1. Regent International Education Group
520, Queen Street, Auckland.
International Business Environment (IB701)
A Case Study on “Cross-Cultural Framework”
Submitted To:
Dr. Patrick Foong
Regent International Education Group
Prepared By:
Aowrongajeb Chowdhury
Session-August, 2013.
Level-7, Diploma in Business (Advanced)
Regent International Education Group
Date of Submission: 20th September, 2013.
2. Question-1: What influences strategy development in Google?
As Google is a giant corporation and it is the market leader, so its strategy should be distinctive
and unique. To keep upward its growth, Google always consider some factors which influence
very much in the mean time of establishing its strategies that are given below:
1) Trend:
Google tries to adopt new trend to get comparative advantages than that of its
competitors. This new tendency influences Google to set up its strategy. Google launched its
share through open IPO system by which buyers bought share on the basis of the fair price, this
new trend in USA established a distinctive theme for Google. Google also set up its governance
structure with a two-tier board of directors. As a result, there is a distance between management
and shareholders, therefore management can get freedom to run this company.
2) Competition:
Rivalry is another factor which also influences Google to set up its strategy. In the age of 21st
century there is a huge completion among the rivals. To avoid completion against its competitors
such as Microsoft, Apple & yahoo etc and also to get more advantage from market, Google
prefer acquisition strategy.
3) Technology:
Technology is one of the key factors which influence Google to establish its strategy. At the age
of advanced technology, every moment many technologies are introduced by different
corporations. Usually customers will prefer that corporation which provides a wide range of
technology coverage and, of course, most updated technology. So Google provides service in
Blogging, Radio, TV Advertising, Online payment service, Social Network and mobile
Operating System.
4) Culture:
3. Google’s culture always influences to its strategy. It has its own culture in where employee can
do anything whatever they want and they are doing work whenever they feel better. So they can
be easily managed.
So, competition pressure, innovation of technology, new trend and privilege of its own culture
always influence Google to establish its strategy in the proper way.
Question-2: What are the strengths and weaknesses of their approach?
As every approach has strengths and weaknesses, Google’s approach also has both of them. The
strengths of the approach of Google are given below:
1) Evaluation by Peer:
In Google’s environment, engineers work in a small group who are independent and their
performances are evaluated by their peer, not by their upper level management. As there
is a competition between peers to get promotion and reward, they try to do their best in
the work place. Another think is that as there is a good relation between them, so they
are co-operative and close to each other, so corrective actions can be taken promptly at
the initial stage.
2) Freedom:
Engineers can spend 20% of their work time to personal projects which motivates them to
introduce new products and create new knowledge. It facilitates many things for their
employees include meals, messages and swimming pool. This freedom encourages
employees to do a lot of works and invents new things for Google.
3) Highly qualified employees:
Every year thousands of talents apply for job in Google. It recruits employees through
arrogant tests and interviews and they also must pass from leading universities with
master or doctorate degree. They recruit only employees against a psychometric profile
of Googleness. So, they can hire and retain a fairly predictable employee population who
are highly manageable.
4. The weaknesses of Google’s approach are given below:
1) Hard to control:
In Google it is very hard to find out who is responsible for what work. It is seen that Google
launch half finished products into the market and the flow of product’s information is going
without any control, even they don’t advertise at all.
2) Diversification:
One of the main features of Google is that they prefer acquisition to innovate something in-
house. I think, if Google only provides its services in a limited area, then it would provide better
service than now.
Although Google’s approach has both strengths and weaknesses, I think, the strengths of the
appoach are comparatively much more than its weaknesses. So Google should notice its
weaknesses and work to lessen it. That’s why, its strengths will be stronger and Google would
reach in peak position in market place.
Question-3: Is the Google approach transferable to other organizations? Provide two
reasons for your answer?
In the case of giant corporation like Microsoft or Apple, I think, Google approach can be
transferable but it should be step by step ways because these corporations have both high profile
and experienced management, financial resources and brand images. So there is no problem to
follow the approach of Google in the case of giant corporation.
5. On the other hand, in the case of the small company it would be impossible to follow the
approach of Google because-
1) Lack of high qualified and experienced management:
Lack of human capital in work environment and proper management experience, the small
company may not be able to follow the approach of Google because it requires experienced and
skills human resources to maintain this approach.
2) Lack of financial resources and brand image:
Money is needed for implementing a approach. So without enough financial resources, no firm
can adopt a strategy like Google’s which usually needs big budget to maintain and control. Brand
image is also considerable because it is seen that talents most of the time try to join in a brand
company and people accept a newly launched product, irrespective of its slight weakness
because of its band image.
So, it is clear that as Google approach is almost distinctive and unique, so in case of giant
corporation it can be transferable but in the case of small firm it would be vice versa.
References:
Text books-
1) Robert N. Lussier & Christopher F. Achua. , (2009), Leadership: Theory, Application, &
Skill Development, Cengage Learning, p434.
2) Portfolio.com. "Google's Power Play." Wired. Feb. 11, 2009. (Feb. 11, 2009)
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/googles-power-p.html
Websites:
