ALPHABET Inc.

Case Study of Corporate Entrepreneurship FINAL EXAM

(Lecture : Agus Budiyono Ph.D)

By Group F
Made Yatna (21232015)
Haffian Nurrasyid (21232010)
Affan Indrajaya (21232025)
Hariadi Prayogo (21232017)
Table of Content
Page

Contents
History.......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Structure and Strategy ............................................................................................................................... 4
Structure .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Strategy .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Culture Organization.................................................................................................................................. 6
Companies Culture ................................................................................................................................. 6
Individual Culture .................................................................................................................................. 6
Working Culture ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Reasons Why Alphabet’s Company Culture Works ........................................................................... 9
Built on Data........................................................................................................................................ 9
Company as Learning Organization ....................................................................................................... 10
HOW ALPHABET INC HANDLE VUCA ............................................................................................ 11
History of the term ‘VUCA’ ................................................................................................................. 12
What does VUCA stand for?................................................................................................................ 12
How does the VUCA affects the digital industry?.............................................................................. 12
The challenges of managing people in a VUCA world ...................................................................... 13
How to navigate a VUCA world? What is inverted VUCA? ............................................................ 13
Comparison Matrix .................................................................................................................................. 15
References .................................................................................................................................................. 18

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History
Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company
headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was created through a restructuring of Google on
October 2, 2015 and became the parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries.
Alphabet is the world's third-largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most
valuable companies. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies,
alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

The establishment of Alphabet Inc. was prompted by a desire to make the core Google business
"cleaner and more accountable" while allowing greater autonomy to group companies that operate
in businesses other than Internet services. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced their
resignation from their executive posts in December 2019, with the CEO role to be filled by Sundar
Pichai, also the CEO of Google. Page and Brin remain employees, board members, and controlling
shareholders of Alphabet Inc.

On August 10, 2015, Google Inc. announced plans to create a new public holding company,
Alphabet Inc. Google CEO Larry Page made this announcement in a blog post on Google's official
blog. Alphabet would be created to restructure Google by moving subsidiaries from Google to
Alphabet, narrowing Google's scope. The company would consist of Google as well as other
businesses including X-Development, Calico, Nest, Verily, Fiber, Makani, CapitalG, and GV .
Alphabet is a collection of wide variety of businesses, specializing mainly in internet services and
software industries. In 1996, Google was started as a project to create a search engine and was first
called Backrub. Backrub and later Google search engine’s unique approach to determine the
importance of individual pages has led to a creation of the world’s most successful search engine.
Now, Alphabet (a parent company of Google) is an internet giant, dominating mobile OS
(Android), browser (Chrome), search (Google Search) and online advertising (Google Ads)
markets. Each of Google’s core products and platforms such as Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google
Maps, Google Play, Search, and YouTube has over one billion monthly active users.[1]
The company divides itself into 3 core segments: Google Services (Android, Chrome, hardware,
Google Maps, Google Play, Search, YouTube), Google Cloud (Google Cloud Platforms and
Google Workspace) and Other Bets, of which, Google Services generate 92.4% of the revenue.
Google mainly generates the revenue by delivering performance (click or other action) and brand
(simply displaying ads) advertising. The most important company’s product is its search engine, or
more accurately, a combination between a search engine and search advertising, which allowed the
company to earn 104$ billion or 57% of the total revenue in 2020 alone. In total, Google advertising
brought in US$146,924 for Alphabet or 80.5% of the total revenue. YouTube ads and Google Other
segment (Google Play, YouTube subscriptions and hardware sales) segments were the top
contributors to the revenue growth in 2020, growing by 30.5% and 27.6%, respectively.

Other Bets or ‘Moonshots’ is a portfolio of new promising businesses, which, as Alphabet is

expecting, will disrupt the industry, in which they operate, or dominate the newly emerging
industries and will generate significant revenue in the future. These businesses include healthcare,
capital investment, internet services and other businesses

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Structure and Strategy
Structure
Following the organization structure change to accommodate expansion or scale up the
business, below is the new structures after new announcement in 2015. Beside its largest
subsidiary, Google, Alphabet Inc. has several other subsidiaries in several other industries, among
others and this list are so dynamic as Alphabet strategy to growth up the business by acquisition,
join ventures, investment and diversification as explained later.

