An Analysis of Google’s Attempt to Create a Venturesome Climate
In August 1998, two entrepreneurs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, formed the company Google, Inc. Quickly spreading worldwide, Google is known as one of the largest search engines in today’s market. Due to the company’s large size and access to financials to fund new ideas, Google is very involved in corporate venturing, and has been since the very beginning.
To start with, it is important to define a corporate venture before looking at creating a climate for new ideas. Block and MacMillan (1993) define a corporate venture as:
Internal corporate ventures (ICVs) may include major new products, development of new markets, commercialization of new technology, and major innovative projects. They can involve a marked diversification or be closely related to the company’s other businesses. The key differentiating qualities are risk, uncertainty, and significance. (p. 14)
Google’s corporate ventures include major new products, developing new markets, commercialization of new technology and major innovative projects both closely related to the current business and into new businesses altogether. While it is important to note the types of ventures, this paper will look solely at the venturesome climate that Google has created, and not necessarily at the individual ventures themselves.
Perhaps the most critical challenge for senior management is creating a pervasive commitment to new-business development (Block p. 36). Google has addressed this challenge successfully in many different ways. Founders Page and Brin have fostered development, creativity, entrepreneurship and risk taking by setting the example for their employees. There are essentially ten strategies for creating a venturesome climate (Block p. 37). Google has created a venturesome climate by following these ten strategies.
The first strategy is to insist that the entire division pursue new-business development (Block p. 37). The Google Jobs website states “We work hard to create an environment which is inclusive, collaborative and innovative. One of the ways in which Google actively encourages innovation in the workplace is through promoting the “20% project”. All Google engineers have 20% of their time to pursue projects that they’re passionate about. This has lead to the creation of some well-known Google products, like Gmail, and Google News '' products that might otherwise have taken entire start-ups to launch” (www.google.com). This strategy has paid off for Google as has landed the company on Fortunes Top 100 Companies To Work For.
Brush, C. G., Kolvereid, L. L., & Widding, O. (2002). The life cycle of new ventures: Emergence, newness and growth. Boston, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Google is multinational public corporation of United States of America that invested in cloud computing, Internet search and several advertising technologies. Its main business is to develop and host Internet based products and services. The company makes profit through “AdWords” which is internet based advertising program. The CEO of the company is Eric Schmidt. The company was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page who are known as the “Google Guys”. In the beginning the company was registered as a private entity. In 2004 the company’s status changed from private to public concern. After the status of company changed Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page signed an agreement to work together at Google for twenty five year. The agreement will expire in 2029. The aim of the company was to make information universally available in an organized manner. Since then they have been doing this job excellently. The company’s headquarter is located at Mountain View, California.
Google is a well-known free net-search service that millions of people use around the world every day. Every time we don’t know the answer to something right away we take out our smart phones from our pockets and google it. The possibility to be able to google in a search engine is all to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google was created in September 1998. The website can be used in 120 different language and more. It has 97% revenue in advertisement, making almost all of its profit on advertisement. Google is valued at USD $100 billion, first company to be known to be valued at this amount. The company was started up from a garage in Menlo Park, California.
Before they start recruiting, the company must decide what attributes and qualities they want in candidates and define as a hiring group what great looks like. After defining what specific attributes they are looking for, Google must then work to build an applicant pool that is filled with qualified candidates that would be a great fit for Google. With the incentive benefits that Google offers for referrals, Google can use selection tactics such as walk-ins, college campus visits, Internet recruiting such as LinkedIn and Google+, and referrals. By using these recruiting and selection tactics, hopefully Google will create an applicant pool that will sort out who the best candidates for them could be. After recruiting is complete, Google needs a structured selection process that can thoroughly determine great candidates by personal, phone and/or Skype Interviews. Additionally, formal pre-employment tests on personality, verbal, and/or numerical could be administered that include questions relating to performance, personality, and attributes Google is seeking for in
The company then came up with Google Labs which was a startup gear for Google trends, scholars and much more. The company then launched Google news which offers more than fifty thousand news sources in...
Google success can be seen in its staggering revenue figures. Google announced $55 billion in total revenue for 2013, which is 189th on Forbes 500 list, the majority coming from advertising (Google Investor, 2014). On top of this their profits exceeded $15 billion. Despite a narrow revenue stream, Google’s broad product range is also a measure of their success. Part of the strategic developed of the company has been through diversification. This has been achieved through commitment to a policy of bold and aggressive acquisitions, currently they hold over 100 products in their portfolio. This gives them broad awareness, vast economies of scale and sustainability across their product-lifecycle and Boston matrix (Hooley et al 2008).
