Google An Entrepreneurial Juggernaut - Case Study Example

CCI Google Innovation has become the key element in many technology development and practicing organizations. The technology industry has grown due to further innovation and higher creativity (Terziovski, 2007). The whole industry has undergone an extreme makeover: this means that the industry has evolved into the development of better, and more sophisticated innovations, and development. Much has changed in terms of use and deployment much more creativity has required more integration of advanced knowledge and technology into the system and much more innovation will be required to maintain a business, or a current system or organization to remain in the market and continue functioning (Parashar, 2007). Much research is needed, and a lot of platforms are going to change in order to accommodate many more advanced innovations. For all this to take place people have to be innovative, creative, change oriented, persistent, risk takers and should have a business entrepreneurial mind (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). The developers in several areas should be focused on a bigger goal as far as technology is concerned. From the case studying done on ‘Google – An Entrepreneurial Juggernaut’, and the research done, a lot of factors should be considered when undergoing and exercising the business plan as an entrepreneur. These factors include: Innovation as a core business process This is the most critical element in business continuity. In one of the case studies, the Model T Ford example shows how innovation can cause changes in an already existing business. In the case study, the company that had operated for around five years made its first business debut when it first produced the Model T Ford. This is the same case in the Google industry in trying to beat its competitors as a search engine in the internet. In the Google case, the creators deployed new and better innovations. In coming up with a better innovation, the developer has to analyze the existing models. Then the developer will look at the risks and demerits of the model and also of its competitors (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). After the analysis, the developer will plan on how to reduce or prevent the negative results. This will then lead to designing a better model and then developing it. After development, the next stage is to implement the idea as a better version of the existing model. This is what the Google enterprise and Dimming of the Light Bulb did (Terziovski, 2007). Building an innovative organization In building, the most important aspect is strategy. It is easier and better if an organization has a clear innovation strategy to beat its competitors. To build an innovative organization, one has to analyze the entire organization and employees, to determine their individual capabilities, and develop an organizational product life cycle analysis report. After the analysis, introduce tools and techniques to improve the employees capabilities, this may involve building teams according to individual capabilities and brainstorming to solve problems (Terziovski, 2007). Then in these groups or individually, encourage employees to come up with innovation through meetings and talk forums or rewarding the employees who have invented something. Developing an innovation strategy In developing an innovation strategy, the most important factor is simply to understand how to manage the opportunity. An innovative strategy is a plan of an organization on how to implement a productive idea (Terziovski, 2007). When developing the strategy the organization should understand the idea and the innovation opportunity. The organization also must know why and what it is going to about the idea. This will involve doing a research on how it will affect the organization, will it be beneficial, if yes, how will it benefit and at how much it will benefit the user. After this, the developer will then implement the innovation strategy. The strategy will assist in deployment of the idea or the innovation. If the innovation strategy is laid carefully with good skills, then the innovation will benefit the users. Google entered into pacts with EarthLink, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, and AOL (Hartley, 2011). This gave it relationships with most of the biggest Internet companies in the industry, which was part of a development strategy. Knowledge push Knowledge push is all about information delivery in knowledge management systems. In knowledge-based management systems, the knowledge push enables serendipity; unknown, relevant knowledge is offered to the broadcast systems, critiquing, active help systems, and agent-based systems (Terziovski, 2007). This is attained by first, organization selling private information for further use by other organizations (outsiders). In this process, organizations benefit from already existing knowledge or information development with other partners, second the organizations takes advantage of available outside knowledge to meliorate competitiveness; this is outside-in (Parashar, 2007). This process is often mentioned in connection with open innovation. Lastly organizations also match the above two processes and innovate together with other organizations that have related features. Knowledge creation and exploitation in these settings has been examined exhaustively, for example, in research on strategic alliances and joint ventures. They have exercised the selling of knowledge to a third party in the business. They have done this to young developers by organizing forums, by which they avail there information for those trying to make it in the industry. Google provides some knowledge to the public to encourage new-comers in the industry. Need pull Knowledge pull is simply information access. In knowledge-based management systems, this is a form of open innovation that merely relies on the inflow of readily available existing knowledge. It is sometimes depicted as the opposite of open knowledge push innovations (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). Here, examples of firms like the passive help systems; search, browsing, and bookmarks all rely heavily on formation access for them, to survive in the market. For them to continue operating, they are supposed to be updated every time, and made easier for users to access and use. Also, they should be non-intrusive in nature. This happens in the Google case in many ways, first when they came into business they tried to make use of the available information and resources about the existing search engines then after establishing themselves in the industries they have bought many ideas and implementing them in their business, beating their competitors by far (Hartley, 2011). Extreme users Innovative organizations and individuals should identify and always notice their extreme user. Developers engage with users (people!), to understand their needs, and gain insights about their lives in relation to use of a certain innovation. The developer draws inspiration from