Introduction
Since its inception, Google has been able to achieve great things. It is ranked among the best companies to work for in the world. On the same note, Google has been consistently ranked among the top 100 companies in the world for quite several years. As far as information is concerned, Google gives people what they want when they want it. The employees of Google are known to be satisfied with the way they are treated at work.
Similarly, many college people rate Google as their ideal employer if they finish college.
Nevertheless, Google has been criticized for its ability to keep secrets. There are various secrets that are kept by Google, which even some people working there do not know about. In this regard, it is good to give credit to Google, where it deserves and criticize it where it is due. Even though Google is successful among the best companies in the world, it is also among the most secretive companies.
Corporate culture
Among the reasons that make Google the best company in the world is its good corporate culture. It is crucial to note that corporate culture is extremely vital in determining not only the relationship among co-workers but also the relationship between employees and the management.
Companies that have bad corporate cultures seldom maintain their workers leading to high labor turnover rates (Sutherland 2012). At Google, their corporate culture requires a casual relationship among employees no matter what their ranks may be. Every employee has his or her democratic space to air opinions regarding any company issues.
The cordial corporate culture has been enhanced by the reduction of the number of middle-level managers. It is a well-known fact that middle-level managers sometimes enhance bureaucracy since they would want their subordinates to feel their presence. In this regard, Google Company ensures that all employees are equally and non-partially treated.
All teams are formulated in a manner that gives every team member equal authority over various issues (Gottlieb 2012). The elimination of the probability of one member feels that he or she is the leader of the group ensures that all group members are free to contribute to any issue affecting the team.
The ideology that any firm should have a top-down hierarchy of command is not entertained at Google. Every member has an equal right to contribute to various issues. Moreover, victimization that one person contributed differently than others is absent. This is enhanced through the encouragement of collaboration participation of team members.
Moreover, social groups that encourage cohesiveness among employees are encouraged, and employees mingle freely with each other regardless of the rank. This culture has been key in enhancing the performance of Google as a company. Ingenuity is boosted, thus enhancing the productivity of the company.
Personnel
Another factor that boosts the performance of Google is the way their personnel is recruited and handled. The recruitment is done in a vigorous way that ensures only the best talents are brought into the company. While it is a norm in other companies that recruitment is strictly an exercise of top management and other employees, especially junior ones, have no role, Google is different.
Each employee has an opportunity of evaluating and giving his or her comments regarding a new employee. There is a system in place which allows all employees to comment online about any employee that is about to be recruited (Sutherland 2012). As a result, the possibility of getting the best employees is high, thus enhancing the efficiency of the company.
Moreover, it is a well-known fact that when employees are allowed to contribute to various issues, their satisfaction is enhanced, which enhances their productivity. Employees cannot optimally contribute to an organization if they feel that they are not valued. In this regard, the involvement of employees in the process of evaluating a new employee boosts their morale though they are not part of the final interview panel.
On the same note, employees work in a relaxed environment which enhances their creativity, adding to the company’s innovativeness. The fact that all employees are encouraged to be innovative and come up with new ideas enhances their willingness to work for the company, thus reducing labor turnover rate.
Also, all employees at Google are paid according to their performance. Performance evaluation is impartial and just. All employees are equally treated, and justice to all is the slogan. Moreover, extraordinary performance is equitably rewarded, whether on a personal or group basis. In this way, the loyalty of employees is enhanced while at the same time their output is increased. Employees can access free food, which is also of high quality.
Moreover, the menu changes regularly to increase variety. Leaves and offs are also very accommodative. On the same note, there are a lot of other recreational facilities to increase the satisfaction of employees (Stewart 2013).
Leadership
The leadership style that is used by Google is a friendly one. Each employee has the opportunity to make decisions in their team. Unlike what has been the norm in many huge companies, very few decisions are purely left for the top management. Otherwise, all employees are free to contribute to any matter of substance to the company.
The mechanical mode of leadership where the top management just issues orders that are supposed to be religiously followed by junior employees is not allowed at Google. Leaders take the contribution of junior employees seriously (Sutherland 2012). The leadership style is more interactive and allows for consolidation before any decision is made.
Through this ideology, Google has been able to produce excellent people who prosper not only within its workforce but also outside the company. Also, there are very few single offices at Google. Most of the offices are communal working places where employees can interact with one another, thus increasing cohesiveness.
Variety of Products
Arguably, a successful company should be able to meet the needs of its customers and do so promptly. Google has been able to come up with very many products that are very crucial to the day to day lives of people. To begin with, the search engine of Google can give the results of virtually everything.
Additionally, the search engine is very first in producing the results. It should also be noted that Google can identify the required information even when there is a mistake in spellings. Whatever the information that one requires, he or she is sure to get the same through Google (Stewart 2013). The best thing about the Google search engine is that it is free. This is against the expectations of many people that at least there would be a charge for using Google.
Through the efforts of Google, most companies have reduced significantly their internet charges. On the other hand, despite that fact that Google provides its services for free, the services are of high quality. It is needless to highlight that availability of Google in a host of different languages is also beneficial to the company as this enables it to have a wide variety of clients. Moreover, this increases its customer base giving it the power to control the market share.
