Job Hierarchy in Zappo's Is Now Holacracy

(12/30/2013) The world largest online shoes shop -- Zappo's -- has gone through some organizational structure changes. Their new structure is called "Holacracy, a radical “self-governing” operating system where there are no job titles and no managers." As the business continues to grow, the Holacracy introduced into Zappo's is to "scale Zappos without letting bureaucracy set in." This reorganization gets much attention because Zappo's the largest company to implement Holacracy so far. Next time when you are upset by Zappo's customer service representative, you cannot ask "let me talk to your manager!"

Labor Disputes Creep to Amazon

(10/6/2013) You probably think of Walmart if I say a retailer that is struggling with labor issues. But now it's Amazon. German Amazon workers may be on a strike before the Christmas sales season in Europe. Note that, Amazon recently has been caught with unfair treatment to their warehouse workers in the US too. Several lawsuits in the US are acting against Amazon now. As an online shopper, we will not see these unhappy workers squeezing their insincere greeting to us like those in Walmart or Target (that is the difference between front-end and back-end operations). But we should not ignore the working conditions and unfair pay those Amazon workers experience.

(12/16/2013) Dear Mr. Bezos, don't say these German workers didn't give you a warning. "Hundreds of workers at Amazon.com in Germany have walked off the job in an effort to put pressure on the American online retailer in the busy days before Christmas to settle on a new wage agreement." You (Amazon) fails yourself.

Bigger is Always Better?

(9/9/2013) Is bigger in business always better? In many industries, main players seek to grow bigger to gain cost leverage (Economy of Scale) or synergy while merging with other business. For some, like Microsoft (NYT), it might have been grown too big. Microsoft is not just the leader in the PC operating system and office software. Microsoft is almost in every corner of technology landscape: Bing search engine, Xbox game consoles and games, Skype in VOIP phone call, Windows phone operations system, and now they will manufacture smartphone hardwares too. This New York Time analysis points out that Microsoft is so big that it may not be able to find a CEO who can really turn this company around. Read more for their analysis.