Above table showing the structure of the business, but actually behind those lists some small companies
or startup was acquired, combine and/or merge it one or two with the existing type of business so
becoming more “better” part of business to give better user experience. By doing that also kind of
“killing” the potential competitors.
There were a lot of stories can provide the journey of the business in above table, again it a dynamic
movement as the following stories :
As of September 1, 2017, their equity is held by a subsidiary known as XXVI Holdings, Inc. (referring
to the Roman numeral of 26, the number of letters in the alphabet), so that they can be valued and
legally separated from Google. At the same time, it was announced that Google would be
reorganized as a limited liability company, Google LLC.
Eric Schmidt said at an Internet Association event in 2015 that there may eventually be more than 26
Alphabet subsidiaries. He also said that he was currently meeting with the CEOs of the current and
proposed Alphabet subsidiaries. He said, "You'll see a lot coming."
While many companies or divisions formerly a part of Google became subsidiaries of Alphabet,
Google remains the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet-related businesses. These include
widely used products and services long associated with Google, such as the Android mobile
operating system, YouTube, and Google Search, which remain direct components of Google.
Former subsidiaries include Nest Labs, which was merged into Google in February
2018 and Chronicle which was merged with Google Cloud in June 2019. Sidewalk Labs was
absorbed into Google in 2021 following CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff's departure from the company due
to a suspected ALS diagnosis.

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In January 2021, Loon LLC CEO Alastair Westgarth mentioned in a blog post that the company
would be shutting down, citing lack of a scalable and sustainable business model. In July 2021,
Alphabet announced Intrinsic, a new robotics software company spun out of X. In November 2021,
Alphabet announced a new company named Isomorphic Labs, using artificial intelligence for drug
discovery and headed by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.
Strategy
Acquisitions, joint ventures, investments, and divestitures – key important elements of Alphabet
Overall Strategy
The Alphabet has gained global recognition for both it customers and potential competitors. Some
of the strategies that have been applied by the company is the global position are mainly
acquisitions strategy. The company acquire and buys small companies worldwide. This strategy
serves two majors’ purposes; reducing the potential competitors and increasing the company’s skill
that borrowed from other companies.
Below picture indicated the implementation of the strategy in the business (interesting)

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Alphabet has bought several companies and acquired new technologies, patents, skills and it has
used these elements to improve the quality of its products and services. It very clear by looking at
the picture above how the acquisition can be merged to strengthen the business line.
For instance, the company has acquired Google to be its subsidiary in the beginning, and it has
boosted its operation in serving the company. The Alphabet Inc. company has a capacity to buy
small but competitive global companies that are in list of the competitors, and by doing so, it can
limit the global market and enjoy the monopolistic atmosphere to retain customers

Culture Organization
Culture is at the base of how many of the behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurial orientation
are defined: innovativeness, risk-taking, pro-activeness, competitive aggressiveness, and
autonomy. It is also one of the specific pillars of entrepreneurial architecture.

Companies Culture
According to Graham and Lam (2003), Alphabet is following basic cultural of US individualistic
approach stems from their pioneering and industrial backgrounds. Following Americans’
preference for dealing with one point at a time – a reductionist and sequential approach.
The Hofstede Model (Hofstede 1981, updated 2001, Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005; Hofstede, 2007)
shows that Alphabet individualistic cultures are loosely knit social frameworks in which people
primarily operate as individuals or in immediate families or groups, the task prevails over personal
relationships and the atmosphere is competitive. And then Alphabet have a low power-distance
cultures endorse egalitarianism, with open and informal relations, functional and unrestricted
information flows and organizations that tend to have flat structures.
In terms of uncertainty avoidance, Alphabet not to avoid ambiguity, resolve uncertainty, and not
always prefer structured rather than unstructured situations. Low uncertainty avoidance cultures
tolerate greater ambiguity, prefer flexibility, stress personal choice and decision-making, reward
initiative, experimentation, risk-taking and team-play and stress the development of analytical
skills. In masculinity, Alphabet have ‘Masculine’ cultures reward financial and material
achievement with social prestige and status.

