Question

Please this is Important help out I need 3-5 pages

research and write 3-5 pages on IT organization of Fortune 500

Answer 1

Solution

The IT company that we have picked up for analysis from the Fortune 500 list is one company that has a legacy and the modern approach attached to it. This large multinational company is Microsoft. It is one IT company which has a long history. Certain parts of it are grey and certain parts of it are very bright in terms of progress and growth.

Microsoft was started in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. It rose to great heights in 1980 with the MS-Dos operating system which took the market by storm and raised a lot of revenue for this startup. Microsoft began to grow more and in 1986 came up with their IPO. The largest outbreak for the company came in 1985 when Microsoft Windows a graphical extension of MS-Dos was launched. It started to gain popularity among different consumers. Microsoft had a strategy of partnering with certain large giants and promoting their products as a specialty along with the packages offered with the partnering players. One such strategic partnership was between Microsoft and IBM where this collision brought about market influence but it also attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. In 1990 Microsoft Office was launched which again was promoted with the strategy of Microsoft and the new operating system packages. In 2000 Bill Gates went from the company, by this time it was already a giant in the IT sector. Microsoft Windows and Operating System was considered to be an advanced still user-friendly system and with different update versions people found it difficult to switch from the Windows platform and this was leveraged by Microsoft to sell out many software packages along with this operating system. As the IT market began to grow the company entered the cloud computing space with Microsoft Azure. One thing where Microsoft lost was in computing with companies like Apple and Google which seem to be more agile as compared to Microsoft. Nevertheless, Microsoft has the advantage of its operating systems which manages to keep them afloat.

From the financial aspect, Microsoft has been a profit-making company but it has had its dark years especially in 2012 when it posted its first quarterly loss in the market of 492 million dollars. The mergers and acquisitions strategy of Microsoft still managed to keep Microsoft alive in various markets and has enjoyed a continuous stream of revenue. Microsoft has continued its marketing efforts to increase revenues and continuously provide new products to attract customers and also maintaining the stickiness factor with the consumers. Microsoft is known to operate in small teams and cultivate a culture of innovation. The problem with Microsoft is that it is political governance and follows a hierarchical culture even though innovation is looked upon with keen interest still the hierarchy is given importance and this strategy of governance at times pulls the organization back when competing with the likes of Apple and Google.

Apart from the products Microsoft also offers certain advisory services to large operating Giants and bring about certain IT policy and efficiencies across those organizations. Microsoft has also been interested in opening their own exclusive stores which provide a platform for marketing their flagship products one such large store is on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

When will look at Microsoft strategically we find out that there has been no such market strategy that Microsoft has not tried because of its large international presence. Usually, Microsoft looks at intensive growth strategies but they have also been cases where market penetration strategies have been adopted by Microsoft by reducing their prices. Microsoft brings about certain uniqueness in its products which provides for its competitive advantage. he differentiation strategy of Microsoft is its core advantage and continuous product improvement helps in the long term strategic goal of Microsoft. The problem with such a large organization is that it requires certain stability but the market space in which Microsoft operates does not provide for stability but for disruption. It is because of this reason Microsoft at times finds it difficult to adapt to the dynamic market conditions. Microsoft is primarily a product company and its product development strategy has always been to prepare a small beta version and throw it into the market for free usage and then packages are attached to those products and prices are charged once the consumer has got a look and feel of the product and would like to use the product for certain dependencies. In a nutshell, Microsoft's strategies are those of the demand creation and then charging to fulfill such created demand. Microsoft has always been known to crush their competition. Till date, Microsoft has had numerous acquisitions and many new small companies have been engulfed within the large giant. Microsoft has the advantage of size but more importantly, Microsoft also has the advantage of finance and large bottom line which allows them to eat up certain small companies that are less cash-rich. Such a strategy of domination has sometimes brought Microsoft a bad name which has at times degraded the brand but with the strong product line, Microsoft has always evaded such difficult market stories.

Today with cloud computing marketing strategy of Microsoft has been transformed completely where it provides enterprise business strategy for certain large business houses where certain free applications are clubbed with certainly paid usages and ensure a fixed revenue for the company. Microsoft has always been influenced by its revenue and this at times create certain malpractices in the market. No matter how critically we look at Microsoft but the fact of the matter is that it is a large IT company and has a very strong strategy for different International markets. it has a pool of large skilled workers which give the organization and advantage over the IT sector. Microsoft which began in 1975 as a small initiative has today grown into a multinational corporation that provides to the requirements of certain large industries through its IT scalability.