Business Development Through Digital Transformation: The Evolution of Amazon.Com

Since 1995, when the first book was sold as an online bookstore, Amazon has continued to evolve turning to a provider of cloud computing services and a publisher. The aim of the present paper is to investigate this evolution focusing on the concept of platform and the concept of infrastructure as metaphors of the business/environment relationship and of the reframing of business sectors. In the case in question, an overlapping between the concept of platform proposed and the technological platform emerges so that it has become the backbone on which Amazon’s businesses run. On the other hand, the concept of infrastructure outlines an environment in which customers can turn into suppliers and also into partners.