Individual Culture
Since Alphabet is US based company, their basic culture influenced their individual culture in the
organization that can be seen in tool developed by Erin Meyer (2014):
a. Communicating
Favor simple, clear and precise communication, often with written confirmation. Alphabets
has a flat organizational structure, thus encouraging all employees to share their voice. A flat
organizational structure is one that allows communication between employees of any level.
This means that a lower-level employee can share their opinion or concern directly with the
CEO—without any pushback from their direct manager.
b. Evaluating
Favour being indirect with negative feedback and criticism. Instead of waiting for an annual
review, Alphabet now uses a formal, midpoint check-in with their employees halfway
through the annual performance review period. By checking in before the review,
employees enable to see whether they are on track to meet their performance goals.

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 c. Persuading
Typically start with opinions or practical observations, adding theory and principles later.
Alphabet strongly believes in giving freedom to its workers in order to ensure absolute
productivity. Alphabet's employees are allowed greater discretion in their hours of work and
also on when they can go and have some fun whether it involves getting a massage, heading
to the gym or just indulging in volleyball.
d. Leading
Have low power distance favor egalitarianism like we said before. Alphabet's leadership style
is called distributed leadership, and it's a blend of the styles mentioned above. That's because
Page and Eric Schmidt had different styles that mixed to create the company's culture. The
company was initially more laissez faire and focused entirely on hiring and promoting
talented engineers.
e. Deciding
Group decision-making is consensual, not too reliant on one person. Decisions at Alphabet
are made in teams. It is common for several small teams to attack each problem and for
employees to try to influence each other using rational persuasion and data. Gut feeling has
little impact on how decisions are made.
f. Trusting
In task-based cultures, trust is built through work, not by personal networks. Recognizing
each employee individually and creating a feedback culture are two ways Alphabet can regain
a culture of trust and open communication.
g. Disagreeing
Comfortable airing differences would not harm relationships. The option to speak up is
always there. But there could be fear of repercussions, no incentive for providing feedback,
or no system in place to see any movement on the solution to a problem. In Alphabet’s case,
company culture starts with hiring employees who are eager to share ideas and collaborate.
They then allow their employees the freedom to do so in the workplace, whether with fellow
employees or the CEO.
h. Scheduling
Timekeeping is expected, punctuality is important. The good news is that 70% of Alphabet
employees report being satisfied with work-life balance, even though their hours may be
longer than a typical 40-hour work week. However, 48% report feeling burnout at work, so
the issue of working hours may still be a pressing one. Remember that Alphabet working
hours are also a factor of your role, current project and priorities as an individual. Because
Alphabet is performance-based, you won’t necessarily have to deal with long hours if you
can meet milestones within an 8-hour workday. This depends largely on your manager and
team.

Working Culture
ALPHABET as a company, have its own work culture that unique and innovative, such as:
a. Employees are an integral part of the company.
Alphabet employs thousands of people every year. And creating an environment where these
folks feel inclusive and important is not a cakewalk. But Alphabet has done it successfully.

