Jay Yarow from Business Insider recently shared his initial thoughts after being in a meeting with Amazon at their Seattle headquarters. While the observations are interesting, as a shopper marketer at Theory House, the below caught my eye.

Amazon is focused on customers. One of its buildings is named after its first customer. Focus on the customer was a repeated theme. This is helpful, I think, because it gives Amazon an easy way to make decisions. It starts with the customer and works from there. This was in contrast to Microsoft, which didn't really seem to have one overriding principle guiding its decisions. 

Amazon is a company I have long admired, and this makes me appreciate them all the more. It is one thing to talk about putting customers first. It is another to orient your business model to meet your customers needs. In the digital age, a focus on customers still matters.