Research Paper Sample: Google's Culture and Organizational Structure Attributes to Its Success

The success of Google is attributed to its culture and organizational structure which supports excellence in the innovation. The company does not embrace a conventional organizational structure. Furthermore, its organizational culture is not a typical one as the company often emphasizes on change and having direct linkage to the society in its operation. Theoretically, embracing strong alignment between the organizational structure and culture has the highest chances of bringing success in a firm. Hence, Googles business is a real manifestation of such benefits as it continues with expansion and prosperity over years. Therefore, it is true that the current success and dominance of the company in the market is attributed to the benefits of its culture and organization structure.

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The subsequent part of this paper examines how culture and organizational structure of google affects different areas of its operation and the reason it has been a success for the company. Main areas discussed include employees management, legal approach towards the overall company operations, and financial influence in terms of revenues, profits and costs. Finally, the paper also discusses the companys approach to competition and sustaining its customers.

Employees

The level of innovation at Google has always remained high by relying on its employees and allowing them to execute their ideas. It maintains a smallest number of employees estimated to be about 50,000 compared to other companies such as Exxon Mobil that has 76,900 employees and its close competitor Apple with 72,800 employees. The company always strives to create a small room where individuals are brought together for innovative purposes. Additionally, the company strives to ensure that there are increased channels through which employees can express themselves, different talents can be recognized and contribute different ideas towards achieving set objectives. Some of established channels for communication include the Google Cafes that are particularly designed for the purposes of encouraging interaction between the employees both within and beyond teams. Further, the channels serve as a room for sparking conversation on work and play. Another channel is the direct mail where employees are allowed to directly contact the leaders of the company.

At the same time, there us a Google Moderator which is an innovative management tool that is particularly designed by the company engineers. The idea behind this innovation is to ensure that when employees are engaged in technical talks or attening company meetings, anyone is allowed to ask questions that they wish responded. Similarly, the Moderator also allows people to discover the existing ideas, suggestions or questions as well as view the total votes to date. They users can create a new series that asks on ideas, develop questions and responses that are topically organized. Google Moderator is an important project for the company. In this way, when employees are allowed to spend at least 20% of the working time discussing on interesting projects, the company is capable of tapping into variety of talents its employees have.

Subsequently, Google+ conversations offer the company employees opportunity to ask questions directly to the top leaders of the company and other executives on different issues affecting the company. Additionally, there are regular surveys on the employees mangers. The information is used to recognize the best managers publicly and reward them differently, including enlisting as role models and teachers for the following year. Managers with worst performance record are subjected to intensive teaching and coaching, hence helping at least 75% of them to become better in the future.

Legal System

Google legal system is one of the largest in the world and among the most active internal departments. It contains about 1,000 people that are distributed across the world. The team deals with everything starting with disbursement of confidential information, patent applications, regulatory implications and complex tax programs. The company law department is not often subjected to extensive scrutiny in terms of efficiency, value and budgets compared to other departments like Information Technology (IT) and Human Resources (HR). Although the main objective of the legal department is handling legal issues, the team is also mandated with management of the vendor operations, legal technology and the internal operations especially with regard to efficiency and process design. Google maintains a talented legal operations team that supports the human resource. It is also involved in managing customer information and marketing practices.

Furthermore, the legal structure of the company is a standardized one. This has ensured that the system remains dynamic to changes thereby ensuring the best solutions are availed when handling different issues affecting the company operations.

The legal system is also automated which ensures that the market remains efficient. The lawyers in the company are considered as knowledge workers and therefore, through an automated system, they are enabled to engage in more creative activities rather than re-creating the existing ones.

Financial System

Organization culture and structure affects the financial performance of a firm in terms of operational costs, profitability and growth of revenues. Google performance in this area has been wonderful considering the growth it has realized so far. Through its dynamic culture, the company has ensured that it remains highly. Recently, the company reported a $50 billion growth in revenues. This was more than it was forecasted by the analyst. The company has maintained it outstanding capacity within an industry that has recently been characterized by recession. It has continued to remain profitable even after going mobile.