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 Alphabet has built a workplace where every individual feels that they are working for a cause
and change.
Alphabet's culture is a leading example of a healthy work environment. Their employees get
the privilege to work in the latest technology and are deeply involved in solving the world's
huge problems with the best possible use of technology.
Alphabet promotes the idea of "Uncomfortably exciting," and now all its employees follow
the same. The company also shares all possible information with employees to maintain
transparency in the process.
b. Innovation
Since its inception, Alphabet has launched many revolutionary services YouTube, Google
Maps, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Photos, and the list goes on. However, the only constant
thing in Alphabet is innovation and evolution.
Alphabet follows the rule of "Think 10x" for innovation. As per this rule, Alphabet focuses
on improving a product by ten times rather than 10%. The company also uses the "soft
opening" approach to collect users' feedback on their new launches and then innovate their
products based on customers' reviews.
c. The workplace is fun
Creating a workplace where employees enjoy working long hours is a difficult task.
Alphabet has accommodated all in one place -- Alphabet workplace. This tech giant has
successfully created an innovative and fun working environment for its employees. This
increases team efficiency, improves employees' productivity, and helps them get rid of
boring cubicle space, dull meeting rooms, or a formal corporate environment.
d. Not a typical corporate culture
Since the beginning, Alphabet has managed differently. The organization has encouraged a
culture of learning and knowledge sharing.
The company believes that learning is the right of every employee, and teaching is the entire
company's responsibility. And that is why Alphabet's employees-to-employees network runs
80% of its tracked training. This g2g teaching network has more than 6000 Alphabet
employees. Volunteers of this community help their peers by teaching professional skills
(leadership, public speaking, and negotiation), providing 1:1 mentorship, and preparing
learning materials. At Alphabet, these kinds of programs are backed by a robust learning
environment.
e. Advocates flexibility
But recently, Alphabet has released a tool that allows its employees to estimate the pay and
benefits of remote work. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, pointed out in an email to his
employees that "We'll move to a hybrid work week when most employee spend
approximately three days in the office and two days wherever they work best."
Flexible schedules allow employees to explore creative ideas and give freedom to work from
a preferable environment. Because in the end, it's the people who make a company great.
And Alphabet knows it well.

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Reasons Why Alphabet’s Company Culture Works
Built on Data
Since the company’s inception, Alphabet has based most of its decisions on data. In every choice
they make, whether big or small, qualitative and quantitative data are considered in the decision-
making process.
a. Fun Work Environment
Alphabet is known for making the workplace feel like more than just work. In a world
where cubicles and boring work environments are common—this is a difficult reputation
to achieve.
b. Encourages Creativity
Alphabet is a firm believer in the notion that, happier employees are more productive and
creative. Therefore, Alphabet strives to create an environment where employees are free to
express their creativity, whether by offering new solutions for the same problems or simply
in the way they work.
c. Hires for Character and Skills
Alphabet’s hiring process, while rigorous, is very effective in finding not only the best
talent, but also people with great character and drive.
d. People Operations: Happiness is a Science
Whereas most HR departments are reactive, the People Operations (or POPS for short)
department of Alphabet employs a proactive approach. Alphabet’s People Operations, like
all other departments, is reliant on studies and data.
e. Open Communication Policy
This open communication policy means it’s an open-door policy, too. And while it may be
a successful employer engagement tactic for most companies, keep in mind that it could
also limit an employee’s eagerness and ability to voice their opinions.
f. Communicates Core Values Clearly
One of the biggest reasons Alphabet continues to be an innovator and leader in their
industry is that they have a clear idea of their values and goals.
g. Innovation is Prioritized
The company encourages the use of as many resources as needed to come up with new
ideas and solutions. the company rewards employees who provide innovative ideas and
solutions. There are always incentives behind creative thinking—essentially creating an
environment of fresh ideas and constant brainstorming.
h. Financial Support for Employees
Alphabet doesn’t only pay its employees well. They also provide them with personal
finance assistance to ensure they stay in good financial health while getting what they want
and need.

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 i. Mobility Within the Company
Alphabet encourages mobility within the company so that employees can work on their
strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to provide employees with the exact job they want
and then help them with the transition.

Company as Learning Organization

Alphabet as one of the company is a standout when it comes to serving as a model for a corporate
learning culture. The employees are given the flexibility to set their schedules to work when it suits
them, in a way that maximizes their productivity and creativity. The staff is made up of talent across
all different fields of technology, so everyone can work with and learn from each other.

This growth mindset, and opportunities for collaboration results in a staff that works to constantly
improve themselves and the company. Alphabet values employee contributions and risk-taking,
even when it leads to failure.

Alphabet also values great managers. We have mentioned in our posts the importance of leaders
who demonstrate their commitment to, and confidence in their employees. Alphabet decided it
wanted to understand what makes a manager great.

Researchers first tried to find evidence that managers weren’t important, that a manager had no
impact on a team’s work. They looked at manager performance ratings and feedback on Alphabets
annual employee survey and found that managers mattered. Teams with great managers were
productive and happy. Still, the data did not explain what made these managers great; it only
reported that they were.

