The Amazon Effect
It is hard to overstate Amazon’s influence on global business right now. When the company raises its U.S. average starting pay, as it did in September, it puts wage pressure on nearly every American business with hourly workers—from fast-food chains to manufacturers. Consumer packaged goods companies increasingly rely on “the everything store” for distribution, even as they also compete with Amazon’s cheaper house brands, such as Goodthreads and Wag. But wait! Amazon’s ubiquitous computing infrastructure arm can provide these frenemies-and just about any business-with analytics, forecasting, and other data tools. Amazon’s impact on corporate operations and culture is so sprawling that our editors felt it warranted an encyclopedic approach. Our A-to-Z guide seeks to capture this powerful company’s current scope, as well as its ambitions, from the bold (stitching together an…