Google Influence on Stakeholders

Google tries to leave positive influences over its stakeholders as employees are enjoying a flat structure and a supportive reward system in addition to being treated without differentiation or discrimination. There are plans for encouraging communication between shareholders and stakeholders in addition to making deep analysis and search studies about clients; needs and wishes. Other competitors such as Apple and Microsoft are also analyzed which raises their interest in how Google works and this reflects a great Google influence on stakeholders. Diversification and surprising products are main reasons for the stakeholders' interest in Google as this depends on innovative management ideas to influence stakeholders such as trying to be a media company and not only a technology company by joining sites such as YouTube to it. Google expects what customers need and then launch the products as they study the market and then prepare to surprise customers and other stakeholders. Innovation management of Google tends to monitor stakeholders and find out their opportunities and threats which makes the company able to boost the market such as for example, when Apple smartphone was launched, Google was ready to launch its Android application to be suited with Apple devices that then was used by other companies of mobiles such as Samsung and others. Gmail was the strong mail service that beat Yahoo to be presented with all fast and easy requirements customers need which reflects a deep understanding of the company's innovation management to all stakeholders which tells Google is able to represent a model for all stakeholders in innovation and management. Meyer, (2016)

AC 3.2: Communicate a creative and innovative management idea to stakeholders of an organization

Communicating a creative and innovative management idea to stakeholders is a very important and required process in any successful business organization that wishes to keep competitive in the market as this process ensures providing stakeholders with the accurate and updated information to all stakeholders. There are a number of ways for this communication based on the abilities and needs of the organization. Examples are the corporate communication or Public Relation processes. In Google, there are some main departments for dealing with stakeholders and communicating the innovative management ideas with them using methods such as open discussions with different stakeholders, making interviews with them and using some certain processes with certain stakeholders in order to communicate creative and innovative management ideas with them such as:     

Stakeholder	Communication Activities	Issues
Customers	Providing customers with feedback about products and discussing their opinions in online forums or through surveys on Google blogs.	Discussing privacy of personal data and safety measurements.
Employees	Presenting satisfaction surveys to employees and meetings for discussing different important matters.	Internal grievances with different employees and promotion issues.
Business Partners	Regular collaboration and coordination meetings	Discussing consequences of risk management
Shareholders	Meetings and discussions face to face	Competition issues and new product launching risks
Government	Holding workshops and councils	Discussing environmental issues

AC 3.3: Establish key goals and priorities for implementation of a creative and innovative management idea using feedback from stakeholders

As being discussed in 3.2, there are many things that can be the goals and priorities of Google's creative and innovative management idea with the help of stakeholders' feedback such as:

Goals and priorities

1. Studying employees' satisfaction reports and raising their morale and motivate them in order to retain them.
2. Using the latest technology that can boost the market and reach higher levels of competition with other rivals such as Yahoo, Microsoft and others which can lead to more creative ideas based on the feedback from those competitors.
3. Providing customers with what they need and expect after discussing the surveys and views they provide on the forums of Google and on different social sites as Google has more than 60 centres all around the world to provide customers with low prices and cheap products.
4. Maintaining large amount of data about all stakeholders and analyzing them in order to use high levels computer technology for serving the internet users and raise their trust in Google.
5. Managing risk by applying the most effective privacy and safety strategies in order to ensure high levels of security and data privacy for all Google's stakeholders.
6. Giving much interest to talented who can provide new innovations to the company and raise its profits.
7. Being clear and honest with all stakeholders so as to provide them with the needed information about the benefits and uses of new products and innovations.  
8. Having a clear leadership innovation strategy that is shared with all stakeholders. (atkearney, 2016)

AC 4.1: Assess the barriers to the implementation of a creative and innovative management idea in an organization

Innovation and creativity in a business organization may face barriers and challenges that delay the implementation of creative and innovations management ideas and these barriers can be created as a result of some element existence and other factors. The organization's strategy can help in controlling the barriers face innovation and creativity to keep market competitiveness. Barriers may be either internal barriers or external barriers as follows:

Internal barriers: 

Internal barriers usually result from internal management problems and conflicts as these problems inside the organization such as lack of understanding creative ideas and innovations or having conflicts about them or others can delay implementation of these innovations. Examples of internal barriers to innovation is the inability to take risky decisions, lack of enough flexibility and bureaucratic culture, poor management, not suitable leadership style, a passive corporate culture to creativity and innovation and lack of organizational transparency and good realization for the innovative ideas.

External Barriers: 

External barriers are those barriers occurring without the control of the organization as they out in the external world around it by the effect of external forces such as laws, taxes, policies, market forces, customers, suppliers or environmental changes or others. These barriers affect innovation and creativity implementation as they may hinder the innovation and refuse it based on external forces refuse. These barriers can lead to failure of the innovation and loss based on low sales.

Google Barriers to creativity and innovation

The company faces many barriers to innovation and creativity implementation such as the sever market competition and the existence of different competitors such as Apple, Microsoft and others.

The company also faces the barrier of high speed life style and high need for new technology such as new software, new mobile devices and new systems for being used in new devices which makes the company in a following need for new innovations.