Alphabet reviewed the comments on the performance ratings, and in the employee surveys, and
found ten behaviors that were repeatedly attributed to the great managers. They also conducted
double-blind interviews with a group of the best and worst managers to find concrete examples of
what the managers were doing differently. You may recognize the behaviors in this list:

A great manager:
• Is a good coach
• Empowers the team and does not micromanage
• Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being
• Is productive and results-oriented
• Is a good communicator—one who listens and shares information
• Supports career development and discusses performance
• Has a clear vision/strategy for the team
• Has key technical skills to help advise and direct the team
• Collaborates across the organization
• Is a strong decisionmaker

Corporate culture is now starting to become a consideration for millennials and generation Z in
looking for work such as in Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft. People of this
generation are mostly looking for companies that can help them develop their careers and learn new
things to improve their skills. Moreover, there have been many studies that discuss the relationship
between learning culture and employee satisfaction and retention levels.

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Learning culture is something that companies must pay attention to if they want to be competitive
and survive in the long term. Given that in the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, there have been
many shifts in the need for human skills due to automation and artificial intelligence (AI)
technology. Companies that have a strong learning culture will be better prepared to adapt to
changing skill needs that will occur in the future. Therefore, companies need to facilitate their
employees in honing new skills so that they too can adapt.
When it comes to corporate culture and learning culture of the company, 80% of the training is
done between employees. This program they call Googler-to-Googler (g2g). Collaborative learning
is a value that is promoted by Google. They believe that employees grow and develop by teaching
what they know to other employees. While employees can learn much more from practitioners,
people who have direct experience and knowledge of what they do.
Every employee at Alphabet can be directly involved in helping their co-workers learn, either
through explaining materials, 1:1 mentoring, or designing learning materials to be delivered. This
method has proven to help many Alphabet employees to upgrade their skills on new knowledge
and opportunities. For example, when almost everyone in the world switches to using smartphones,
thousands of Employees go through bootcamps to receive training about Android, where this
training is held who have been working on Android.
One of the factors driving the success of Google's g2g program is its voluntary nature. Employees
voluntarily participate as facilitators so that they do not feel burdened to spend time and share
knowledge with other employees. Then, how can this g2g program be successfully carried out to
support the growth of a culture that upholds the learning process?

• There is strong support from superiors. Employees need to know that the leaders above them
believe in learning as an important part of the job and provide full support for their employees
to continue learning.
• Embed learning programs as a core value in the company. That way, not only the HR division
or managers, but everyone in the company will have a sense of responsibility to ensure that
the learning program between employees goes well.
• Start implementing a learning culture as early as possible. It's never too late to start something
good. Start emphasizing on all employees that learning is a part of everyone's job and make it
a part of new employee orientation activities.
• Build employee confidence. Motivate employees to do new things in addition to their work by
giving confidence and freedom that they can do well, giving a big picture of the output they
are working on, and giving constructive suggestions.
From the learning culture applied by Google to Alphabet, we can understand that a company
that adheres to a learning culture will create an environment that encourages curiosity and
knowledge sharing among its employees, which has implications for a better business.

HOW ALPHABET INC HANDLE VUCA

The term VUCA that extend for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity has
brought up into the world after the cold war. The world has shifted to the interconnected
system ever since and the turbulence of global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic
had made a drastic change in how company handle their management.

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The internet and a novel disruptive business models have created several unicorns and
technology companies in the world. These companies with their cutting-edge technology
have invented innovative apps, process, & system to manage things more efficiently.
Companies that have grasped the market opportunities in a timely manner and well
executed strategy have been granted with a great valuation.
Recently, the time is suited for a digital transformation of operations including
manufacturing, supply chain, logistics and other back-office services. It will give
significant value that increase efficiency, decrease leakage and increasing visibility. The
technology industry as well as startup are creating several new platforms of innovative
things such as:
• Internet of Things (IOT) and edge computing that will transform manufacturing
• Sensors, blockchain and smart contracts/decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO)
that will improve supply chain/logistics
• Multiple SaaS platforms that concern on back-office applications.

