Case Study - Google

Case Study - Google

Introduction

The Google search engine has turned out to be so popular that it is at the moment included as a verb in the dictionary. Co-founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page while they were only a student at Stanford University, Google was integrated in the form of a privately held company in the year 1998. Moreover, has now become a model example of modern 'employee-centric' benefits and other relevant policies. The company has come a long way from its humble initial stages as a university project known as the Backrub to a multinational company; however, they have engaged the collegiate vision of an innovative campus-like corporate vicinity and incomparable employee perks and remunerations throughout this unparalleled growth (Kafka, 2009).

The corporate headquarters of Google, known as Googleplex is located at Mountain View, which is located in California and has been a much-loved download on YouTube exhibiting the abundance of incredible fringe benefits the company possess. Currently, Google has offices in fourteen states and in thirty six countries throughout the world (Arrington, 2008).

The Bases on Which Google Has Built Its Competitive Advantage

Google provides a fast paced and a high-energy work setting. The employees who are commonly referred to as Googlers, work enthusiastically and with full dedication yet have fun at the same time. The company's headquarter has an environment which seems more like a college campus where the virtues of innovation and creativity are celebrated. The company makes use of its corporate culture and services, in addition to an ambience to generate a casual 'value-added' work setting. In Googelplex the workspaces of the employees are loaded with the aspects of individualism, and the environment seems relaxed. There is no dress code and neither are there any formal daily meetings. The employees are allowed to play beach volleyball, videogames, foosball, table tennis, pool tables and even roller hockey during their work hours. This encourages the young employees and makes them feel like they are still at some college campus instead of a formal office (Huselid, Becker & Beatty, 2009).

Google instils the belief, in its employees that it is more concerned about their lifestyle rather than the money, which ultimately imparts them with innovative supremacy over the competition of the company. Google portrays itself in the form of a company which directs its efforts towards modifying the world with its creative involvement and teamwork. All of the people who work at the company feel pride in considering themselves a part of such an enterprise and a successful brand. According to Brin, the fact that the company has reasonably engineered centric is being misapprehended to signify that somehow the other functions are not as important and that it is the company's workforce which forms the base of the culture as well as a significant reason to why the company has always been successful in enhancing its competitive advantage (Lashinsky, 2007).

Google's employees pompously state that they work for the best company of the world and that they ...