Perspective management

ASSIGNMENT

New work place issues and challenges

AT GOOGLE

Presented by:-
Sonal Pose
MMS-B
ROLL NO-95

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I owe a great many thanks to a great many people who helped and supported me
during the making of this assignment.

My deepest thanks to Lecturer, Prof. Gomti the Guide of the project for guiding and
correcting various documents of mine with attention and care. She has taken pain to go through
the project and make necessary correction as and when needed.

I express my thanks to the director of, Thakur institute of management and research,
Prof. M. A. Kohojkar for extending her support.

My deep sense of gratitude to Mr. Parminder Singh as Business Head – Technology

Google support and guidance. Thanks and appreciation to the helpful colleagues at Thakur
institute of management and research, for their support.

I would also thank Mr. Sham Pose members without whom this project would have
been a distant reality. I also extend my heartfelt thanks to my family and well wishers.

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Abstract:

Got to start work on a new project or find information for an assignment or just need
picture and song for entertainment or be it checking out mails and catch up with friend online,
well all we need is to just “Google it man”. It probably rightly said to quite some extent there is
no question to which Google does not have an answer.

But to make all this vast information and technology available all across the globe is
definitely not a cake walk. Google has come a long way and had its share of ups and downs to
position itself where it is now.

This assignment on new work place issues and challenges highlights issues of Google
Inc. in the field of globalization (Chinese market) and innovation. Assignment analysis of these
issues and the core reason along with concluding them with suitable recommendation.

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Contents

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………....07

About the company……………………………………………………………………07.1

Challenges ………………………………………………………………………………….....08

Innovation challenges………………………………………………………………....08.1

Globalization challenges ………………...……………………………………………08.2

Indication of problems ……………………………………………………………………….09

Innovation problems …………………………………………………………………09.1

Globalization problems (Chinese market)……………………………………………09.2

Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………10

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………....13

Recommendations …………………………………………………………………………....14

References ……………………………………………………………………………………15

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List of tables/ charts/ illustrations.
1) Analysis

Analyzing problems in the field of innovation.………………………..10.1

2) Analysis

Analyzing problems in the field of globalization ………………………10.2

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Introduction:
About the company:

Google Inc. is a multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing,
and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and
products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program. The
company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the "Google Guys"0, while
the two were attending Stanford University as Ph.D. candidates. It was first incorporated as a
privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August
19, 2004. The company's stated mission from the outset was "to organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful", and the company's unofficial slogan – coined by
Google engineer Paul Buchheit – is "Don't be evil". In 2006, the company moved to their current
headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Google runs over one million servers in data centers around the world, and processes over one
billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day.
Google's rapid growth since its incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and
partnerships beyond the company's core search engine. The company offers online productivity
software, such as its Gmail e-mail software, and social networking tools, including Orkut and,
more recently, Google Buzz. Google's products extend to the desktop as well, with applications
such as the web browser Google Chrome, the Picasa photo organization and editing software,
and the Google Talk instant messaging application. Notably, Google leads the development of
the Android mobile phone operating system, used on a number of phones such as the Nexus One
and Motorola Droid. Alexa lists the main U.S.-focused google.com site as the Internet's most
visited website, and numerous international Google sites (google.co.in, google.co.uk etc.) are in
the top hundred, as are several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube, Blogger, and Orkut.
Google is also BrandZ's most powerful brand in the world. The dominant market position of
Google's services has led to criticism of the company over issues including privacy,
innovation, copyright, and censorship.

Challenges
Innovation challenges:

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As Google gets bigger, it is going to be difficult to manage and keep up the innovation culture as
it keeps marching on its path to success. Schmidt once described “small innovative technical
teams” as the source of virtually all Google’s strategic initiatives. Google tries to maintain an
entrepreneurial culture by forming small teams that act like individual startups. The founders
believed that the groups tend to become more traditional as they grow larger. Google has 17,000
employees with about 40% based outside the US. The workforce is multicultural, diverse and
spread across the globe. “Continuous Innovation” has been the motto of Google and that has
permeated across all divisions at Google. Google has a flat management structure but structured
processes, managed bottom-up for innovation, culture of consensus, tolerance for chaos, and
committees to approve projects, free food and best perks in the industry. Google has been
successful in attracting great talent with “Google” qualities – self-managed, self-motivated, risk-
taking, highly passionate and creative minds with a tenacity to adapt to failures.

Globalization and diversity as a challenge:

During the past decade, notions of globalization have displaced familiar discourses of
modernization. On the political right, globalization is seen to signal the demise of socialist
economies, and proponents of market liberalization proclaim new opportunities to further global
wealth and prosperity. On the left, critics point to the ways in which the current economic
restructuring is accompanied by an increasing gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots'. However
disparate these two positions seem, both neglect the gendered impact of globalization. The
purpose of this article is to review feminist critiques of globalization. Central to this review is
recognition of the diversity of women's (and men's) situations, both within and across cultures.
This recognition reminds us that 'gender ‘cannot simply be added to existing paradigms of
globalization. What is needed are innovative ways of thinking that will help us understand how
local contexts are increasingly orchestrated by extra-local forces.

Indication of problems: To understand and study problems we conduct a swot analysis.

