Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Lawrence Page - Case Study Example

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Name: Institution: TABLE OF CONTENT Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………………3 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..…......4 Introduction to Entrepreneur……………………………………………………………..……5 Background of the Entrepreneur ……………………………………………………….……..6 Entrepreneur’s Business Concept …………………………………………………….……….8 Success Process that Lead to the Company …………………………………………………..8 Success and Failure path of the Entrepreneur…………………………………………………9 Lessons Learned from this Entrepreneur……………………………………………………...12 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………13 Executive Summary Entrepreneurship is a series of stages which are important for the establishment of any business idea. It involves a framework structured to guide an entrepreneur in their journey to business success. The relevance of these stages can be illustrated by many corporations which have been able to master the art of entrepreneurship propelling their ideas to greater heights. It is imperative to evaluate such corporations in order to study the process and stages they underwent prior their establishment and growth. In this case, Google Inc is the case study. It is an internet based corporation which has inspired entrepreneurs into implementing their business ideas. Being a multi-billion dollar company, it has created thousands of employment and thus contributing greatly to the global economy. A deeper evaluation of the process of growth of this company will shed light on the importance of the entrepreneurial process and it necessity in the establishment of any business idea. Introduction In the process of starting a business venture, there are crucial steps which are followed. They embody the entrepreneurial process which is considered as a multiple solving action. There should be identification and development an opportunity which will counteract the force which acts against creation of a new idea. There are four stages that characterize the process of entrepreneurship. They include identification and analysis of a business opportunity, developing the business plan, determining the needed resources and managing the enterprise after its establishment. The aforementioned stages progress subsequently and thus cannot be segregated. It is imperative for the business-minded individual to clearly evaluate their idea thus follow it up wisely. The generation of the idea marks the beginning of a venture. It should encompass the description of the problem being solved as well as the possible solutions that can be implemented. Development of a business enables the entrepreneur to evaluate the opportunity from a wider perspective. They question the need to invest into it and the source of investment. Factors such as personal relationships, intellectual property and physical property should also be considered at this stage. The development of a business plan follows and outlines the process through which the idea can be capitalized on. It also shows the need of investment and the structural framework of the idea’s implementation. The final stages are company launch and its growth. These two processes are related owing to their dependence on each other. The company has to launch for it to grow, without this process it remains a business idea. Growth is usually evaluated after the company is able to create revenue and maintain high performance and sustenance. The hardest task in the process of setting a business is identification and analysis of an opportunity. It requires utmost attentiveness from the entrepreneur as well as incorporation of various mechanisms which can assist in recognizing these ideas. The main idea is to identify a need within the society which can present as an opportunity for a business. To create a visual picture of the entrepreneurship stages and their individual relevance to it, it is imperative to evaluate the success of a popular business which will clearly point out each aspect in its essence. 1.1.0 Introduction Of The Entrepreneur One of the major success stories in the business world is the development of Google. It is an American multibillion dollar company which provides services related with the internet. Its headquarters is in Mountain View in California (Vise & Malseed, 2005). It is considered to be amongst the corporation which earns gigantic profits and still achieving success and prominence after years of development and improvement. Being a google search engine, it solves 70% of all queries presented online and has continuously expanded over time. It founders are Sergey Brin and Larry Page who met each other while in Stanford pursuing their Ph.D’s. They decided to register Google as a private company in 1998 and made their first official public offering in 2004 (Vise & Malseed, 2005). The main aim of it establishment was to gather and organize world information and store it in the internet for easy accessibility. This aim is embodied in Google’s motto. Ever since it establishment, the company has achieved major recognition and also facilitated production of more services and products, they include Google drive, Google Mail, Google Docs and Google + (Girard, 2008). The company has also played a key role in the development of the Android