Organisation Design Case Study: Amazon & Netflix | StudySmarter

When it comes to companies’ success, organisational design plays a major role. Netflix and Amazon are both innovative and successful companies, and organisational design is among the reasons that they have achieved this. It’s true that Amazon and Netflix incorporate functional and geographical divisions into their organisational designs, but that’s not all.

If you are curious about what exact elements have made these organisations successful, read along.

What is the organisational structure of Amazon?

Online retailer Amazon has grown to be the biggest provider worldwide in the field of e-commerce. Amazon revenues grew from $8490 million USD in 2005 to $232,887 million USD in 2018. The success of Amazon emerged from the rapid rate of digitisation and was also influenced by its organisational structure.

The process of creating the company’s organisational structure to make it align with its culture and objectives is called organisational design. Organisations are aimed to be designed in such a way that they function as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Amazon follows a tall hierarchical corporate structure. That means the organisation implements top-down control elements used on their workforce, working at different units and levels. There are three key components of Amazon’s organisational structure: