand, is a great fit with their back-end and their customers, but they think that's a fragmented market that will still be there in a few months. So they've held off." |
