Download - What makes a company great?
Module 6. Assignment Choice #2: What
Makes a Company Great?
Dayiris Barrios Moreno
ORG502 –Effective Organizations:
Theory and Practice
Colorado State University – Global
Campus
Francisca Nkadi
Source:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140812222931-43495632-5-steps-for-good-to-great
Company #1: Southwest Airlines
Facts:
• Number of Employees: 46,278
• It is the world's largest low-cost carrier, headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
• Southwest commenced service on June 18, 1971
• Fleet Size: 716 Aircrafts
• The primary operating philosophy is low fares and lots of flights
• The Company is serving 93 destinations in 40 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and five near-international countries
Employees First
Customer Second
Shareholders third
The airline puts employee happiness above
customer satisfaction.
In order of importance, Southwest ranks:
Southwest Airlines Co. (2014).
Company #1: Southwest Airlines
Culture’s impact on gross income and profit
42 consecutive years of annual profitability, a record unmatched
in the U.S. airline industry.
Gross Income: 6.78Billions in 2015
a fun-luving attitude (the way Southwest
spells “love”
a warrior spirit
a servant’s heart
•The Company has three core values. These are widely embraced by employees and are a key factor in its success.
Some of the competitors, such as United Airlines,
Delta’s, Delta Express and Spirit Airlines lack
Southwest’s relentless focus on culture, they had failed
to emulate this culture and they are bust. For example
the gross income for Spirit Airlines was 604.68M in
2015.
Klein (2012). Solomon (2012)
Company #1:Southwest Airlines
Company’s reputation among
its customers/clients
The three letters, LUV, the company’s name on the NY
Stock Exchange, acknowledges the airline’s
roots and reinforces that ‘‘love’’ of others (Klein, 2012).
Culture Impact: Southwest Airlines is the top leadership in
customer satisfaction
Positive Actions: Apologize. Southwest’s
Proactive Customer Service department is dedicated to
answering consumer concerns and requests. When
something goes wrong, a member of the department will contact customers personally
(Morell, 2012)
Company #2: Intuit
Intuit Inc. creates business and financial
management solutions that help simplify the
business of life for small businesses,
consumers, and accounting professionals.
Intuit Inc. (2015).
Intuit was incorporated in California in March 1984. It reincorporated in Delaware and completed the initial public offering in March 1993
Main Products: QuickBooks, TurboTax, Quicken and Mint
Approximately 7,700 employees in major offices in the United States, Canada, India, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia, and other locations at that time
Total revenue of $4.2 billion in the fiscal year ended July 31, 2015
Company #2: Intuit
Culture’s impact on gross income and profit
• Comparing the results to its competitors, Intuit Inc reported Total Revenue increase in the third quarter of 2015 by 6.1 % year on year, while most of its competitors have experienced contraction in revenues by -7.24 %, recorded in the same quarter. (CSIMarket. (n.d.)
Eight Core Values:
Source: https://www.intuit.com/
Company #2: Intuit
It has been voted one of the best companies to work for in the USA! Why?
Intuit and its leadership have embraced (Design for Delight) D4D and rapid experimentation as key learning processes (Hess, 2014).
It demonstrates that cultural change in successful companies takes time and that such change will only succeed if top management is passionately
committed and involved as role models of the desired new behaviors (Hess, 2014).
A case study found that Intuit’s employee recognition program “Spotlight” helped create an exciting performance-driven culture in just three years.
Murphy, K. (2008).
Company #3:Google
Founders:
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin
1998
•By 1996, they had built a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual webpages, officially founded in 1998
Business:
•Google is an internet company, the core products are Search, Android, Maps, Chrome, YouTube, Google Play and Gmail, each have over one billion monthly active users.
Number of Employees:
•As of December 31, 2015, Google had 61,814 full-time employees:
•23,336 in research and development,
•19,082 in sales and marketing,
•10,944 in operations
•8,452 in general and administrative functions.
CULTURE:
“Our employees are among our best
assets and are critical for our continued
success. We expect to continue investing
in hiring talented employees and to
provide competitive compensation
programs to our employees”
“We take great pride in our culture. We
embrace collaboration and creativity, and
encourage the iteration of ideas to address
complex technical challenges.
