Keeping Google Googley
Autor: Sara17 • September 4, 2017 • 4,407 Words (18 Pages) • 854 Views
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- Google’s rapid growth and increasingly complex organizational structure is taking a toll on several aspects that impact the innovative and entrepreneurial character of the company. Communication is becoming more difficult, visibility of employees, projects and initiative is decreasing, and the perception of complexity and the difficulty to grow within the company is increasing.
- Only 2 out of more than 40 products generate 99% of the revenues at Google. These two products, AdSense and AdWords, where within a single product category. Another product category, Search, was the key to sustain Google’s number of customers, the ultimate targets of the advertising they sold and the reason why businesses advertised with Google. In addition to this, there were three other product categories that included close to 30 products which were offered for free. They were cost centers instead of profit centers.
- Employees are increasingly expressing frustration due to the reduced opportunities to grow, career-wise, due to the recent trend of hiring external managers instead of developing in house talent. Even though this responds to the needs of the fast growing business, the company needs to implement strategies to develop the competence of the current employees. This would decrease the impact of new hires on decision making positions on the culture and ways of working of the company, and would reinforce the long term vision and investment of the employees in terms of carrier path.
- Having in mind that the organization grew increasingly complex and that more than 50% of the products were not generating revenue, the company could explore ways to divide itself, creating separate ventures for different products or groups of, that would allow them to focus on the core business, generate new ones, simplify the complexity of the structure, increase or facilitate communication within the groups of the same venture and provide opportunities for employees. A key success factor for this strategy would need to be to secure that the new organizations could replicate and build on Google’s innovative and entrepreneurial culture.
- It seemed as if the company’s main focus of innovation were its own products. One of the concerns of the managers is the growing amount of processes and bureaucracy. With so many innovative people in the company, they should put more focus on innovating around the ways of working and the processes that were used, implementing control systems centered on effectiveness more than efficiency in those areas that required a high degree of flexibility and innovation, and on efficiency in those areas where the business was more mature and required a high level of repetition of past successes.
- At Google, profit and loss responsibility remained at the CEO level, and not with product or business units. Even though this may be an important factor in the so far successful management style and company culture, this could become a problem when resources would become less abundant. Revenue growth is oftentimes the main driver for companies to turn into innovation and entrepreneurship. Linking employee and unit results to their impact on the bottom line is an important factor in fostering accountability and innovation at all levels of the company.
Question 3.
How would you compare what Google is doing to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship to any three other companies we have studied and analyzed during the course?
The following table presents a comparison of the main practices displayed by Google to foster entrepreneurship between that company and Prince, Procter and Gamble and South West Airlines
- Management involvement in supporting innovation
CEO, founders and middle management were highly engaged in fostering innovation.
Prince
Certain managers showed innovative behavior but innovation and entrepreneurship was not fostered at all levels in the organization.
Procter & Gamble
TOP management and middle management were actively engaged in fostering innovation. Structures like the Innovation Management Team and the Corporate New Venture were created in order to support innovation.
South West Airlines
The case is not detailed in terms of management support to innovation. However, SWA management team showed a high degree of innovative and entrepreneurial behavior.
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- Innovation as part of the company culture
Innovation and entrepreneurship was at the core of the company culture from its very beginning.
Prince
Key employees and managers showed a high degree of innovation, however it cannot be said that innovation and entrepreneurship was part of the culture at Prince.
Procter & Gamble
Innovation was at times, especially during the first years and later during the 90’s an important component of the culture at P&G. It was identified as a key component for the desired grown of the company during the later years.
South West Airlines
SWA was very innovative during the process of deploying and consolidating its operations. It can be considered that innovation was part of the company culture
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- Human resources
High focus on human resources as key success factor for fostering innovation and entrepreneurial behavior. Highly developed hiring process, compensations, benefits and reward systems. Employees were empowered to make decisions, take risks and drive their own initiatives.
Prince
Information on the case suggest there was not a strong focus on human resource development, compensation, benefits and reward systems.
Procter & Gamble
The company had a reputation of hiring the best and brightest. Employees within the CNV were empowered to find ways to make the company more innovative and entrepreneurial.
South West Airlines
SWA recognized
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