Google as One of the Best Yet Most Secretive Organization - Case Study Example

Google as one of World’s Best Companies Yet Most Secretive Organization Name: Student Number: Course Code: Word Count: Date of Submission: Google Inc. as one of the Best Companies yet most Secretive Organizations Mostly referred to as an online search engine, Google bridges the gap between the user and the library of information sought. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the Google Inc. Company in 1998 and today it is a Delaware corporation (Vise and Malseed, 2005). The company was founded with some other initial ideas that developed in the precise mission of organizing the information and making it accessible worldwide and useful. Today, the company has more than achieved this objective, at least as related to the meaning of the mathematical term Googol, from which the company draws its name. The much that the company has achieved in relation to the said mission is a contributing factor to recognition as one of the best companies in the world. This research paper details this point in relation to Google Inc. being a secretive organization.The paper suggests that exploring these two aspects simultaneously in close relation gives a comprehensive understanding of the subject. As such, the discussion looks into tenets of what the company does to realize its objectives. These basically revolve around the operations which may cover the possible strategies, plans, policies, organization and/or even initiatives. Workplace Ideology The company promotes, within its organization, the mentality of serving product users and making decisions that portray intentions of goodness. This ideology has basis on the company’s informal corporate slogan that reads as “Don’t be evil”. According to Vise and Malseed (2005), this mentality stretches into the business model and, therefore, source of revenue. The company’s ideology is that, prioritizing short-term profits compromises realization of long-term objectives of good image and gaining user loyalty. For this reason, Google Inc. concentrates on delivery of cost-effective internet marketing. Although the company holds that it primarily generates revenue from online advertising spaces, it offers more online products and applications that users of some do not even know about the other- That’s an element of secrecy right there. There is so much from Google Inc. that one can easily and justifiably doubt if the only source of revenue is online advertisements. A good evidence of this is in the steps that the company takes to protection and confidentiality procedures. The company takes confidentiality procedures very seriously in an effort to protect its proprietary brand and/or information technology (Google, 2005). Even more on secrecy, Google Inc. enters into confidentiality agreements with its employees, consultants and any other partner. Operations/Business Model Google Inc. operates with a model that not only represents but also facilitates the core aspects of the business, it purpose, strategies, organizational structures and operational processes, practices and policies. The company’s business model has reliance on online advertisement needs of relevant customers, and this goes along with intended strategies. One can easily acknowledge the evidence of this from the consistent advertisements on the Google owned webpages. Advertisers explore this opportunity and the popularity of Google Inc. is reason enough for the clients to desire continued use of the company’s promoted products, which are experiencing more recognition. This kind of business model increases engagement and appreciates technological advancements which improves interaction between businesses (advertisers) and their customers. Besides other company costs and initiatives, the collected revenue is essentially for business expansion, or at least that’s what the public knows. In addition, the operations and business model employed by the company possesses a coherence element that glues the company goals and realities together. It ensures that the set objectives are realistic and feasible. The mutual relationship between the users and their information environment changes gradually and consequentially, influences their appreciation of information technology. These changes result from the daily occurrences and experiences, that Google Inc. considers as learning areas and useful in betterment of operations. As a business strategy, Google Inc. appreciates how empirical the industry is and so it adopts an emergent strategy (Yazgan 2010). This strategy involves addressing the daily faults as they arise. It helps deal with technical complications and any online complaints on a real time basis, hence an advantage from a competitive perspective. From this, it is obvious that the company’s business model is, not general or theoretical, customized to fit the objectives of the organization and emphasizes the need to keep matters identical to Google within the organization – secrecy. Google’s Philosophy on Product Development Closely related to the model of operations discussed above, Battelle (2005) writes about the unique product development philosophy of the company. The said philosophy is a formula that divides the company’s products in three sectorial investments by percentage, hence market segmentation. Seventy percentage of the investments focus on advertising products, twenty per cent target related products while the remaining ten per cent focuses on experimental products, which are still undergoing improvements. From this philosophy, it is evident that there is prioritization of investment on products that make advertising online easier and more effective. The least investment is on products whose reception is unknown to the company and more information needs to be collected on the same. The idea is that, all products or service for information technology have to start from this level and go through development until all possible areas improvement are explored extensively. Comparing this to the initial mission of the company and its stand on profit and long term goals, one notes a missing link. This link can only be found in the organization of the company, which is much less of an open book to the public. Nonetheless, Google Inc. categorizes halfway-developed products as beta products. To achieve continued improvement of these products, Google’s personnel have to collect information as users continue to use the products. Therefore, the more products and services and evident improvements of the same are actually out of the information collected from the users of Google information technology products. This then leads to the next item which relates to privacy of the online users. Google’s Technology and its line of products In another element of secrecy within the organization is proven by the difficulty in analysing the number of patents there could be in a single specific Google Inc. product. The company ensures that such information remains confidential to the organization. In fact, it is literally difficult, even for this research, to find particular information about Google Inc. the organization, from anywhere else except on the Google search engine library. But even with that, the kind of information availed in vague and a roughly painted picture of the true data. Much of the official information is from the annual reports that Google Inc. publishes and in these reports, the organization categorizes its products into three groups; Web-Search technology, advertising technology and large-scale systems technology. The most known are the free Web-Search technology products, which are free for online users. Some of them are even used while development and improvements go on (Lavania et al., 2013). This is an element of Google’s technology that is flexible enough to maintain a product already in use. The technology of production is such that, one cannot clearly distinguish the production stage and the stage of introduction of a Google product into the market. Security and Privacy in Information Systems Privacy in the information system refers to ability of a user to retain control over the manner in which their personal information is accessed, shared and used by other users of the same system. Security, on the other hand, is about how Google Inc. protects its computers and other technological