Another barrier is the fast information cycle that requires continuous training and development for employees and the need for new talents for presenting the company's new innovations and creative ideas.

The customers' needs and their requirements for better service is another barrier faces Google and makes it in a continuous readiness case for developing its products to boost the market. (Adams, 2005)

AC 4.2: Plan a strategy to overcome identified barriers to the implementation of a creative and innovative management idea in an organization

In order to overcome the identified barriers Google faces when implementing creative and innovative management ideas there should be strong strategy for overcoming these barriers and reach competitive advantage. Google should be able to apply a strong leadership strategy that focuses on raising employees' morale and motivating them and selecting talents to be recruited for helping the company be more innovative. Google is keen on having free organization culture that enables the company to have a structure to be followed to face the challenges and barriers to innovation. Google applied the 70-20-10 rule in order to give employees more freedom in using their own innovative and creative ideas and let them apply creative ideas effectively. The strategy that Google can follow can be as the following steps:

1. Setting objectives to attract more talented and creative employees for being recruited in the company.
2. Giving employees the chance to be creative by ensuring the suitable work environment that enables them to provide better innovative ideas.
3. Following a suitable leadership style that can make innovation and creativity easier such as the transformational leadership style that can enable employees to be more creative through a flexibility level and strong communication between employees and each other and employees and their leaders as this can help solve many problems and conflicts related to barriers to innovations.
4. Having clear innovative and creative plans that ensure employees are all well realizing and understanding for the new technologies and new advances in technology and then to train employees on using these technologies.  

Change curve theory

The company can use the change curve theory for facing barriers that are either external or internal as there are four stages that can be used to face such barriers using the theory as follows:

Stage one: dealing with the shock employees have when they face changes suddenly and managing this shock.

Stage two: when employees are still not able to deal with change occurring, they shouldn't be let act negatively against the organization.

Stage three: leadership in this stage begin training employees on accepting change and dealing with it and employees find out how to get the benefits from this change.

Stage four: this is the final stage when employees accept change and deal effectively with it through the hard work of effective leaders who prepare employees and train them for working with change. (Daft, 2015)

AC 4.3: Explain how a strategy plan for overcoming barriers will ensure innovative change is achieved

According to Terziovski, (2008) in order to achieve a successful business strategy plan for facing barriers to change the company has to follow certain steps and focus on some main key points in its strategy plan which can be explained as follows:

 Management skills and qualities: the CEO of Google should master main management skills and qualities that can help in pushing employees towards achieving change and innovations and overcoming any barriers that may face them such as change resistance. Effective leadership styles can be stated and agreed on in the company's strategic plan such as following transformational leadership that ensures achieving the needed innovative change.

Organisational culture: The CEO of Google can follow communication methods for communicating an organizational culture that supports innovative change and this can help employees get easily and fast used to this change and apply it alongside with the different elements of the organizational culture.

Organisational Innovation: Google can't be satisfied by its success in search engines as the company needs to have organizational innovation that depends on spending more time than the 20% on innovation and should analyze its current products and find out how customers estimate them and then try to add new organizational innovations on those products such as its Gmail for example as it needs more innovations in adding services such as blocking services and higher privacy services.    

Strategic Leadership: Google depends on its strategic leadership in providing its employees with the latest training and development programs in using IT and other technologies for providing more innovations and this is achieved by a variety of leadership styles that support innovation.

AC 4.4: Communicate a strategy plan for overcoming barriers to relevant stakeholders in an organization

According to Pfeffermann,  Minshall and Mortara, (2014) Google can communicate the strategy plan for overcoming any barriers to innovation to the stakeholders by the following steps:

1. Identifying stakeholders and dividing them to groups as Google's stakeholders can be customers, clients, suppliers, shareholders and government.
2. Identifying the strategy plan points to be communicated.
3. Finding suitable communication channels for stakeholders such as Google online forums for customer, meetings for employees and shareholders and surveys for employees and customers.
4. Discussing barriers with stakeholders and finding solutions.
5. Barriers facing Google include time constraints, growth rate in some countries, change resistance, speed life style rate, need for technology and other competitors power.
6. Google can use Power and Interest matrix for communicating a strategy plan for overcoming above mentioned barriers.

Google’s suggested communication strategy

Stakeholders	Message	Source	Schedule
Business Partners & Stockholders	Providing business development plans and creating new channels for new technologies.	Meetings and reports	Periodically
Shareholders Investors	Needs for Research and Development and new technologies	Meetings and reports	Quarterly
Employees	Innovation techniques, training and ideas achievement	Meetings, surveys, emails and reviews	Weekly
Government	Regulations, laws, and policies	Councils, conferences and meetings	Periodically or when needed
Customers	new technology, needs of customers and suggestion	Surveys, forums, reviews and external bodies feedback	During different stages of development

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to state that creative and innovative management ideas are important for any business organization that wishes to keep competitive in the market and reach higher competitive advantage. Google is a great successful organization that follows strong leadership strategies that focus on innovation and creativity which helps it be competitive. Google faces many barriers to innovation and creativity and it is recommended to follow a good strategy plan for facing such barriers. The company is also recommended to choose a suitable leadership style that is able to communicate innovative ideas to all stakeholders effectively.