The search engine is not the only product offered by Google. There is the Google maps technology, which is arguably the best mapping technology (Gottlieb 2012). On the same note, Google has been able to come up with different products, including Google Chrome, the Google emailing service, and many more products. Increasing the variety of products that clients can choose from is essential in enhancing the productivity of a firm.
Innovativeness
The dynamic nature of human needs makes the world of technology to change rapidly. In this regard, information technology companies will have to enhance their skills to meet their changing needs. Consequently, innovation is crucial for any company that deals with information technology.
Google has been able to meet this criterion by encouraging ingenuity among its employees. Though critics argue that Google has been lagging in terms of innovation, the fact is that Google comes up with new ideas every so often. Self-driving cars, Google Glass, Google maps, Android just to name, but a few are among the most influential innovations by Google (Sutherland 2012). It is also important to note that Google comes up with innovations on issues that affect many people in society.
Moreover, Google has been keen on ensuring that its products can be used on various devices that are commonly used; this includes phones and other electronic gadgets. Innovativeness also helps in boosting the confidence of consumers, thus increasing its market control.
Therefore, Google manifests itself as a market leader in the information technology sector. On the other hand, Google is also investing in other projects that are not among its core business but which are of important value to people. This includes research on alternative sources of energy (Ledel & Stoll 2013). Using its innovativeness in various projects that benefit the common person boosts it ranking among people.
The Secret Lab
Even though Google has been able to manifest itself as the best company in the world, it has some secrets that it keeps. It is assumed that companies need to give the public all the necessary information. However, that is not always the case, and most companies hide very many things from the public.
Consequently, it has been argued that Google is among the most secretive companies in the world. Firstly, Google’s research lab is their secret. Very many things go on each time in Google X as the lab is called, but little is known to the public on how these things take place. It is important to note that while it is in this lab that every innovation takes place, very little is known about how much in invested or how many trials are made before coming up with the final product.
It has been argued that Google carries out its trials on the lab so that if they fail, the public will not be able to know, and that would not affect its core business. Google X has limited access, especially to the general public and the media (Sutherland 2012). The secret lab is just to confuse competitors and the public at large that there are some mind-blowing innovations going each time even when there is nothing going on.
Acquisition of Young Companies
Another secret that is highly kept at Google is concerned with how they come up with the criteria of which company to acquire. Nevertheless, it has been depicted that Google looks for young but promising companies and acquires them. They later advance these companies’ products a bit and enjoy the success as if it were their initiative.
It should be noted that Google does not tell the public that some of its imaginative innovations do not work. The fact that the company keeps any innovation a secret until it completes working on it helps to hide these secret actions. Otherwise, nobody can doubt when everybody knows that Google does not reveal what is being worked on.
Data Centers
Notably, Google’s best-kept secret is information about its data. It is a supposition of Google that its strongest factor in the market is its data. Consequently, Google tries as much as possible to reveal minimal information about its data. Similarly, its data centers are hidden from the public, and only authorized personnel are allowed in.
The Firm is also very categorical when it comes to hiring other companies on issues that touch on its data centers (Sutherland 2012). This is done with the belief that Google will lose its competitive advantage if information about what exactly occurs at its data centers is known. In this regard, the data centers are highly protected, especially from competitor firms.
Relationship with Government Agencies
Arguably, Google has been accused of having secret arrangements with various government agencies. It has been argued that online privacy requirements are overly lenient on Google, a factor that has been attributed to its secretive relationships with the government. The fact that the company has been allowed to use a public airfield in California is cited among the evidence that the relationship between the government and the firm is more than usual.
It should be noted that competition among various firm in the technology sector is very stiff. In this regard, any firm has to guard its new technology. Otherwise, it will be stolen by competitor firms. It is therefore not peculiar to have a firm hide its innovation from the public until they complete what they want.
This is a rule of succeeding in this market. No company can just be open and succeed. Some of its stronghold issues have to be hidden (Ledel & Stoll, 2013). In this regard, Google can succeed in the information technology sector because it maintains some secrets.
Conclusion
Success requires a host of many factors to be met. Employees must be satisfied. Otherwise, they will not be efficient at work, and this will reduce performance. Innovativeness is crucial, and any company that does not encourage its employees to be creative will not last long. Moreover, the firm must be able to cultivate a supportive corporate culture that is beneficial to all employees. These are the factors that have made Google a giant company.
Nevertheless, everything has a dark side, and Google is no different. It has secrets that it keeps some of them good some bad. However, the few bad ones cannot be used to hang the company. It is among the best companies in the world and at the same time among the most secretive ones.
Reference List
Gottlieb, S 2012, Google’s best kept secret. 2012. The Search Agents: Blog. Web.
Ledel J & Stoll J 2013, ‘Spotify CEO: eating Google’s lunch and loving it”, The Wall Street Journal, Vol. 43, No. 2, P. B7.
Stewart, JB 2013, ‘Looking for a lesson in Google’s perks’, The new York Times.
Sutherland, A 2012, The story of Google, The Rosen Publishing Group, New York.