communication devices from susceptibilities, thus maintaining integrity of stored information. Whenever does and information search of Google or visits any other related Google website, Google servers collect and store information about the search or website access. Other information collected about the user includes their Internet Protocol addresses, the URLs, date and time of visit. There have been indications of users raising concerns about their fears of the company possibly using the collected information to their own benefit.Security and privacy issues affect the user’s confidence in the system. Their effects can be either positive or negative depending on the resultant user confidence, which in turn affects the attitudes towards a product or company. The possible negative impacts of security issues elicit seminal reactions, especially when they affect private lives of people. In addition, in the information system, users often find difficulty differentiating between security and privacy. This is because mostly people focus on the end result of either after which focus turns to mitigating the damages of the two (Dhillon, 2000). Google’s pleasing approach to user privacy and security, while using an online product, contributes to making it the preferred service provider, hence one of the best. The company considers security and privacy issues as dominant challenges in the information system, regardless of user. Expectedly, Google categorizes these challenges into certain fields as cryptography, privacy, security and privacy on internet. This categorization facilitates comprehension of the security and privacy issues in the information system. In close relation to Mellado’s and Rosado’s ideas (2012), the company recognizes the importance of understanding the major functions of information system security. Mostly, these core functions rely on the basis that the subject security and privacy issues are aspects of security approaches. In this context, information system security refers to any policy or system that a given organization implements to ensure the security of its information and the privacy of its system users. Google’s Information security system functions to ensure authenticity which allows trusted operations yet keep users’ information confidential. It achieves this by making it easy for the user to authenticate Google as the information handler (Bhatia, 2012). Second to that is confidentiality which should be understood in the sense that, only authorized system users have access to certain classified information. This helps to avoid the possible spread of this information among users with limited rights of access. The third aspect of functionality is availability; Google has made information about itself (with limitation to relevance only) readily available to users. Human Resource and Talent Management As Tesarovicov (2008) poses, all of the policies, strategies, plans and objectives of an organization are not worth much without dedicated and committed employees.Google Inc. recognizes this quite well, hence the efforts to appreciate its employees and contributions in development of the same. Google’s management pursues to establish a strong and stable employee-employer relationship, motivated and skilled workforce complemented with strong management to facilitate organization’s success. The price for good employees has increased significantly as is evident in dynamism in management of people in and the modern workplace. Google sets to explore all possible aspects involved in management of people in the organization so as to establish their relation to achievement of organizational goals (Bhatia, 2012). In this perspective, the company seeks to develop an evaluation of the causes that contribute to difficulty in people management. A review of human resource management is important since it directly relates to people management just as personnel management does. Goal planning and planning of actions to be undertaken by the organization requires the involvement of all professionals and personnel member of the organization. This point is to indicate that the managers responsible for different departments is not to only oversee, but definitely need the involvement of other skilled humans to implement strategies and realize goals (Rebori, 2011). The background of human resource management and possible personnel management draws from the fact that, all management decisions and resultant actions directly or indirectly affect and influence the employees more as organization members that just as job-holders. This suggests that, management of people is a direct action, but depends on how these influential decisions and actions of the organization are carried out. One skill is evident here that making management of personnel easy is by managing how organization decisions and actions influence them, and not viewing it as an executive priority. Google Inc. approaches the subject of personnel management through particular divisions that are meant to achieve the ultimate goal, yet in recognition of the dynamism; Achieving a stretch goal- every organization has a responsibility or objective that it seeks to achieve. The responsibility is the goal that the people of the organization are expected to work towards. For the manager, the goals are achieved, not by self but through the people to be managed. Achieving these stretch goals takes careful planning on how to apply the organizations workforce to realize the goals. Bringing the best out of employees – this is quite challenging given that every employee has a different motivating element to use optimal potential. Some of the factors that affect employee performance are out of control and so all the manager has to do is treat employees with respect, help them align personal goals with work goals, make the work environment conducive and appropriate and encourage communication and cooperation. Dealing with underperforming employees – Many employees often have issues that affect their work performance persistently. The challenge is that, the problem is not the manager’s technically but since it affects the organization, the manager has to come in and possibly help the employee to cope with personal issues. Dealing with outstanding employees (talent management)– employees with outstanding performance for the company must be treated differently as the others mainly by rewarding them. Without this, they may lose morale and do poor work due lack of motivation. Responding to crises – this is a challenge that mainly involves the ability of a manager to change plans when unexpected conditions present themselves. Such situations include an employee falling sick, resigning or getting harmed during work. The manager must be able to shift from the normal plan to another suitable for the moment. It is the innovativeness in Google’s business model, effective organization, approach to production of IT products and services and style of talent/personnel management that commands the company’s success and the ability to put competitors nowhere but at the edge. The major mark-ups of Google’s success are the milestones that the organization set for itself. The major ones revolve around computer hardware and software, online advertising, publishers, entertainment and telecommunications. The ability for a strategy to address threats and weakness makes Google’s strategic management sustainable and according to Vosters (2005), strategic management determines a company’s sustainability and success. Reference List Battelle, J. 2005. The 70 Percent Solution — Google CEO Eric Schmidt gives us his golden rules for managing innovation. CNNMoney.com. [online] Available at: http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/28/news/newsmakers/schmidt_biz20_1205/index.htm [Accessed 22 May, 2015]. Bhatia, A., Deep, G. andSachdeva, A. 2012. Strategic Analysis of Search Engine Giant: A Case Study of Google Inc. International Journal of Computing & Business Research, ISSN (Online): 2229-6166. Dhillon, G. J. B. 2000. Information System Security Management in the New Millennium.Communications of the ACM ,Vol. 43, No.7, 125-128. Google. 2005. Corporate information. [online] Available at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html [Accessed 22 May, 2015]. Google. 2006. More Google Products. 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