Contemporary Business
Strayer University
Fatumata Fofana
Dr. Michael Jackson Laverty
Date: 05/24/15

Compare and contrast the two (2) industries you have identified in terms of size, products, services, customers, economic and regulatory environment.
The two industries that I have identified are; Twitter and Google, Twitter is a "micro-blogging" tool, meaning you can share clever comments and content, but you must keep it brief (under 140 characters to be exact). Twitter has experienced exponential growth since it began. Twitter provides its users with many ways to segment content based on topic through the use of hashtags (e.g. #Infusionsoft), trending topics, saved searches, follower lists, and more. Twitter is a quite useful "listening" tool so you can see what your target audience is discussing, stay up to date on industry trends, and engage in conversation with those who talk about your company.
The follow connection on Twitter may be initiated by an "offline" relationship, but it is just as likely to be created by a common interest. Twitter users follow industry experts and those with who teach or study the same topics that interest them. Though the bond between Twitter users is not as personal, active users generally have a larger circle of influence on Twitter than they might have on Facebook. Twitter also has search power, allowing users to search by topic, name, and more. Twitter also allows for more automation since tools like Hoot Suite allow you to schedule posts. Set up a Twitter account. Infusion soft integrates with Twitter so that you can increase your followers, publish links to your quality content, and encourage content sharing.
While Google is the powerhouse of search and offers a wide range of online business applications, it is a relative newcomer to the social media scene. Google+ is a full featured social network, similar to Facebook, but has more robust segmentation tools and a simpler interface. It also delivers an enhanced user experience for those who like to upload large photo and video files. The value Google+ has to offer businesses is yet to be seen as they recently launched Google plus Pages for business. However, Google's integration of social interaction with Google search results has promising potential to increase the volume of qualified traffic to business websites and produce higher conversion rates. Set up a Google+ profile. You are not able to publish your Infusionsoft content to Google+, however, you can encourage your community to share your content with their Google+ connections. The Google +1 option allows the sharer to choose which "circles" will see the content, which produces a more targeted sharing experience
Google is a business. The revenue they generate is derived from offering search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on their site and on other sites across the web. Hundreds of thousands of advertisers worldwide use AdWords to promote their products; hundreds of thousands of publishers take advantage of our AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to their site content. To ensure that they ultimately serving all their users (whether they are advertisers or not), they have a set of guiding principles for our advertising programs and practices:
Describe the mission, vision, values and core business practices of each of the companies you selected.
The mission of twitter is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. Twitter’s mission statement is a pretty good on the core purpose, which Collins and Porras define as “the organization’s reason for being.” The strategy statement seems to be a groping, as yet incomplete attempt at defining a BHAG. What’s missing is any expression of the company’s core values. This seems about right for Twitter, which at the tender age of eight has already seen all its founders the people most often responsible for giving a company durable values and vision leave.
A likely vision for Twitter is for it to be a premiere micro-sharing platform. The singular thing that distinguishes Twitter from blogs, RSS, IM, email, etc. is synergy. It is the synergy between people's individual streams that makes twitter special. This happens because of an increasingly large and diverse user base, because of retweeting and other meme-spreading mechanisms, and because of serendipitous interactions and spontaneous conversations.
Google, where co-founder and CEO Larry Page has decided that its mission statement (“to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”) needs to be expanded as the company moves from purely digital endeavors into the physical world. Google has pretty clearly expressed core values, although they have been greeted with a lot more skepticism in recent years as the company has grown into a global giant. But now it has to sort out its core purpose from its BHAGs. This may sound a little silly, but actually involves the crucial strategic question of what about Google should stay the same and what should change.
Google has an unofficial mission as well: “Don’t Be Evil.”, which sound more like a slogan than a true mission statement. In order to better communicate the essential business information to company’s stakeholders, Google should improve its mission by including the rest of the components. Vision statement is to organize all of the data in the world and make it accessible for everyone in a useful way
Recommend tree to five (3-5) possible HR strategies that will support each organization’s mission, vision, values and core business practices for each company. Support your recommendations.
