Entrepreneurs should not be intimidated by internet, but should lean into the future and get hooked to the digital platform, according to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com Inc., the second largest e-commerce company in the world.
Bezos, who is on his second trip to India, also said that small & medium businesses (SMBs) should not worry about competition, but should focus on customers instead.
“Usually companies are worrying and obsessing about competition when they should actually be worrying and obsessing about customers. Our first priority has always been customers, and we are not worried about competition,” Bezos said at an event organised by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in association with Amazon.
Amazon competes with the likes of Flipkart and eBay-backed Snapdeal besides its global rival eBay itself, in India.
Bezos also mentioned Amazon has been receiving overwhelming response from customers as well as SMBs in India, and this response has been beyond his expectation. “At the current scale and growth rate, India is on track to be our fastest country ever to achieve billion dollars in gross sales,” he said.
Indeed, early this week, in a media interaction he had said the firm has already hit its target of $1 billion in gross sales in India a little over a year after starting its local marketplace Amazon.in.
This means the firm has achieved the monthly revenues run rate which annualises to $1 billion in sales.
Currently, Amazon is promoting SMBs with indigenous e-tailing initiatives. An outreach programme is currently being run in India to train them on how to use internet tools, techniques and processes that are available over internet for promoting and expanding their businesses.
Amazon will set up performance centres, upgrade logistics services, and develop mobile platform and new tools and techniques to help Indian SMBs to grow, Bezos said.
Bezos is of the view that passion for invention is one of the most important aspects for any business to succeed. There will be failures, but with each failure one moves closer to a successful innovation, he added.
Earlier, the e-commerce giant had announced an additional investment of $2 billion in India.
