How Amazon uses metrics to drive success

Purpose: The author explains how an obsession with delivering customer value at Amazon is enabled and driven by customer-driven metrics. Design/methodology/approach: The article describes how at Amazon, metrics are established in advance of every activity and specify what actions are expected to happen in ways that can be measured in real-time. Findings: By virtue it’s action metrics, every activity at Amazon is in effect a genuine scientific experiment focused on whether it is delivering the value to customers. Practical implications: Everyone is expected to be obsessed with knowing about and enhancing the impact of what they do for the customer. Originality/value: The article offers a detailed view of the synergy between Amazon’s dedication to real-time measurement of its activities and its obsession with using those activities to deliver customer value.