MKTG 490 Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Amazon Discussion

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 300–500 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. 

Introduction: Describe the company, its industry, and its business context.

Critical incidents: Include any stories of the organization’s challenges or achievements. How did it overcome the challenges? How did it accomplish its achievements?

Investment potential: Include any of its current issues that need to be addressed or its potential goals for growth.

Conclusion: Would you invest in this company? Why or why not?

• Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:

What did you learn from your classmate’s posting?

• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?

What clarification do you need regarding the posting?

• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates’ postings?

• First student : David Hand
• 4/24/2022
• Amazon is a large enterprise that is internet based. Amazon sells all kinds of things. The organization sells things as a middle-man, and also sell their own products to millions of customers. Amazons’ main industry is electronic commerce. Electronic commerce is the buy and sale of goods and service via the internet. 

Amazon has achieved many things, including a second-place ranking in the worth of an organization, only being beat by Apple. Amazon accomplishes this and much more achievements because Jeff Bezos and his team think outside the box, and don’t usually take the “obvious” next step. Bezos and his team try to imagine what the customers would like to see next in the marketplace, and accomplish those things before any other company can. Thus securing their foothold in their industry, as well as advancing them in to other industries, and from what I have seen, conquering those as well.

I believe that Amazon is going to continue to grow and advance in to more and more industries, similarly to what Disney has done. Some of the issues that Amazon faces are duplicate listings, and educating the retailers that utilize the platform on how to run their business successful within the platform. If Amazon can accomplish these improvements, I see the acceleration of the company in the future. 

I would, and do invest in Amazon. When you see a company that is dominating the market, and has been for some years now, with a steady and impressive success rate, it is hard to justify not investing. Amazon has given no indication of stopping expansion, and I believe will grow substantially more. I would recommend that anyone whom is starting to invest take a look at Amazon, do their research, and invest if they find the company as impressive and I do. 

References

Amazon Prime. (2022, 04 24). Amazon Prime. Retrieved from Amazon Prime Web site: https://www.amazon.com/

Institute, P. M. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Sixth Edition (6th Edition). Chicago: Independent Publishers Group (Chicago Review Press). Retrieved from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Sixth Edition (6th Edition): https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com/books/9781628…

Second student :Lonnie Schultz 

Introduction:

           Colonial Pipeline is the company I selected for this discussion board. Colonial is a privately control company that was founded in 1961. The company started as a joint venture between nine oil companies (Legal 101, 2021). Colonial owns and operates several refineries and controls more than 5,500 miles of pipeline which provide petroleum products like gas, oil, and jet fuel to much of the east coast of the United States

Critical incidents:

On April 29, 2021, a group of hackers who identified themselves as DarkSide (The 10 Biggest Ransomware Attacks of 2021, 2021), gained access to Colonial Pipeline IT networks through a single user VPN password. During the attack, the hacker was able to download over 100 gigabits of information and installed a ransomware program that targeted the company’s billing and payroll accounts.  The cyber-attack on the company was not discovered until May 7, 2021, when the hackers posted a message on the computer screen of an employee who worked in one of the control rooms. The hacker organization demanded 75 Bitcoin which was the equivalent of approximately $4.4 million, which Colonial paid.

Investment potential:

           If the company were public, the stock in the company would have plummeted and would most likely not have recovered. However, the company is privately owned and operated, so I will discuss the ownership issues the company has experienced. As stated above, Colonial started as a joint venture between nine different oil and gas companies. Over the years, all of the oil and gas companies have sold off their stake in the company with the exception of Shell, which purchased a 10.1% stake in the company. That sale estimates the stake in the company is worth approximately $8 billion, raising the stake from 6% to 16% (Isidore, 2021). With the exception of Shell, the remaining stakeholders are privately held firms and pension funds.

Conclusion:

Would I invest in the company if it were public? I don’t believe I would. Due to the many failures of security within the company and the internal instability of its stakeholders. The fact that a hacker was able to gain access to vital information with a single-user VPN password is ridiculous in this day and age of technology. Most organizations, including my email account, use two-authentication software. Having the knowledge that a single company controls the infrastructure of nearly the entire east coast and failing to secure their information places them in a high-risk category for me. I’ll leave out the fact they paid the $4.4 million in ransom before contacting the FBI.

References

Isidore, C. (2021, May 12). Who owns the Colonial Pipeline? It’s complicated. CNN Business: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/12/investing/colonial-…

Legal 101. (2021, August 11). HOW DID THE COLONIAL PIPELINE GET HACKED AND WHO’S NEXT? Law101.com: https://laws101.com/how-colonial-pipeline-got-hacked/#:~:text=If%20Colonial%20Pipeline%20Co.%20was%20a%20publicly-traded%20company%2C,as%20a%20joint%20venture%20between%20nine%20oil%20companies.

The 10 Biggest Ransomware Attacks of 2021. (2021, November 12). Touro College Illinois: https://illinois.touro.edu/news/the-10-biggest-ran…