Assignment: Google’s Information Systems
Assignment: Google’s Information Systems
The Information Systems Strategy Triangle
3. “Aim to be Ten Times Better”: To get radical and revolutionary innovation, think 10 times improvement to force out‐of‐the‐box thinking.
4. “Bet on Technical Insights”: Trust your organization ’ s unique insights and bet on them for major innovation.
5. “Ship and Iterate”: Do not wait for perfection; let users help you to “iterate.”
6. “Give Employees 20 Percent Time”: Employees will delight you with their creative thinking. Give them 20 percent of their work time to pursue projects they are passionate about.
7. “Default to Open Processes”: Make processes open to all to tap into the collective energy of the user base to find great ideas.
8. “Fail Well”: Do not attach stigma to failure. If you do not fail often, you are not trying hard enough. Let people and projects fail with pride.
9. “Have a Mission That Matters”: Google believes that its work has a positive impact on millions of people and that this is motivating its people every day.
Keeping up with the organizational strategy of Google , its IT department provides free and open access to IT for all employees. Rather than keeping tight control, Google allows employees to choose from several options for computer and operating systems, download software themselves, and maintain offi cial and unoffi cial blog sites. Google ’ s intranet provides employees information about every piece of work at any part of the company. In this way, employees can fi nd and join hands with others working on similar technologies or features.
In building the necessary IT infrastructure, Google ’ s IT department balances buying and making its own software depend- ing on its needs and off‐the‐shelf availability. Google thinks of every IT decision “at Web Scale” to make sure its technology works well for its customers. Given the nature of business, security of information resources is critical for Google . For instance, its master search algorithm is considered a more valuable secret formula than Coca‐Cola ’ s. However, rather than improving IT security by stifl ing freedom through preventive policy controls, Google puts security in the infrastructure and focuses more on detective and corrective controls. Its network management software tools combined with a team of security engineers constantly look for viruses and spyware as well as strange network traffi c patterns associated with intrusion.
Discussion Questions
1. How is Google ’ s mission statement related to its business strategy?
2. How does Google ’ s information systems strategy support its business strategy?
3. How does Google ’ s organizational strategy support its business strategy?
4. Which of Porter ’ s three generic strategies does Google appear to be using based on this case? Provide a rationale for your response.
5. Analyze Google ’ s strategy and the type of market disruption it has created using a dynamic environment perspective.
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