Google has many competitive advantages over other search engines in its industry. According to the textbook, the four building blocks of competitive advantage are efficiency, quality, innovation, and customer responsiveness. Google’s performance in all of these categories supersedes its competitors in the internet information provider industry.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, NASDAQ: GOOGL), is an international information technology pioneer that specializes in what way individuals access and interrelate with information over a wide variety of platforms. Google has changed a lot since it first started. In 1996 Google's creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin made BackRub, the first version of Google. It was online for a year before they renamed it Google. The company continued to change after that by releasing Google Toolbar and Google AdWords in 2000, and in 2001 Google Groups. In 2001 the image search was released, and in 2002 Google News. In 2003 Google bought Pyra, the creators of Blogger, and released Google Book Search. Then, in 2005 Google Maps, Google Earth, Gmail and Google Talk were released. In 2006 Google acquired YouTube and SketchUp, and released Picasa, Google Docs, Google Financial, Google Calendar, and Google Trends. In 2007 the sky was featured in Google Earth, and Street View was introduced for a few cities in the U .S. Google Chrome was released in 2008 and 10 more languages were added to Google Translate, making the total of supported languages 23. The ocean began being shown in Google Earth in 2009, and the Nexus One smartphone was also released. Today, Google has many more projects than those listed and seems to want to expand into almost anything it can get its hands into.
Google (GOOG) executives said the deal would help transform their company into a global media powerhouse and provide new audiences for the targeted advertising that's the lifeblood of Google earnings. Executives plan to keep the company as a standalone service, while continuing to nurture Google's existing video service. "Video is a great medium for advertising and from that point of view we are really excited about YouTube," Google co-founder and chief technology officer Sergey Brin said on a conference call announcing the Oct. 9 deal. "It is hard for me to imagine a better fit for a company."
Google is known for its many perks it grants to its employees. The company’s corporate office is located in Southern California and its employees refer to its corporate office as a “campus.” Its corporate headquarters is known for its beautiful office space. Googlers are provided with free food and drinks, shuttle transportation, and daycare. Google’s headquarters is known for its playful interior design, which is used to inspire its employees creativity and efficiency. Google believes that by treating its employees properly, it will motivate its employees to work more efficiently, therefore producing quality services and products. The company’s employees are one of the company’s greatest assets (5). Its employees are in fact, stakeholders of the company and Google looks out for their interest, as any business that practices ethics
In his book Organizational Culture and Leadership, Schein defines the culture as: “The climate and practices that organizations develop around their handling of people, or to the espoused values and credo of an organization”.
Google’s internal structure stability can be influenced by external factors. To ensure the right decisions made, they must complete external and internal analysis. Google’s must contend with external environment influences, which are political, economical, and a technological. Day after day must be able to understand how the external environment influences can provide advantages to obtaining opportunities but on the downside expose the threats that Google has to overcome to be successful. For Google to maximize the market opportunities, Google must recognize its internal value, rarity, and organization. To exploit the company’s strength and weakness, Google must comprise an SWOT analysis. When Google accomplishes the SWOT analysis, they will understand the company’s strengths and weaknesses. It will also demonstrate the environmental opportunities and the threats that are facing in this competitive market. Once this analysis completed, Google can plan strategic plan to utilize their strengths, improve upon their weaknesses, maximize their opportunities, and eliminate threats that can endanger their growth as a company.
Stefanovic, I. & Milosevic, D. 2012, "On conceptual differentiation and integration of strategy and business model*", Zbornik Radova Ekonomski Fakultet u Rijeka, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 141-161.
Corporate Entrepreneurship can be seen as the process whereby an individual or a group creates a new venture within an existing organization, revitalizes and renews an organization ,or innovates. Zahra’s(1986) definition of corporate entrepreneurship suggests a formal or informal activity aimed at creating new businesses in established firms through product and process innovations and market developments,whereas sathe(1985) defines corporate entrepreneurship as a process of organizational renewal. Corporate Entrepreneurship has emerged as a much needed ingredient contributing towards the growth of any organization under a changing business environment.
In 1995, the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford. A year later in 1996, Larry and Sergey began collaborating on a search engine called BackRub. Backrub operated on the Stanford servers for more than a year before taking up too much bandwidth. The following year, on September 15th, 1997, Google.com is registered as a domain. The founders created Google with a mission in mind, to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. The name itself is a representation of this mission, Google is a play on the word “googol" a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral one followed by 100 zeroes (“Our history”).