operating system. It has contributed to the establishment of browsers such as the Chrome OS. In an effort to produce affordable and quality products, it has collaborated with telecommunication and electronic companies to create devises such as Motorola Mobility and Nexus. In 2007, an estimated one million data server were installed all over the world by google in order to cater to the searches on Goggle making it the most popular site visited all over the globe along with other sites owned by the company such as Blogger and YouTube. Based on the aforementioned achievements, it is valid to state that the entrepreneurs who developed Google discovered a global need and materialized it into a business venture which has since flourished and ranked in billions worth of dollar for its shareholders. It is also critical to note that the development of Google followed the entrepreneur process thus the reason for it success as will be further discussed. 1.2.0 Background Of The Entrepreneur Lawrence Page is a business mogul as well as a renowned computer scientist. He partnered with Sergey Brin and together they established Google. Lawrence is American by birth and his net worth is estimated to be US$32.5 million. He is ranked amongst the wealthiest billionaires by Forbes Magazine. 1.2.1 Education and Early Life of Lawrence Page He was brought up in Michigan in the United States which was also his birthplace. He was born to Carl and Gloria Page who were both academicians (Steiber, 2014). His father was a PhD degree holder and served as the pioneers of computer science since its inception. Carl Page was taught computer science in Michigan State University as a professor. His wife, Gloria, taught in Lyman Briggs College where she worked as an instructor. In his Pre-highschool years, Page schooled at Okemos Montessori School. This was between the year 1975 and 1979, which then followed his graduation from East Lansing High School. His tertiary education was at University of Michigan where he graduated with an Honors Bachelor Degree in Computer Science (Vise & Malseed, 2005). During his years in the university, he developed an inkjet printer. It was made from Lego bricks. In his campus fraternity house, Eta Kappa Nu, he served as its president/ he involved himself in clubs such ‘Maize & Blue Solar Car team and participated in their activities (Steiber, 2014). He furthered his education by pursuing a Master of Science in computer science. This was in Stanford University where he met Sergey Brin. His love for computers was inspired by his father who was a professor in Computer Science. He reiterates that his home was filled with various magazines about computers as well as electronic parts which acted as his play toys (Steiber, 2014). He was taught how to dissemble parts of an electronic to observe how its functions by his elder brother and thus the interest grew. 1.2.3 Education and Early Life of Sergey Brin Sergey Brin is the cofounder of Google which with Lawrence Page developed while still in Stanford pursuing his PH.D. He was born in August 21, 1973. He is Russian by ethnicity but an American citizen. He is a well known computer scientist and a business entrepreneur. His net worth is US $ 30 Billion and similar Page owns an estimated 16% of the Google Corporation (Steiber, 2014). He was born to Michael and Eugenia Brin. His family was Jewish Russians and owing to their persecution in Moscow, it prompted the family to relocate to America in 1979, when Sergey was seven years old. His parent studied and graduates from Moscow State University. His mother became a research scientist in Goddard Space Flight Center. Michael Brin became and still is Mathematic professor lecturing at University of Maryland. His childhood in Moscow was hard despite his parents being employees at reputable institutions. This was primarily due to the persecution of Jews by the Nazis. It was because of this discrimination that made Michael Brin pursue an academic career which he was not passionate about. He convinced his family to relocate to America where Sergey would have a better life and chances to pursue his ambitions (Steiber, 2014). In their stay in America, Sergey went to Montessori School in Maryland. He also received home schooling from his father especially in Mathematic and the Russian language. In his high school years, he schooled at Eleanor Roosevelt High School where he graduated and went to college. In the University of Maryland, he pursued Computer Science and Mathematics and graduated with honors in 1993 (Steiber, 2014). He went for further studies in Stanford University to pursue his Masters in Computer Science. He gained a little experience after having enrolled as an intern at the Wolfram Research. In order to further develop his Web engine idea with Page, he deferred his studies up until now. 1. 3. 0 Entrepreneur’s Idea or Business Concept The idea of Google originated from both its co-founders but both had different reasons as to why they thought of the idea. Initially, Lawrence Page was doing his Masters Dissertation theme. He wanted to focus on exploring the linkage of the mathematical framework of the World Wide Web (Steiber, 2014). He was interested in studying its whole entirety and also had approval from his supervisor who saw it as a brilliant idea. His sole focus was determining the relationship between web links and their pages as well as the importance of having citations within academic publications. He coined his research “Back Rub”. He met Page later on and they partnered on the projects after placing their differences aside and deciding to work as scholars. 