According to Bloomberg, a financial analyst, the company culture has simplified the way investors make investments in its stocks. It dynamic structure has made it easy to stake a higher share in the mobile ads market, thereby increasing the company revenue base. Its share market as a major search engine has continually been sustained through attracting existing and potential markets in the United States and other parts of the world. Essentially, therefore, the company remains a reigning search engine and this is expected to continue for a long time.

Another culture that has been of success at Google especially in terms financial performance is embracing cautious financing. Apparently, many companies often fail when it comes to welcoming investors in their business. However, Google has embraced a culture whereby investors are given a proper guideline with regard to buying shares of the company. The management ensures that outsider investors do not gain control of the company as this may eventually affect the quality of the company on the market. This is also facilitated through choosing the right leadership thereby reducing management chaos especially during transition. Besides, at every step the leaders often remain dynamic while looking forward for enhanced approaches towards providing solution to existing challenges and finding new approaches to different issues.

Competition

Despite being the youngest technological firm, Google has managed to rank among the top three most successful technological firms. This implies that the firm embraces the best strategic approach towards competition. Successful competition has been achieved through embracing various cultural and structural approaches in its operation. The first one included ensuring continuous innovation by employing management of people. Google culture has been focusing on great management of people as it believes that they are the main source of innovation. This has been done through recruiting and ensuring that its innovators are retained. At the same time, people have been provided with great leadership who are willing to embrace efficiency, avoid unnecessary risks and ensure that the company fully complies with legal requirements.

Another important approach was shifting towards a databased people management decision. This is based on the understanding that people should be managed accurately in order to arrive at decisions which are influential for the firm. In this way, the company has managed to produce a superior team that is competitive on the market.

Potentially, by embracing new approaches and focusing on appropriate management of people, the company has become successful in attracting and retaining extraordinary talents. This has made it possible for the company to expand and embrace growth in any area as it has ability to attract, develop and retain high talents in any area of its operation. Thus, the employee analytical system embraced by Google has ensured that the company competes appropriately in the industry.

Customers Approach

Google structural and cultural approach has been customer centric. The company believes that engaging customers can contribute over 50% of overall revenues. The company ensures that its customers are directly engaged by providing acknowledgement of their participation. This is based on the understanding that everyone likes to being recognized. Acknowledgement is done through sending emails. They also responds appropriately to customer queries irrespective of whether it is a complaint or a negative review of the company service. At the same time, the company uses the contribution to understand how the company can improve its customer experience.

Furthermore, the company ensures it remains at the heart of its customers by creating dialog platforms. This helps ensure that there is a feedback loop existing between the business and customers. In this way, through customer reviews and recommendations, other users of the company product get to learn on critical information on the reviewed products. Additionally, the company creates forums, groups and clubs which are helpful in connecting customers.

Conclusion

In summary, it is worth noting that Google appreciates an empowered culture and organizational structure which has been eminent in driving its success. The culture runs through its major operational systems. Starting with its employees, the company criteria is centered towards assigning high value to its workers. Employees are considered by the company as its operational engine and therefore they are trained to ensure continuous innovative and sustainability. The legal system is the dynamic one which ensures that the company lawyers embrace creativity through its operations. The company also embraces a financial system that benefits from creative marketing strategy that ensures that the company revenues and profits are maintained upwards while costs are efficiently managed. Finally, the customer centric approach undertaken by the company is focused towards appreciating and engaging customers as valued assets for the success of the firm.

Bibliography

Berger, Arthur A. Ads, fads, and consumer culture: advertising's impact on American character and society. Lanham Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011.

French, Ray. Organizational behavior. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2011.

Steiber, Annika. The Google model: managing continuous innovation in a rapidly changing world. Cham: Springer, 2014.

Roberts, Sara M. Nimble, focused, feisty: organizational cultures that win in the new era and how to create them. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2016.