First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure - The first 100 days of the new Amazon CEO will determine the success or failure of the company: 5 things you should do, according to experts and analysts.

That's what Andy Jassy, Amazon's new CEO, likes to say when he gives the green light to an idea. If running the tech giant is like riding a horse, Jassy better hold on well because a wild ride awaits.

On Monday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos handed over the reins to Jassy, making him the leader of a country's corporate equivalent. As with a presidency, Jassy's first 100 days will set the tone for his tenure and help determine the company's future.

First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure

The stakes are high. The former online bookstore is gaining ground with Walmart to become the largest private employer in the US, a milestone that entails obligations that few companies assume. Revenues have grown by at least 20% each year for two decades and, as with any high-tech value, shareholders are pushing to keep it that way. Meanwhile, many of Amazon's 1.3 million workers are disgruntled, rivals are plotting ways to compete better, and regulators are thoroughly investigating allegations of unfair trade practices.

Jassy's first 100 days with current and former Amazon employees, as well as business experts and academics who have studied the company. All agree that it must improve working conditions and relations with traders, while maintaining Bezos ' spirit of innovation. Jassy should also spend less time on micromanagement and pay more attention to antitrust issues, they add.

"You're going to have to focus on a lot of different things," says Brian Dumaine, the author of Bezonomics. "It will be interesting to see how it is presented in public forums and how dynamic it is going to be."

First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure

Improving working conditions

The change in leadership comes at a crucial time for Amazon. The company has had spectacular success in using the software to streamline and automate almost every part of the retail industry and shopping experience. This machine now crashes into the reality of a massive workforce that feels increasingly pressured, watched over and despised. There is union pressure at the national-also global - level underway, possibly one of the biggest challenges facing Jassy right now.

Sunil Gupta, a professor of business at Harvard, says one of Jassy's top priorities will have to be to improve the company's relationship with warehouse workers. "Amazon hasn't done a great job on that," Gupta sums up.

Bezos is aware of this, as it pledged to make Amazon "the best employer on Earth and the safest workplace on Earth" in its latest annual letter to shareholders. This amounts to a hierarchical order for the new CEO to change the company's high-level objectives and give priority to labour issues.

David Niekerk, former Amazon HR manager, tells that Jassy's top priority should be "advocating for a purposeful work environment," adding that she will need to take a "very creative and innovative approach" to meet that goal.

First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure

Improve relationships with vendors

Although Amazon has become a sales channel to reach a wider audience, many sellers complain of various problems, such as increased rates, unfair suspensions, counterfeit products and fake reviews.

Jassy will have to try to build greater trust with these crucial partners, who now account for more than half of the products sold on the Amazon marketplace. Failing to do so could undermine the quality of merchants and products and give competitors, such as Walmart, Target and Shopify, a chance to eat Amazon's market share, says Andrea Leigh, a former Amazon director who is now vice president of strategy at Ideoclick, an ecommerce consulting firm.

"Many of our customers now have more e-commerce sales through an Amazon competitor than Amazon itself, and that wasn't the case before," Leigh says.

First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure

Retain and hire talent

Amazon is dealing with a sudden increase in turnover among its top positions. Dozens of vice-presidents have left at an unusually high rate since the beginning of last year. Several former and current employees claim that this is a problem that Jassy will undoubtedly have to keep a close eye on.

Many of the vice presidents who have recently left were veterans, and several have been replaced by people from other large companies that tend to move slower than Amazon. This could weaken the internet giant's construction and risk-taking culture and lead to a deeper strategy in maintaining the status quo, respondents say.

"It seems that, at management levels, they are losing builders and hiring managers/administrators," says a former executive who prefers to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation in his career.

To sustain the company's growth, Jassy still has to make radical long-term bets that could fail or even undermine Amazon's existing successful businesses, something Bezos did time and again, according to Andrew Murphy, managing partner at Loup Ventures.

"It will be important for Jassy to maintain a virtuous cycle of failure: risk, fail, grow," Murphy says. "Make enough of those big bets, and in the end you'll get big rewards, like Amazon has done in the cloud, in groceries, or in a multitude of other areas."

First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure

Reduce micromanagement

Jassy has a reputation for paying close attention to detail. He likes to review every press release before publishing it and also gives his approval to almost all major name and brand changes to the new services.

Former and current Amazon employees comment that Jassy's interest in details could be a double-edged sword. While it helps get your opinion on all important issues, it also slows down the decision-making process and could end up wasting your valuable time on less important issues.

Jassy ran the cloud business, Amazon Web Services. He now runs the entire company, with complex operations like a Hollywood studio and consumer hardware design, where he has less experience. This means you'll have to be even more efficient at prioritizing your time and ultimately become less micromanager, according to people consulted.

"It's a real problem. He reviews everything, " another former executive who also prefers to remain anonymous tells. "There is no delegation, and that could be problematic for a company of this size."

Pay more attention to the regulatory environment

U.S. and European antitrust regulators are investigating Amazon's operations, and Bezos has had to testify before Congress to defend the company. This will be Jassy's job now, one of the nastiest parts of being a Big Tech CEO, according to Tim Bray, a former Amazon vice president who resigned last year and criticized the company's treatment of warehouse workers.

Bray says that the intensification of the political environment is a growing risk, especially considering that the new president of the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is Lina Khan is the author of a very relevant document on Amazon's antitrust violations.

"Whether Andy likes it or not, Amazon has to pay a lot more attention than it has to the civic/political environment," says Bray. "It's the public face of the company."

# First 100 days Amazon CEO company success failure #