1.4.0 Success Process that Lead to the Company Brin assisted Larry to develop his concept of back linking and it became more complex requiring sophisticated computer resources which were above those required for a dissertation theme. Larry proposed the idea of viewing the back links as citations and the issue was development of mechanisms that would quantify and account for each back link on the Worldwide Web Page. Based on the process of entrepreneurship, the first stage was the identification of a need within the society. This is quite evident from how the concept of Google was born. The need was having a web page or research engine which could link all the available information using particular back links (Steiber, 2014). They aimed at developing a crawler that connects links between web pages with similar content. Their first data center was in Page’s dorm room. It is here where they created an algorithm known as PageRank which according to them could be utilized as a search engine. Owing to the complexity of the concept, they had to seek out investor which brings in the third stage of entrepreneurship. They had already set up their business plan or rather project to be precise, they need to find the resources which would materialize their ambition and solve the need. This meant seeking out investors. The fist investment was from Andy Bechtolsheim of Sun Microsystem (Steiber, 2014). He invested $100,000 to the company after he had been impressed by the presentation the two computer scientist had presented to him. After accumulating over $ 1M, they established the company in a garage at Menlo Park which belonged to their mutual friend. This marked the launch of their company and it physical existence. This process as mentioned previously is part and parcel of the entrepreneurship and is relevant in that it show cases the materialization of an idea into a physical establishment where it can be further expanded. This process is crucial because without it any business idea remains abstract and thus no validity. 1.5.0 Success and Failure path of the Entrepreneur Since the establishment of the Company, Larry and Page continued to further improve the algorithm. They chose this path because they wanted the search engine to grow and merge all those existing documents into specific links thus making it easier for people to access various sources of the information they seek. It is through this path that the algorithm became vast through to constant reinvention which made it more accommodative of back links and web pages. Another path which promoted the growth of Google as an internet-based corporation would be its venture into collective entrepreneurship which incorporated various innovative ideas (Steiber, 2014). Through this, Google introduced online advertising and innovative programs within its company to promote the growth of its company and workers as well (Girard, 2008). It is through this process that products such as Gmail, Ad sense, Adwords and Google voice products where developed. As will be discussed later, an invention such as Adwords has contributed greatly to the rise of Google as an online advertiser grossing in a largest portion of its revenue. It is important to consider the relevance of converting tools to necessities. This is mainly because we all aim at making life easier increase its quality. The founders of Google converted a tool which was the web search engine that has been used to make life easier due to the ease in which information made available (Steiber, 2014). The information accessed can be used in daily activities and thus enabling individuals to complete tasks and duties. There are several factors that attest to Google’s success over the years even long after its establishment. The major factor is that it is constantly improving the customers experience in the internet world. This is attributed to the founders’ zeal and entrepreneurial mindsets. I. Google’s Secret Algorithm The admiration Google gets it attested to many aspects, however, the most deserving is the secret algorithm. This is because it has the capability of enabling the Web search engine to predict entries (Steiber, 2014). The simplicity of its use allows anyone with access to the internet to receive any information they require. Despite the fact that other search engines poses the same features, Google tops the list as the most qualified and professional amongst them. II. Online Advertisement According to NASDAQ, Google amasses $9.7 billion from revenues collected from advertising (Leong, 2013). Being a large-scale advertising corporation, Google accrues major profits from this venture. Advertisement is done online by use of Adwords thus accounting to an estimated 97 % of the profits gained. Considering the fact that it is a renowned online corporation, it receives advertisement requests from global companies and serves by popularizing their brands, products and services. Adwords have made the process of advertising easier. It is a program that automatically provides content which can be used for the advertisement (Leong, 2013). This