The Speed Strategy provides much-needed core HR functionality in a shorter timeframe than traditional HR technology implementations typically within a budget year. Speed deployments focus on nailing down the basics and meeting essential HR management requirements, such as the need for global workforce reporting with common data standards and the ability to pay employees accurately. The speed strategy prioritizes efforts to streamline workforce management processes, standardize data and definitions, facilitate reporting, and, in the case of multinational companies, meet global compliance requirements. This strategy can help lay the groundwork for a subsequent transformation of more extensive HR processes and operations.
The Comprehensive Strategy asks HR leaders to define upfront strategic HR objectives and a future-state service delivery model for the HR function. The emphasis on widespread change across the HR function helps HR leaders develop an implementation road map that reflects their vision, rather than simply focusing on the technology implementation, and then use a continuous improvement approach to achieve the envisioned future state. “The comprehensive strategy suits HR organizations that need to support a new business strategy or transform their end-to-end HR service delivery model,” says Gretczko. “It benefits organizations where opportunities to improve efficiency are identifiable across the HR function, and where talent engagement is an increasingly important component of the overall business strategy.” To confirm this strategy’s effectiveness and maintain stakeholders’ support for it inside and outside of HR, Gretczko adds that the implementation needs to demonstrate measureable improvements in efficiency and effectiveness along the way, given the longer timeframes for deployment.
The Talent Strategy focuses on extracting talent data from legacy systems and defining standard recruiting, succession, compensation, and performance management practices. It requires HR leaders to determine which aspects of talent management the company needs to address first and the order in which new tools, processes, and functionality should be rolled out to various business units, divisions, or employee segments. HR leaders will also have to choose between point solutions focused specifically on talent or integrated HR management systems that include a talent management component.
The talent strategy is typically employed by organizations that view talent management as a priority and need access to talent data on a global basis, but that may not have an immediate need for a comprehensive reassessment of end to end HR processes,” says Gretczko. “It merits consideration by organizations that need to strengthen talent in critical roles, require talent mobility and transparency to make strategic business decisions, and seek visibility into global talent pipelines to assist with expansion in new markets.
Identify how your recommended HR strategies will promote a competitive advantage for each company within their industry. Provide a rationale for your position.
We already know that many business essentials including computers, Internet downloads, printers, and package delivery have successfully responded to this “need for speed” by improving their speed capability by as much as 20 percent per year. However having equipment and technology that enables speed may not be enough if a key remaining business success component, the employees, lags behind in the race for speed. For example, recent speed-related train accidents have demonstrated that fast-moving equipment simply can’t function if the employees operating it are not capable of handling the speed that the equipment is capable of. The key strategic learning for executives should be that in order to dominate their market, all of the major components of a business, including equipment, capital, and people must all move in unison and at a speed that matches the firm’s best competitors.
HR could have a proactive impact on organizational speed through the way that it hires, develops, moves, and manages employees. If you’re not sure whether your HR function has a focus on speed, you can quickly find out, because having a “speed capability” would be part of job descriptions, employee performance appraisals, promotion criteria, performance metrics, and reward criteria. And there would certainly be classes for employees and managers on how to increase their speed. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find HR organizations anywhere that even list enhancing workforce speed as one of their primary goals, no less offering services and programs that measure and increase that employee speed. Outside of firms like Google, Facebook and Yahoo; it’s hard to find any organization where managing workforce speed is a major funded HR initiative.

Use at least four (4) academic quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia does not qualify as an academic resource.

Ananthram, Subramaniam; Nankervis, Alan. Contemporary Management Research. Sep2013, Vol. 9 Issue 3, p299-322. 24p. DOI: 10.7903/cmr.9731.

Benko, C., & Weisberg, A. (2007). Implementing a corporate career lattice: The mass career customization model. Harvard Business School Press, 35(5), 29-36.

Castells, M. (2000). The information age economy, society and culture. Volume 1: The rise of network society. Oxford: Blackwell

Duane R. Ireland, Micheal A. Hitt, Robert E. Hoskisson 10th Edition(2013), Strategic Management, concepts and cases, competitiveness and globalization

Hansen, Fay. Workforce Management. 6/23/2008, Color Photographs PERSONNEL management; PERSONNEL directors; CORPORATIONS -- Ratings & rankings; CORPORATIONS -- United States; UNITED States; GOOGLE Inc.; UNITED Parcel Service Inc.; Administration of Human Resource Programs (except Education, Public Health, and Veterans' Affairs Programs); Human Resources Consulting Services; BOCK, Laszlo, Vol. 87 Issue 11, p1-32. 6p. 6.