Swot analysis:

Strengths

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 • Google’s reputation and familiarity
• Google’s speed and user friendliness
• Relevance ranking based on citations
• Extra services
• Multi-disciplinarily
Weaknesses
• Heterogeneousness of the material
• Content is arbitrary
• Risk of dead-ends (users find the citation, but can't access the full text)
• No expert search
• Anglo-Saxon (English language) focus
Opportunities
• Offer an easy starting point
• Reach new user groups
• Reach new content
• Easy and expert search fully integrated using Open URL
• Higher usage of valuable (expensive) content
Threats
• Lost sight (control) of indexing policy
• Possibility of censorship
• Users get lost/confused
• User ends up at wrong copy (i.e. doesn't get to the institutional subscription)
• Print collection become less visible
• Information skills will disappear
• Library services become less visible.
Google also announced it will close its China-based search engine, redirect users to an
uncensored site based in Hong Kong, and pull out its flagship business in response to cyber
attacks by China-based hackers. Even though Google will shut down its local search engine, it
will maintain some businesses in China.

Analysis:

Analyzing problems in the field of innovation for Google:

Bureaucracy

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With the enormous growth happening, Google may impose new policies and guidelines to
actively manage the workforce and this may curtail the pace of innovation. Increased
bureaucracy may be mandated since the diverse workforce may not be compliant with the
Google vision and mission. It may need to reign in some of such elements through new
procedures and policies thereby affecting the agility of majority of the other groups. Internal
tools and the so called “Dilbertville” meeting may be impossible to do in geographically diverse
locations and in some ways be not feasible.

Slow Decision making

The culture of open discussion, consensus based decision making may not be feasible with large
numbers of employees. The ability to critique, take risks and openly oppose decision making
may not be entertained. Cross-functional decisions will be difficult to achieve and the innovative
mechanisms may be stalled.

Ensuring Visibility

With employees spending 20% of their time on idea projects may lead to duplication. Since
visibility is difficult to main across a multi-cultural workforce, there may be replication of effort,
loss of productive time and the risk of reinventing the wheel. Establishing visibility may be
difficult with an expanding workforce.

Guaranteeing International Consistency

Google may find it hard to attract the same “Googley” talent at global locations and inculcate the
“Google culture” in the new recruits. Implanting or exporting the true Google culture may cause
conflict with local cultures, tastes and perceptions. Finding a balance between cultural diversity
and cultural homogeneity is difficult in an international context.

Apart from these there are other challenges such as censorship, trade restrictions and country
policies which may dampen the entrepreneurial culture for offshore employees. Inabilities to hire
and retain key people, and scale operational processes are some additional concerns worth
noting.

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Analyzing problems in the field of globalization for Google (The Chinese market):
(China government is out with a new set of rules that put the Internet Mapping service providers
in a spin)
Google and China’s feud seems to be unending with the latter’s new rule on providing the
Internet Mapping services inside the country. The US based Search Engine giant has been facing
issues from the China government from time to time, though it ranks No.2 for its services, next
to Baidu , a popular Chinese search engine. The rift between the two seems to have deepened
after a string of censorship laws laid by the China Government.
Google China war – When did it start?
Google has been swallowing bitter pills from China activists, regulators, communists, local
Internet service providers and the Government from the time it established its operations there.
Initially, the Chinese Internet service providers filtered and frequently blocked Google’s
services, which resulted in slow and erratic search results.
Later, Google was rigorously accused for popping up the details of the Chinese activists and
communists to spike up the search hits and thereby gain foothold and popularity in china. In the
December of 2009, Google was subjected to cyber attacks, where some hackers tried their hands
at the Gmail accounts of few of the Human right activists and exposed crucial information about
them. Google announced that it would shut down the operations soon in china.

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Censorship issues faced by Google in China
The China Government wanted to stop the unfiltered services of Google.com which resulted in
Google starting Goole.cn amidst wide spread condemnation, with the search engine company
agreeing to censorship regulations laid by the Government. Even after this, the company faced
challenges from the local activists, novelists and regulators on various issues. In March 2010,
Google quitted censoring its search results on Google.cn and redirected the service requests to
the uncensored Hong Kong division, which again caused a lot of controversy.
Internet Map services regulations laid by China
With already souring relationship issues between Google and China, the Government of China
has brought in new set of rules and regulations for Internet map services. According to the new
rules, any online map services provider has to comply with certain guidelines, prior to rendering
its services in china. Firstly, the companies have to collaborate with local companies to start up a
venture inside the country. In addition, they have to get a nod from China’s SBSM (State bureau
of surveying and Mapping) before establishing map and location services in China.
Moreover, the Map servers have to be configured inside the country and any mapping service
provider setting up the servers outside China will be denied of a license.

Conclusion:
The Google is the most successful company at the information technology market. It`s
name means not just the search service but innovation, creative thinking and fun working

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environment. But there are areas where the Google has to improve its performance to preserve its
competitive edge and to improve its innovation performance

Also as Google branches out into new arenas, there is possibility of getting in conflict
with the company’s founding mission, “to organize the world’s information and make it
universally accessible and useful”. It will have to rethink on its strategies as and when it enters
new market. It will have to watch learn and then try to conquer instead to barging into an
unknown territory and trying to win it.

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Recommendations:
Six thinking hats
The adaptation of black hat, which is the critical evaluation, can help to reduce the uncertainty of
new services and programs, and to identify the contingent problems before the effective public
launching of the services. Also evaluating time employees spend under the name of innovation
must be looked upon and action must be taken toward improving quality of work from better to
best.

Leadership
To become successful in China, the Google has to rethink its strategy. Although the business
environment becomes flexible day after day, the Google cannot work in this country with company
policies and approaches which are used in the United States or in Europe. Employment of
professionals of the Chinese rights, government orders and culture can be necessary to create a
new, Chinese centered strategy.
The company should aspire toward and support the development of ever more complementary

goods and improved features.

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References:

http://technofriends.in/2010/08/09/china-poses-new-challenges-to-google-maps

http://www.managedecisions.com/blog

http://www.google.com/corporate

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