History of the term ‘VUCA’

The idea of VUCA came from the leadership theories of Burt Nanus and Warren Bennis
(1987). In the twenty-first century, U.S. Army War College students began using the
VUCA according to the world condition. In 2009, an American researcher from Silicon
Valley, Bob Johansen, used the VUCA concept for business activities. Thus, the term
usually applicable in understanding the situation and creating a strategy to face upcoming
challenges.
What does VUCA stand for?
V stands for Volatility
U stands for Uncertainty
C stands for Complexity
A stands for Ambiguity

Volatility can be defined as the pace of the changes that occur in a particular activity of
business. It shows the difficulty of facing any patterns in fluctuated situation. The more
volatile the area is, the harder it is to predict the future. The second letter in the VUCA
acronym is uncertainty. It means unpredictable future that the user face for digital products
and services, market demands, or competition. The VUCA complexity could create chaos
and confusion. The big amount of data, the overload of information, and the large
interactions between systems, might establish an interrelationship conjecture that will be
difficult to comprehend.
Last, there is ambiguity, which could also mean as a lack of clarity. This could occur when
we face challenge that we never face before such as the corona virus pandemic. It states
how we are clueless with how big the challenge is, what cause it and even how to solve it.
How does the VUCA affects the digital industry?
The digital industry is greatly affected by the VUCA. Technology industries who face
VUCA should require a novel skill set, innovation, and an agile framework. Software
development is measured by customer needs, so it is vital to connect with users and manage
their expectations at each level of production. The VUCA world pushes strategy maker,

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product owners or any other stakeholders to not only receive feedback, but also supervise
the digital market and competition. Every specialist should connect in diverse ways and in
different aspects of the digital production. They also have the obligation to make the right
measures and metrics.
The other challenge is to establish and manage development teams. In the U.S., they were
a phenomenon called The Great Resignation (Big Quit) as the impact of COVID-19
pandemic. The phenomenon touches many functions in the company from software
developers, product designers, and digital product development leaders. Furthermore, there
is also a crisis in the employment area. HR divisions are having difficulties on searching
for digital specialists and technology leaders. Thus, digital companies need to have new
solutions such as using external services.
The challenges of managing people in a VUCA world
The implementation of rigid, fix and long-term strategies may not work anymore, and an
autocratic style of management may not be the effective way in a VUCA era. All the senior
management should equip themselves with how a VUCA world might influence people
inside and outside of the organization.
How to navigate a VUCA world? What is inverted VUCA?
Bob Johansen, who gave the VUCA concept into the business in 2009, in three years later
brought up the inverted VUCA model, which explain the responses to the VUCA reality.
Inverted VUCA are as follows:
➢ Vision - as a response to volatility
➢ Understanding - as a response to uncertainty
➢ Clarity - as a response to complexity
➢ Agility - as a response to ambiguity
First, you need to have a clear vision. A strong team with the same purpose becomes a
powerful drive for the organizational growth. Second, you need to understand the situation
of the VUCA environment by observing the market trends, analyzing data and discussing
the information.
Third, use a new communication tool and absorb better flow of information that will
encourage employees to take part in decision-making. A high level of transparency is also
crucial within your organization. Last, digital companies should get used to the agile
methodologies. Agile culture deploys a fast response to the changing market demands and
customer needs. It supports company to adapt in VUCA conditions.
For business to survive in the VUCA condition, companies have begun to use a new
business model such as the circular economy and the sharing business model that are also
subject to digital transformation processes. The smart factories are focusing their
manufacturing field based on the industrial Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence,
cyber-physical system & production. In addition, Human Resource Management (HRM)
4.0 has also been brought up in companies, supporting the acquisition of knowledge in the
field of development and innovation so that their skills & knowledge remain relevant for
work in the new business context under conditions of VUCA.

