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Amazon's War On The House Of Otto, Germany's $18 Billion Family

forbes.com

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Re: Amazon's War On The House Of Otto, Germany's $18 Billion Family

#3

Post by TrainedMonkey »

Moral of the story is - people like their goods to be cheap, quickly delivered, and convenient to order. Amazon encompasses all of that and it seems that Otto's companies do not. I applaud his effort to put people ahead of profits, but unless he changes his business model amazon will continue to eclipse his empire.

Re: Amazon's War On The House Of Otto, Germany's $18 Billion Family

#4

Post by toomuchtodo »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #3

Moral of the story is - people like their goods to be cheap, quickly delivered, and convenient to order. Amazon encompasses all of that and it seems that Otto's companies do not. I applaud his effort to put people ahead of profits, but unless he changes his business model amazon will continue to eclipse his empire.

Counterpoint: Perhaps government should enact regulation to lift the floor to prevent a race to the bottom. Amazon warehouses shouldn't become the sweatshops of tomorrow.

Governments exist to protect their citizens, not their businesses.

Re: Amazon's War On The House Of Otto, Germany's $18 Billion Family

#6

Post by giarc »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #3

Moral of the story is - people like their goods to be cheap, quickly delivered, and convenient to order. Amazon encompasses all of that and it seems that Otto's companies do not. I applaud his effort to put people ahead of profits, but unless he changes his business model amazon will continue to eclipse his empire.

Hard to ship your cheap product when your warehouse workers are on strike.

Re: Amazon's War On The House Of Otto, Germany's $18 Billion Family

#7

Post by mfrommil »

There's such a strong negative connotation to "burning out" in the article. If an employee puts in a solid 2-3 years and delivers great results for a company, "burns out", and then moves on to a new role or company, is that really that bad?

The company (in this case, Amazon) got great results from its employee, the employee had a good experience (and can leverage it to get a promotion, internally or externally).

I guess it depends on what employees are looking for in their career - to be the best they can be, or live a laid back lifestyle.

edit agree with the comments... this is a too simplified black/white comment. completely agree that finding the right balance between work/non-work on an individual basis is important.

Re: Amazon's War On The House Of Otto, Germany's $18 Billion Family

#9

Post by mxfh »

If you see how Hermes Group, an Otto owned logistics company, (sub-)subcontractors have to handle their daily work load at (often below) minimum wage pay, often with their private cars, it's hard to believe he's that serious about running a morally superior business for any other reason than getting good PR.

DHL is not golden either but Hermes is just bad in every aspect. As a private customer in Germany I would try to avoid getting stuff shipped to me through Hermes by all means possible, since you never know who delivers your stuff (high fluctuation of sub-sub contractors) the delivery experience ranges from unacceptable to slightly above sub-par.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/tv/ard-film-ueber-lohndumping-d... [German]

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht... [Google translate]

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