Jeff Bezos

Dear Mr. Bezos in the far away America, dear Secretary of State Bear, dear members of the Logistics Hall of Fame, ladies and gentlemen

When I think of Jeff Bezos and his creation Amazon, I keep thinking about the turn of the millennium. I had just sold my software companies and, as the new director of a Fraunhofer Institute with a handful of leading representatives of the German retail trade, I was on the stage of the casino in Dortmund. The discussion at that time - as was so often the case in 2000 - revolved around the "Future of Internet-based mail order". 

At the time, there was a very serious debate as to whether the proportion of mail-order e-commerce could exceed 3% or 5%. A misjudgement which, from today's point of view, is hard to believe. The discussion was culminating when a board of directors called out to me: "Listen, Mr. ten Hompel, you won't seriously believe that people will ever renounce the experience of leafing through a catalogue". The mail-order company he represented was broke 7 years later - after another tens of millions of catalogues were printed and mail-order business had long since shifted to the Internet.

Jeff Bezos was long since on the road to revolutionize Internet commerce and thus logistics. But how did it all start?

Jeffrey Preston Bezos - called Jeff Bezos - was born in Albuquerque on January 12, 1964. He was already interested in electronics in childhood and it is reported that his mother had to drive him to Radio Shack to buy transistors and chips. (That was similar with me, by the way - except that I bought some radiotubes. Now I notice that I'm not the youngest member of the Hall of Fame anymore with the recording of Jeff Bezos. It's a pity - at my age you're not often the youngest anymore.)

Bezos' interest in electrical engineering was aroused at an early age and so it is not surprising that he began studying electrical engineering and computer science at the renowned Princeton University in the early 1980s, which he successfully completed in 1986. He was one of the first generation to grow up in school and study with a personal computer.

After his studies, he worked briefly for the mobile communications company Fitel and then for the asset managers "Bankers Trust" and "D. E. Shaw". Already at that time he recognized the power of algorithms and developed programs and algorithms for the management of investment and hedge funds. 

1994 was the year when it all began: The Internet boom begins and Jeff Bezos wants to be there. He becomes self-employed and founds the online bookstore Amazon in Washington. You have to remember - the first web browser (Mosaic) was released only one year before, Google was to be founded 3 years later. 

From today's perspective, everything seems so logical. But in 1994 Amazon was smiled at by many and almost everyone shook their heads. Hardly anyone could see the potential of scaling Internet trade. 

Jeff Bezos said then - and he still says today: "There is so much to invent. So much more will happen. You can't imagine what impact the Internet will have. It's still day one! A quote that gave the Amazon headquarters building the name "Day One North."

As we all know, Jeff Bezo's story is now written and Amazon is one of the world's largest companies with over 550,000 employees. Only under amazon. de are well over 200 million articles listed - Jeff Bezos has achieved his goal: Amazon is the "Everything Store"! And the value of the Amazon brand has long since outstripped classics such as IBM and Mac Donalds.

In addition to the urge to reinvent the world over and over again, Jeff Bezos' work is characterised by the fact that he places the unconditional benefit to the user at the centre of his work. (In contrast to the classic "customer orientation", the "unconditional customer orientation" implies the will to cannibalize one's own business.

He has brought things into our daily lives that seemed to be quite normal to us within a very short time - probably the greatest compliment for him that can be made:

Today, it seems to us quite normal to buy things on the net and to unlock our credit card data with one click.

Today, we read the positive and negative reviews online before we buy a product - 20 years ago, it would be inconceivable to show them together with the product.

Today it's quite normal to read books by Kindle - I think it's great when my wife lies next to me at night and doesn't have to turn on the lights to read. 

When it comes to customer benefits, Jeff Bezos is merciless - even when it comes to his own business and precisely because of this the competition for the best possible service.

• Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12, 1964. He graduated in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton, launching his career in 1986 at Taiwanese mobile telecommunications company Fitel, followed by a stint at Bankers Trust and D.E. Shaw. The computer science graduate developed a computer system for the management of investment funds in the late 1980s. While working at Shaw, Bezos adjusted the existing computer systems to deal with hedge fund transactions. Bezos now employs more than 350,000 people.
• Jeff Bezos can claim to have revolutionised logistics in the mail order sector. He was the first to realise that software and logistics are key to the shift from purchasing-driven trading to demand-driven online trading. Thanks to a combination of software, efficient delivery, automation and long-term strategy, the computer scientist transformed transport logistics and intralogistics from the ground up, making Amazon a benchmark for the sector as a whole.
• Almost any technological development is nowadays influenced by e-commerce; and many innovations are geared exclusively towards e-commerce. Bezos also impressively demonstrated that innovative logistics make an important contribution to corporate success. He has rewritten the history of logistics. His name is synonymous with successful e-commerce and a generation of entrepreneurs whose business models are based on algorithms and innovative logistics solutions. Had it not been for him, not much would have moved in logistics.
• When Bezos in 1994 started his modest entrepreneurial business with an internet bookstore, the traditional trade circles laughed at him. Just an American, who´s home is the country that invented the shopping mall, wanted to abolish the stationary retail market in the long term. He turned “the biggest book store in the world” not only into “the biggest department store in the world” in a matter of a few years but also into a technology company. In 2016 Amazon had a turnover of more than 135bn US dollars. For this reason, laughter is long gone when Bezos' name falls.
• However, Bezos’ success is not based on the goods and services offered by his company. His recipe for success is the way the products are delivered to the customers. He replaced the push principle with a pull approach. While commerce used to only store a selection of products with sales statistics only evaluated after the event, the Internet provided real time insights into current product searches. Bezos was the first to use algorithms for the purpose of pre-estimate consumer desires and he covered the world with logistics centres in order to deliver almost any product cheaply, quickly and reliably to the customer.
• Innovation is important for Bezos. Working by trial-and-error, Amazon tests new technological innovations almost on a daily basis in order to optimise the shopping process from customer order to parcel delivery. The Internet giant has been experimenting with drone delivery since 2013. The first logistics centre in Germany will open in Winsen in September, and some 2,500 transport robots will support the centre's employees. Other successful examples for Bezos’ technology-focused approach are Amazon’s patented one-click order option based on stored credit card data, as well as even more convenient re-ordering via dash button.
• He aims to expand the Amazon Global Supply Chain into a global logistics network in which the company will act as the mediator between merchant and customer, operating all elements of the global supply chain - from production of goods all the way to delivery to the front door. In his private life, Bezos is fascinated by aerospace and is currently working to make space travel possible for everyone.
• However, Bezos efficiency keenness has also been criticized his as an employer for working conditions. When Bezos was voted "Worst Boss of the World" by the International Union Federation in 2014, employees, and even competitors came up on Bezos' side.