Companies with Strong CRM
CRM is strong in Amazon with its quick service, protection of the customers’ rights, attentive attitude to feedback, quality control, and convenient website (Green, 2009). The same can be said about McDonald’s; its websites that are customized for different groups of customers (for example, children or Asian) are worth mentioning (Rai, 2013).
Companies with Most Successful Advertising Campaigns
The 80s “Just Do It” advertising campaign of Nike defined the brand image (one proclaiming the love for sport and ambition) and made it popular all over the world (Schermerhorn, 2010, p. 20).
Another extremely successful advertising campaign is “Get a Mac” by Apple that consisted of the comparison of Mac and PC as well as Apple and Microsoft. The campaign was characterized as “culturally influential,” increased the market share of Apple by 42% and earned the 2007 Effie Award in 2007 (Dahlén, Lange & Smith, 2010, p. 24).
Companies with Strong Innovation Culture
Google Inc. and Microsoft have always been among the most praised leaders in innovation, which is partially explained by the specifics of IT industry. Indeed, unless they continuously innovate, these companies will lose their prominent positions in the rapidly developing market. Naturally, both Google and Microsoft are investing in research and development (R&D), but it must be pointed out that the most innovative companies have never been the ones to spend the most on innovation (Korn, 2011).
Actually, Microsoft’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) points out that the IT companies tend to innovate more effectively and intensely while allocating relatively meager budgets in this direction (Daniel, 2008, para. 4). Investing in innovation does not guarantee success; instead, innovative culture needs to be built, and the two companies have their understanding of this phenomenon.
The Senior Vice President of Google’s People Operations is certain that the success of the company results from innovating. In Google’s view, the key to innovation consists in empowering its employees and providing them with “channels for expression” and communication (He, 2013, para. 4). These channels include, for example, Google Cafes meant for work and “play” or Google Universal Ticketing Systems meant for problem-reporting. Any employee can write e-mails to top managers, and the system called Google Moderator allows posting questions and voting for them to be answered sooner. Similarly, weekly TGIF is a meeting meant for direct conversation between employees and top managers. Google believes that such an environment spurs innovation (He, 2013, para. 17).
Microsoft’s CIO agrees that it is important to create the opportunity for innovation: the company does its best to provide the employees with the necessary environment, tools, and incentives (Daniel, 2008). At the same time, the company attempts to balance the creativity of its employees by exerting control through clear and concise guidelines. Apart from that, any innovation has to pass the final test: offer a positive answer to the question “does it really matter”.
Microsoft distinguishes between “innovative” and “different” and demands the same from its employees. Apart from that, the company encourages the innovation of “product, business model, and policy” (Wunker, 2015, para. 4). Such an approach is opposed to the more popular product-based innovation. As a result, for example, the company managed to introduce Office for iOS and Android: a reasonable marketing decision that promotes the product among the users of other OS.
To sum up, both companies recognize the importance of innovation and consider innovation culture to be the foundation of their success. While funding is necessary, both organizations highlight the importance of creating an innovation environment and providing the employees with an opportunity to innovate. At the same time, the companies appear to focus on different aspects of innovation culture building. Indeed, Google’s approach seems to be particularly concerned with producing ideas in larger number. Microsoft, on the other hand, stresses the necessity to set the right direction for these ideas. It can be concluded that the methods and specific goals of innovation culture building can be customized to the needs of different companies, but its importance and effectiveness cannot be denied.
References
Dahlén, M., Lange, F., & Smith, T. (2010). Marketing communications. Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons. Web.
Daniel, D. (2008). Microsoft’s Culture of Innovation: An Interview with CIO Tony Scott. CIO. Web.
Green, H. (2009). How Amazon Aims to Keep You Clicking. Bloomberg Business. Web.
He, L. (2013). Google’s Secrets Of Innovation: Empowering Its Employees. Forbes. Web.
Korn, M. (2011). Top ‘Innovators’ Rank Low in R&D Spending. The Wall Street Journal. Web.
Rai, A. (2013). Customer relationship management. New Delhi: PHI Learning. Web.
Schermerhorn, J. (2010). Management. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. Web.
Wunker, S. (2015). 5 Strategies Big Businesses Use To Build A Culture of Innovation. Forbes. Web.