The fact that everyone has heard of Google shows just how widely successful this company is. It is large and popular, with over 1 000 000 applicants and around 400 000 workers. What makes this company a so well sought after business to work for? In part it has a lot to do with its organizational culture.

Organizational culture is defined as the beliefs and assumptions that make up the atmosphere of a company. Google has a very relaxed cultural environment that is very welcoming to its employees. People enjoy going to work due to its very positive and friendly atmosphere. Employees do not have a firm dress code, are allowed casual hours and are very team and people orientated. They even are allowed to bring pets such as dogs to work!. Their management makes them feel more like equals to them rather than pose as overbearing figures dominating with control.

While this may be very informal and seem somewhat unprofessional this method is working in Google’s favour. Employees who feel comfortable at work and actually enjoy coming to their jobs everyday, act more productively then ones that don’t. This open environment allows employees more room to be innovate and act effective to the company. All work and no play is definitely not one of Google’s mottos and they are showing that suits and ties don’t have to be the only way to run a company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bJBeCI0e3U

After learning about the financial accounting equation and liquidity in class the concept I found most intriguing was when we were discussing assets and whether or not a person could be classified as an asset.

Personally, having taken accounting before I never classified a person as an asset because you can’t sell off a person or liquidate them. I only ever considered people or employees from a financial perspective but after the discussion in that class I realize that from other areas in the realm of business people could be considered assets.

I did not think about the concept from a marketing perspective or a company’s success based on a particular person working for them.  Now after having discussed it in class I think that people are large assets to companies but their contribution just can’t be added to a business sheet with the value of a number.

I found the lesson on business plans to be very intriguing especially when it came to seeing how businesses change their structure when operating internationally.

It was smart for Burger King to change its logo while in Russia in order to entice more consumers to their stores. Not every business is suited to cultures in other environments and sometimes adaptation is needed in order to ensure the growth of a branch in a foreign location.

The problem however, is to make sure that company doesn’t lose the identity of the business in the process of adapting. I never thought about the variety of different factors to consider such as management, who will be working in the foreign store, or how the company plans  on getting the funding to ship their products over from a different location.

The fact that employees native to the foreign country running the shop is obvious but the fact that the manager shouldn’t be is something not as obvious. There has to be a communication link between employees management and other branches or the business wont be able to keep down a sucessful path.

Gathering research is very important to determine what consumers want out of there products. I found that conducting our own cookie research experiment in class was a very effective way to learn about different techniques for gathering research. It was also a very interesting way to learn about consumers in general. By conducting our fake research experiment I learned that people have a lot of different views on what they prefer.

With cookies alone the decision towards which ones tasted better than others didn’t have an unanimous vote. Tate was a factor towards the kind of cookie a person preferred but the bigger surprise was that so was texture. The soft/crunchiness of the cookie or the thick/thinness of it determined views of how the cookie was. In addition to that a lot of people’s opinions were based on how their particular cookies were in comparison to others. There was a lot of work involved with gathering research which the bulk of it was finding a way to test others objectively. We didn’t want any other factors to affect our research. Knowing the right questions to ask was important as well as determine the specific variable we were studying. We wanted to see what kinds of things played factor on people’s preferences.

I found the class on value positioning to be a very interesting insight into the techniques different companies use to make their product stand out within its market. Consumers have to be able to recognize the product in relation to another and then look for ways that it stands apart in order to entice them to buy it. This is known as points of parity and points of difference and it almost seems like the two terms are contradicting one another but yet having them both is a key part of launching a successful product.

For example my group when asked to pick a product to value proposition we chose aero bars. This product is part of the market of chocolate bars. While there are many kinds of chocolate, the thing that makes aero bars stand out is the fact that this specific chocolate creates a bubbly sensation within the consumers mouth. No other chocolate is known for this attribute and that is what makes aero stand out in its market against competitors. The company constantly emphasizes this fact about its product by even using bubbles in its own motto. It’s harder for other companies to imitate this style of chocolate as opposed to mimicking a specific flavour or ingredient. The company was smart to go with a more intangible point of difference rather than something anyone could copy such as being known for “nutty” flavour or “dark chocolatey goodness”.