Google Inc. (2015)
Company #3:Google
CUSTOMER REPUTATION
In a poll that asked more than 30,000
Americans to rate 60 prominent companies in
six areas. Google topped two of them --
financial performance and workplace
environment -- and finished in the top five in
vision and leadership, social responsibility,
and products and services. (Rosoff, 2011)
Google's culture is reflected in
• Their Hiring Process,
• Creative Work Atmosphere,
• Work Benefits,
• Personal Development and Training,
• and the company's values & it is what makes them stand out from other large companies.
Company #3:Google
Gross Income by December 2015: 45.43 Billions
Comparing the results to its competitors, Google Inc reported Total Revenue increase in the third quarter 2015 by 13.02 % year on year.
The revenue growth was below Google Inc's competitors average revenue growth of 27.04 %, recorded in the same quarter.
Competitors: Yahoo, Microsoft's Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Naver, WebCrawler, and MyWebSearch
(CSIMarket, n.d)
Company #4: LinkedIn
World’s largest professional network on
the Internet with over 400
million members in over 200 countries
and territories
Incorporated in Delaware in March 2003
under the name LinkedIn, Ltd. and
changed the name to LinkedIn
Corporation in January 2005.
LinkedIn has more than 9,200 full-time
employees with offices in 30 cities around
the world
(Linkedin Corporation, 2015).Source: http://www.business2community.com/linkedin/top-sales-strategies-utilize-linkedin-lead-
generation-process-01371415#xbZLUxv2FYyAe51A.97
Company #4: LinkedIn
Very Good set of Benefits:
Site gyms
Healthcare benefits
Relaxed environment,
Casual dress code,
Flexible timings
Pretty generous holidays, among other
things
CULTURE: They focus on 5 main pillars:
• Transformation
• Integrity
• Collaboration
• Humor
• Results
• (Lowe, 2016).
Company #4: LinkedIn
Gross Profit: 2.572Billions in 2015 LinkedIn’s leadership believed
its culture was its competitive
advantage. The company
fostered creativity, innovation,
and a collaborative and open
working environment,
embraced humor, and was
results oriented.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-connect-your-competitors-linkedin-says-one-brynne-tillman
ReferencesCSIMarket. (n.d.). Intuit Inc's. Retrieved from http://csimarket.com/stocks/compet_glance.php?code=INTU
CSIMarket. (n.d.). Google Inc. retrieved from
http://csimarket.com/stocks/compet_glance.php?code=GOOG
Google Inc. (2015). Form 10-K 2010. Retrieved from SEC EDGAR website http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
Hess, E. D. (2014). Columbia Business School Publishing : Learn or Die : Using Science to Build a
Leading-Edge Learning Organization. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com.ezproxy.rit.edu
Intuit Inc. (2015). Form 10-K 2010. Retrieved from SEC EDGAR website http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
Klein, G. D. (2012). Creating cultures that lead to success: Lincoln electric, southwest airlines, and SAS
institute.Organizational Dynamics, 41(1), 32.
Linkedin Corporation (2015). Form 10-K 2010. Retrieved from SEC EDGAR website
http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
References
Morell, K. (2012). Lessons From Southwest Airlines' Stellar Customer Service. Retrieved March
13, 2016, from https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/lessons-
from-southwest-airlines-stellar-customer-service/
Murphy, K. (2008). Intuit's Employee Recognition | Globoforce Press Release. Retrieved March
13, 2016, from http://www.globoforce.com/news/press-releases-archive/intuits-successful-
employee-recognition-strategy/
Rosoff, M. (2011). Google Has A Better Reputation Than Apple, Microsoft, Or Any Other
Company. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/google-has-the-best-reputation-of-any-
company-2011-5
Solomon, M. (2012). What you can learn from Southwest Airlines' culture. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/what-you-can-learn-from-southwest-
airlines-culture/2012/04/03/gIQAzLVVtS_story.html
Southwest Airlines Co. (2014). Form 10-K 2010. Retrieved from SEC EDGAR website
http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml