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Richard branson case study
Richard branson case study
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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 …show more content…
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 …show more content…
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
Having worked for four Fortune 1000 freight and logistics companies over thirty five years, Craig Raucher knows what it takes to be a successful businessman. He uses his abilities to plan and organize, manage financial investments frugally, and build a winning team to increase sales and revenue for each corporation he works with. Though what has made Craig Raucher a true success in his field is his dedication to the customer.
Having great financial success throughout his life, Buffet strives to share his wisdom throughout his essay. Some find Buffet’s claims unreasonable and others agree with him. Experiencing similar worries of business failure as Buffet once did, I have come to conclude, like Buffet, that the financial success of a business is much more a function of the type of business in which you enter, than the way in which you try to operate the business.
Saunders, George. "The 400-pound CEO." Harper's Magazine Feb. 1993: 52. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
His rise to success is the result of his almost maniacal pursuit of his ambitions. Musk acknowledges the creation of revolutionary cars, advanced rocket systems, and space colonization will not happen working just 40 hours a week (Daum, 2015). Musk’s leadership style relies on the heavy use of referent power and the selling his vision to his employees (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2011). He displayed an example of his ability to inspire his team after the third failed launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2008. Musk addressed his company prior to holding a press conference, and during a short statement to his employees, his leadership galvanized and reinvigorated the entire SpaceX team, leading to the first successful launch of a SpaceX mission only seven weeks later (Feloni, 2014). His ability to influence his employees to buy into his vision of the future is instrumental in the ability of his companies to recruit, grow, and retain high performing and innovative employees despite his intense demands and high expectations (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2011). SpaceX and Tesla are both ranked as having the some of the highest levels of job satisfaction amongst technology companies, with Glassdoor.com ranking SpaceX at number 40 on their list of best employers despite the stressful work environment and tight deadlines, and ranking Elon Musk 8th on their Top CEO’s list, with a 98% approval rating based on
Sir Richard Branson started Virgin Start-Up in 2013 in partnership with the Start-Up Loans Company. The not-for-profit gives young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 30 the opportunity to earn financial support and benefit from mentorship and business advice from one of the most successful companies in the world.
They both emphasized how they valued the opinion of their customers in their companies and made changes to their products based on the needs of their users. Entrepreneurs want to serve others. Unlike Christopher Columbus, Catarina Fake and Craig Newmark were humble and selfless. These two qualities are extremely important for entrepreneurs to demonstrate because they are what build the foundation of a company. If the founder of a company has high moral standards and puts the needs of their clients first, they will gain trust, respect, and loyalty from their customers. Establishing these three things are essential for an entrepreneur to be successful.
As a child he was just as motivated, with his software engineering and business savvy, as he is as an adult today. He has achieved so much, the status of entrepreneur, business man, and philanthropist. He continues to surprise the world with his accomplishments and will not stop; he is someone to look up too, a modern day hero.
“I've known entrepreneurs who were not great salespeople, or didn't know how to code, or were not particularly charismatic leaders. But I don't know of any entrepreneurs who have achieved any level of success without persistence and determination” -Harvey Mackay.
Hamel introduces the topic of revolutionary strategy by explaining the differences between contemporary strategy and revolutionary strategy. Contemporary strategy in his opinion coincides with the “Age of Progress”. The Age of Progress tries to improve current processes and production techniques and attempts to squeeze every last penny from the same strategy that has always been used at a given company. In Hamel’s opinion, this will not work in his “Age of Revolution”. The revolutionary strategy will try to turn an industry upside down. He pounds home his point by illustrating the differences between companies that still try to improve and companies that revolutionize an industry, by stating the differences in the new wealth that revolutionaries create for their stockholders. At first, I felt that he would only be describing internet companies, but he pointed out examples such as Midwest Airlines , who has a higher income percent than the rest of the industry. He talked about companies such as the Body Shop, Virgin-Direct, Dell, Sony and IBM. Hamel shows how even stodgy companies (IBM and Sony) can become revolutionaries.
Having over 400 companies must take a ridiculous amount of time to manage leaving little time to enjoy the wealth Branson has earned or at least one would think. Branson is different from most CEO’s; there isn’t enough time in a day, week, month or even a year for him to manage every aspect of the Virgin Group so he has taken a different approach. Branson commonly refers to Steve Job’s, his entrepreneurial hero, style of leadership saying he was autocratic and made Apple a great company by selecting employees that were like-minded and would follow his every instruction, but this isn’t how Branson leads. Instead of managing everyone and being a somewhat of a dictator within his companies, Branson believes in his staff and gives them a lot of control over the business. His priorities in his business is to put his employees first, customers second, and investors third. He shows this by carefully selecting people within the company who he thinks can run a specific company within the Virgin Group better then he himself, then he delegates the particular business to this person or persons (Vries, 2003). This allows for people to in a sense be there own boss, call the shots and if something fails he pushes his employees to keep trying and to never give up. Richard says, “that if you are not always there, it forces other
James F. Lincoln believed in the “Golden Rule”- “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.” He managed the company with this rule in mind and today, the company’s management team still follows that rule which dictates how employees should be treated. This is the basis of the Lincoln Incentive Management Plan. Under this plan, employees are treated fairly and the company never laid off staff no matter what was going on in the economy or outside world. Lincoln believed that if incentives were given to staff, they would work harder for the success of the company. The company didn’t believe in sharing profits among shareholders but would share profits among their staff first. This plan has worked very well for the company throughout the years as they continue to be a top competitor in the welding
One of these is passion. Bill Gates is very driven. When he sees possibilities he also sees how he can make it happen. He surrounds himself with other passionate driven person that has the same vision.
Bill Gates was one of the best management leader of his time. Cusumano, Michael said that “Gates built and led, for more than 30 years, one of the most successful technology companies in history, and Microsoft’s products touch nearly all of our lives every day. At the same time,” (25). Microsoft is known thour out the world because of his good leadership skills. One of the example why he is such a good leader. Cusumano, Michael said that “Gates stands out for how he, an d the people he hired, unique- ly combined an understanding of “the technology and the business.” Simply being a great programmer did not land you a job at Microsoft. You had to under- stand how to make money from software as well as how to work in a team.” (26). So Bill Gates packet best work for his company and make it better to work and lead the company. Cusumano, Michael said that “Gates led his company through at least two major technological transitions, ei- ther of which might have done in a less able leader and organization: from char- acter-based to graphical computing, and from the desktop to the Internet. He also directed Microsoft’s diversification from programming languages to desktop op- erating systems, applications, enterprise software, video games, and the MSN on- line business, among others.c Finally, Gates has distinguished himself as a truly charismatic leader of a unique kind of company—a software company—which defies conventional rules
The story of these men’s lives is inspiring for a new entrepreneur or innovator to use as an example for effectiveness in business. These two CEO’s would make a good team if they joined forces. Each company has to find their own niche and the business model that works for them. The key to both of these CEO’s success was listening to the customer. Krames also mentioned that it is important to remember the none customer as well. It took strong dedication and devotion of these two men to keep their focus on their company’s mission and vision. Both Chapters illustrated the healthy fear a company faces and satisfy the market (Krames, 2003).
"Bill Gates is a modern business phenomenon: the greatest of the cyber-tycoons. His is not simply a story of technical brilliance and enormous wealth; it is one of remarkable business vision and an obsessive desire to win. It is also about a leadership style that is radically different to anything the business world has seen before."