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To ensure a dynamic and agile business environment in the VUCA context, it is also
necessary to establish a new leadership model that pays attention to the development of
HRM 4.0 and it should focus with employee training and the factors that are crucial for
employee retention.
A new business models and the usage of smart technologies are essential, where Covid-19
will push toward the decline in the supply of raw materials, which will have an impact on
the backlog of manufacturing product. Thus, companies are facing uncertainties in
processes, supply chain complexity and ambiguity of information that exist in the VUCA
world.
To handle such scenarios, introducing new technologies is important to achieve business
excellence. The example of these technologies is the introduction of blockchain technology
(BCT). BCT is a distributed book (DLT) technology that stores transaction records
unauthorized and immutable. It is a great solution to integrate transparency and traceability
into the traditional ecosystem.
Recent technology companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Netflix etc.) have structured
their operations to have a minimum organizational structures and management that are
using a network, entrepreneurial or hybrid models based on Mintzberg’s classifications.
Maintaining a strong cultural fit during the Covid-19 times is a hard challenge, because of
a lack of interpersonal interaction, agility, and transparency.
Alphabet has been able to hire 20,000 employees in 2019 and however, during 2020 the
hiring has been slowed down to only 4,000 new hires, said Pinchai in 2021. COVID-19 has
changed the old ways to work where employee mostly work from home. To handle these
challenges, Alphabet implemented pre-researched rules to support managers in their work
such as:

• Elaborate a clear goal of the future on the team and what is expected of them and
convey the reasoning behind the decision
• Promoting calm to your team around the chaotic and uncertain times. Implementation
on the correct leadership style managers can promote a self-assurance and empathy
towards the team.
• Contributing principles over policies. You need to be flexible toward the team and
give them an autonomy. However, there is a need to prioritize important work at
first.
• Focusing on well-being and work safety to adapt during COVID-19 situation

To work in a virtual teams will face a great challenge. Alphabet decided already before the
time of pandemic that it had to manage remote teams work more effectively. Alphabet
invented a playbook for managers and team members to be more productive in virtual
teams. It is based on internal and external research that is settled by the People Innovation
Lab team (PiLab). The research is based on a survey from 5000+ Google employees
working across the globe that include multiple cultures and positions.
Alphabet’s managers need to be clear on transparency when having open dialogues with
the teams and helping individuals to stay safe during Covid-19. The company also develop

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 interpersonal relationship by creating the “Buddy”- system or “Accountability Partnership”
that is based on Association for Training and Development (ATD) research. 65% of
individuals are more likely to achieve their goals by committing into each other.
Furthermore, formalizing decision making and to have a moderator in a meeting will
enhance productivity. Thus, Alphabet established internal guidelines that will make the
meeting more effective.
The previous case study shows how Alphabet managed to mitigate large layoffs during
Covid-19 and adapt its operational model and leadership during VUCA times. The
employee still manages to be more productive and has guidance that comes from leadership
and management to handle any issue. Even when over 50% of the U.S. employees had to
work remotely, Alphabet can still invest and operate in one of the biggest cloud server
networks while their engineering teams were still working in virtual teams.

Comparison Matrix
Commercial
Leadership Culture Structure Strategy
environment

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20% 20% 20%

10% 10% 10%

Commercial
Leadership Culture Structure Strategy
environment

Alphabet as a giant technology company, has several competitive advantages that make it stand out
against its competitor. It can be driven based on several indicators as follows:

• Leadership
Alphabets leadership style is called distributed leadership. That's because Larry Page and Eric
Schmidt had different styles that mixed to create the company's culture. The company was initially
more laissez faire and focused entirely on hiring and promoting talented engineers. Some managers
thrived in this free-wheeling environment, while others floundered. This began an internal research
project to determine the best path forward to achieve their own specific goal in each division.

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• Culture
Google's culture is a leading example of a healthy work environment. Their employees get the
privilege to work in the latest technology and are deeply involved in solving the huge problems
with the best possible use of technology. Employees at Alphabets are happy and comfortable at
work. The working environment is structured in ways that make it suitable for all employees. This
way, they return the favor by giving the company their best. Alphabet believes that the employees
make the company and have to treats them accordingly. Making the voices of employees at all
levels heard helps them feel more comfortable and freer at work. Their freedom to self-expression
and creativity facilitates innovation. So, employees are not scared to go beyond their skillset and
push the boundaries that will yield results.
• Structure
Alphabet has been able to diversify its portfolio through its innovation capabilities. As a new parent
company, Alphabet subsidiaries including Google, Calico, Verily, Waymo, GV and many others
have supported them in embracing toward a new market. Even though Alphabet still receives the
most revenue stream from Google, the growth of the other subsidiaries should be considered by its
competitor. Alphabet has tried to penetrate the market in the area of Artificial Intelligence,
Healthcare, Transportation, Capital and more. This also has been supported by its flat
organizational structure in the company. The flexibility of command and the autonomy of its talent
make room for tremendous growth of innovative ideas that can be translated into new product
development.