includes image, text, interactive media or video which is custom made to meet the client needs and also convince the targeted audience. Once the advertisement has been created, it is forwarded to Adsense programmers who are responsible for their publication in the web. Through programs like Adwords, Google has been able to increase their profits as well as revenue through provision of services that assists it clientele in making money. it versatility is not restricted to being a search engine but rather branching out into other avenue which can be used to create more income and employment. III. R & D and Technology Investment R & D products as well as technological investment have earned Google hundreds of millions dollars yearly. The strategy it has developed is to invest more than other technological companies. This ensures that they have more products to sell than other corporation thus getting more income (Leong, 2013). Some of these products include Nexus, Glass, Google Maps and Chromebook. It was furthered it scope, by venturing into production of products as well as meaningful projects which will ensure the company continues earning more capital. One of these projects is “Project Loon” which aims at ensuring people from all over the globe can access internet (Leong, 2013). The concept behind this project is creation of fast wireless network through the presence of high altitude balloons. IV. Encouragement of Team work and Offering Quality Service In any business, the satisfaction of the employees is as important as that of its clientele. Google embodies this notion and encourages it employees to work as a team. At Google, the collection of employees exemplifies cultural diversity and talented minds at work (Leong, 2013). The policies ensure that they employees are well taken care of thus promoting job satisfaction and strong team work efforts to ensure the customers are served effectually and satisfactorily. The ability of Google to gather people of different traits and talents and provide a conducive environment to work in has been one of the greatest features that have contributed to its overall success. V. Collective Entrepreneurship Google has incorporated collective entrepreneurship in its system so as to venture into various business endeavors which have both risks and rewards. To illustrate this, the Google Blogger is such as venture. It is comprised of bloggers who have the platform to air their views, products and ideas where the customers can easily access (Leong, 2013). This simply means that Google is not restricted to operation of a search engine solely but has branched it extensions into other fields which are profitable. This has facilitated exploration of various business ideas and opportunities thus flourishing the business and making Google and business model innovation entity. 1.6.0 Lessons Learned from this Entrepreneur Google is one of the success stories which have been used to encourage new start businesses. There are quite a number of lessons that can be learnt by reviewing the process it took for it to be established into what it is now. Firstly, entrepreneurs should experiment often with their business ideas (Girard, 2008). Based on how Google works, it is seen to operate quite differently as compared to the other corporations. This difference in operations involves smaller and manageable teams, the work place is resourceful to the employees and also encourages it workers to be innovative through programs such as the 20% time (Girard, 2008). The aforementioned strategies have promoted effective customer care, employee job satisfaction and maximum creativity and innovation from the employee thus making Google the best employers and also maintaining its top position in performance and net worth. 1.7.0 Conclusion Based on the process of inventing Google, it is valid to deduce that there are particular stages which are crucial for a venture to undergo in order to be successful. This framework is paramount for any entrepreneur to be aware. The last two stages which include company launch was done after Page and Brin registered with the U.S Patent and Trademark office allowing the use of the search engine for commercial purpose in 9th January, 1998. The growth of Google can be seen through the expansion of their Search Engine into a corporation which ventures into various business ideas such as online advertising. There are have been lessons learnt from Google’s development as well as how it has managed to amass billions of dollars becoming amongst the most successful, internet companies (Mourdoukoutas, 2011). This includes willingness to experiment and follow a different pattern contrary to others. Through Google, the entrepreneurship process can be deduced. This is applicable to many corporation successes and thus illustrating it relevance and the need to master the process. References Girard, B. (2008). The Google way: 12 management strategies to revolutionize your business. San Francisco, Calif: No Starch. Leong, K. (2013, November 20). Google Reveals Its 9 Principles of Innovation. Fast Company. Mourdoukoutas, P. (2011, October 13). Google’s Two Secrets of Success . Forbes. Steiber, A. (2014). The Google model: Managing continuous innovation in a rapidly changing world. Vise, D. A., & Malseed, M. (2005). The Google story. New York: Delacorte Press. Read More