Richard Branson Case Study

For this assignment I have chosen to talk about Richard Branson and Virgin Group. Branson was a very intelligent and ambitious high-school dropout who founded Student Magazine as his first venture. Flash forward 50 years and now Branson is a billionaire who has overseen around 500 companies as the Virgin Group chair. Recently, the industry leader was caught in a social media tiff with Willie Walsh from IAG. As we all know, social media wars are a common thing these days and being in the middle of one can leave you in a good light or a very bad one. This particular disagreement is about Sir Richard 's long-time rival Willie Walsh commenting during an interview with Ulster University Business School that he didn 't "buy all the bull****" about

In their book, "Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World," XPRIZE CEO Peter Diamandis and Flow Genome Project founder Steven Kotler wrote that "it 's his remarkable passion, vision, and leadership qualities that make him an 'exponential entrepreneur '". According to Branson, fun is one of the most important keys to success in any business. Not all of his business are a success however, like Virgin Cola and Virgin Clothing, but Sir Richard is an entrepeneur that knows when to cut the line- which is why he has remained such a success story. While he has started approximately 500 companies, he has also shut down at least 200 of those when he realized they weren 't going to flourish. Another reason Richard Branson is successful in the industry is because he is truly in-tune with his customers, something he calls "customer-centric". He knows customer relations is an essential part of a thriving business and that knowledge, combined with good business ethics and practices has made the Virgin Group brand known throughout the

He not only cares for his companies and customers, but his employees as well. Some of his companies have been named "Best Places to Work", such as Virgin Pulse, which was deemed so in 2015 by the Boston Business Journal. Branson is known for his "hippie" values of love, philanthropy, eco-sustainability, and ethical business practices. He introduced "unlimited vacations" in 2014 and last year announced he will be giving year-long paid maternity and paternity leave. What do you think the world would be like if all bosses treated their employees with the same respect?

I don 't believe this new incident of social media banter will affect the Virgin Group at all. If anything, it will just give more media attention to an already talked-about conglomerate, which is good for any business. Having your name on the tip of everyone 's tongue in the social media can be positive or negative, depending on how you handle the situation. In the same breath, most people in the spotlight know that any attention is still