• Strategy
Alphabet has developed excellent acquisition performance. Since 2016 itself, the company
managed to acquire 58 companies. In average from 2016 until 2020, the company has an average
of 1 acquisition per month which categorize as the highest business acquisition among its
competitor. Through this strategy, Alphabet can widen and expand its market by obtaining new
skills, technology or patents to further improve its product and services.
Total number of acquisitions & mergers by Alphabet and its competitors

Based on our scoring, Alphabet excel its Environment Culture because innovation, open
communication, fun workplace, flexible time. Whereas most HR departments are reactive, the
People Operations (or POPS for short) department of Alphabet employs a proactive approach.
Alphabet’s People Operations, like all other departments, is reliant on studies and data,
Organizational Structure because of its learning and driving employees to motivate them in working
in alphabet. Just like any other large company, Google has a massive human resources (HR)
department, but they refer to it as “People Operations.” People Operations are where raw science
and HR intersect—and it’s what keeps Google a top-performing company, and its Strategy

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implementation due to the output from its subsidiaries being transferred freely to one another but
more output to Alphabet. This creates a consideration of the opinion from the subsidiaries in order
to thrive and grow the company.
Externally, with each criterion from Culture, Structure and Strategy scoring average around 81%
in comparison with its competitor such as Apple, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft in the Technology
Industry which Scoring amounting 74%. But we believe it is lacking in Leadership since Alphabet
is a holding Company in which they let the CEO subsidiaries as their leader to take the corporate
action. Furthermore, Alphabet leaders only focus on the growth and result of the corporation.

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References
- Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation by Paul Burns (4th edition)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_Inc
- https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/20210203_alphabet_10K.pdf?cache=b44182d
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-
Romppanen/publication/358044787_Case_Study_Management_Challenges_in_Google_Inc_i
n_VUCA_environment/links/61edd107c5e3103375b78831/Case-Study-Management-
Challenges-in-Google-Inc-in-VUCA-environment.pdf?origin=publication_detail
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nenad-
Petrovic/publication/355982092_THE_ROLE_OF_AN_INNOVATION_AND_DIGITAL_T
RANSFORMATION_OF_ORGANISATIONS_IN_VUCA_WORLD/links/61937a0561f098
7720a043c5/THE-ROLE-OF-AN-INNOVATION-AND-DIGITAL-TRANSFORMATION-
OF-ORGANISATIONS-IN-VUCA-WORLD.pdf?origin=publication_detail
- https://home.kpmg/in/en/blogs/home/posts/2021/11/digital-transformation-iot-blockchain-
mantra.html
- https://www.boldare.com/blog/what-is-vuca-world-definition/#short-history-of-the-term-
%E2%80%98vuca%E2%80%99-how-does-the-vuca-world-influence-the-digital-industry?
- https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/10-great-examples-of-googles-company-culture
- https://faangpath.com/blog/google-a-tech-titan-with-the-best-corporate-culture/
- https://jcsr.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40991-017-0021-0
- https://www.fastcompany.com/90723929/google-alphabet-x-lessons
- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/former-googler-on-how-tech-giant-squandered-employee-
trust.html
- https://rocketrip.com/google-and-successful-workplaces/
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-motivation-google-way-sampurna-majumder
- https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/how-google-evolved-performance-management-to-drive-
top-performance-across-its-growing-workforce
- https://www.wired.com/story/what-googles-open-communication-culture-is-really-like/
- https://strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/google-swot-analysis/
- https://4dayweek.io/blog/google-work-life-balance-wlb-demystified-2022

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