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