their work-arounds and frameworks (Terziovski, 2007). When developers observe and communicate with extreme users, their work-arounds are noticed, and it amplified the needs. This helps developers pull out meaningful needs that may not come out when interacting with the middle class user. However, the needs that are revealed through extreme users are more or less the needs of a wider population. This means that researchers and developers should involve their extreme user in expanding or advancing a project. Interview and Observe your extreme user as you would do to other folks. Search for work-arounds that can serve as motivation and uncover insights (Terziovski, 2007). Then move to realize what happens with the primary users you are developing for. Google in this case has done a lot to reach out to its extreme users. Provision of subscription links through Google creates a platform in noticing your real user, some of which being the investors and sponsors for example the Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia capital in the early stages of Google enterprise development (Hartley, 2011). Innovation networks Innovation network is simply the spread of the connection and relation between an innovation and its users. The network increases if there is an increase in the number of users. Innovation building, production, dispersion and consumption networks that are distributed across many innovation users exist in the field of “free” and “open source” projects and many other fields, as well (Parashar, 2007). These user innovation networks have a remarkable benefit over the manufacturer-centric innovation development systems, which has enabled individual or a corporation, to develop whatever it wants rather than being limited to the marketplace choices or relying on a particular producer to act as its agent. This is evident in the case study where Google enterprise came up with the idea of serving its worker in the best way possible. First they started with the cafeterias offering free meals and snack (Hartley, 2011). Then they introduced a variety of food to choose in the menus, then creation of a better environment, and good medical services, surpassing the international companies in employee comfort. Decision making under uncertainty Here, the decision maker has utterly no knowledge, or no information of the likelihood of occurrence for any state of nature. In these situations, the decision maker's behavior is entirely based on his/her instinct toward the unknown. Some of these behaviors are pessimistic, optimistic and least regret, among others (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). In this situation, it is better making simple decision for complex environment and avoid ignorance. An organization should also avoid weighing the probability from past events. Building the innovation case In building an instance of an innovation, involve some knowledge about building a simple business plan. The builder should be aware of what will be the outcome of innovation. To create an innovation case is like building a business case where a lot of research is done to decide on the creation. A company takes more time in building a business case that the actual time it takes to implement the case (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). This is evident in the Google case, when the two doctorate dropout came up with this idea, they involved their professors who assisted then to get a well laid plan and even a link to financial assistance, but the two geniuses took years to make their dreams come true. Creating new services and products This is also an essential component of entrepreneurial development activity. For an organization to increase its revenue there must be the issue of alternative service delivery and better and newer version of the products. Some newer versions of the organizations products might be the ones that will put the business on the market scale or the leading product in the market. This is evident in this study of Google case, after 2001, Google company started poaching the best in the industry from different established companies like Microsoft. They took the best innovators and accepted buying of new ideas and innovations from young developers. This new innovation boosted them in becoming the best in the industry (Hartley, 2011). Exploiting new ventures For an entrepreneur and businessman to be more success, they have to exploit ventures and lay there available assets at risk. This has proven to be productive for the risk takers. For the developers, it is promising to try something different as a starter or already in the business (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). Entrepreneurs create new ventures to explore, and exploit a newly speculated business opportunity. The decision of switching the focus from exploring the viability of this opportunity to exploiting it impacts a new venture’s profitability and its survival chances (Peter Skarzynski, 2008). The uncertainty engrafted in the new opportunity is the force behind both the entrepreneurial rents and the venture’s risk of failure, and its, therefore, an important criterion for the decision to consent exploitation. Capturing the benefits of innovation These are simply the benefits the developer or the company reaps after exploiting an innovation idea and implementing the case (Parashar, 2007). To capture its benefits business- wise, the cost calculations are done then compared to the profits made, that is the income. The income should be greater than the cost incurred during development of the innovation. This is evident in the Google case, in the process of trying to increase their revenues in the year 1999, in this year Google could receive 7 million searches per day, but they could not make revenues (Hartley, 2011). So they introduced the ads and labeled them “sponsored links”. They started selling advertisement to large businesses, but sooner they let smaller advertisers to also sign in. Capturing learning from innovation This is the final stage of an innovation creation life cycle. This involves the teachings an individual or an organization will learn from the innovation (Terziovski, 2007). Here, the hypothesis of innovation is compared to the results of the innovation. Conclusion Most of the case studies have an account or a history; this means that, before success, there must be a struggle. Creativity and innovation play a key role in an organization development (Terziovski, 2007). Organization should be prepared to accept changes and learn to accept innovation as the key drive of an organization market controller. References Hartley, R. F. (2011). Management Mistakes and Success. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Parashar, M. (2007). 8 Steps To Building Innovating Organizations. India: SAGE Publications. Peter Skarzynski, R. G. (2008). Innovation to the Core:A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Terziovski, M. (2007). Building Innovation Capability in Organizations: An International Cross-Case Perspective. Australia: Imperial College Press. Read More