The company also creates linkages with organization that are related to promoting diversity so that technological innovation can be fostered within the organization and the increasingly diverse communities can be catered to. The company endeavors to sustain relationships and linkages with institutions through employee membership and volunteerism, career events, conference interaction, software donations, and sponsorships (Microsoft, 2010).
Corporate hierarchy
The founder and chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates is reported to have encouraged keeping a flat organizational structure so that all ideas, problems and discussions can be carried out easily. He reportedly values such organizational types because they assist in developing a flexible and dynamic organization that possesses little inertia to change, promotes an exemplary environment and motivates employees (Gates, 2010).
A main element that offers success to any business growth and evolution idea in modern times that are continually changing due to increasing emphasize on innovation and knowledge base is to let centralization go from the organization. Decentralization is the answer to new issues that are occurring because of the ever changing and increasingly competitive business environment. If the end users' that is the consumers' needs have to be met, the distance between the organization's decision makers and the consumers have to be reduced. When the organizational structure is flat, the company finds it easier to gauge the changes in the consumer demands and to respond accordingly without setting aside a lot of time to the activity. In this way, decision making can be made quickly, entrepreneurial creativity of employees is given a free reign and emphasize is laid on new ideas instead of compliance with inflexible rules and policies (Gates, 2010).
As has been stated before, Microsoft as a company is devoted to the aim of assisting their customers in reaching their full potential. Just like the company aims to continually bring innovation and experimentation in their products, they also want to encourage continuous growth when it comes to improving and enhancing technological solutions for the welfare of their consumers (Gates, 2010).
Corporate Governance at Microsoft
At the Annual General Meeting, the Board is voted for and elected by the shareholders so that the management and operations of the company can be overseen and direction and to reasonably assure the shareholders that their interests will be protected and taken care of. The Board provides oversight, review and guidance and in this way endeavors to develop and foster the company's business goals and aims. The Board of directors is responsible for supervising Microsoft's business operations and integrity, of interacting and working with the management to identify Microsoft's goal and course of action, of carrying out the annual CEO appraisal, of monitoring CEO succession development and of developing internal checks and balances for accurate and precise financial reporting (Microsoft, 2010).
The board is also responsible for monitoring the risk management function of the company while the audit committee appraises and gauges the company's ability and effectiveness of managing and reporting risk. The committee also identifies the company's policies on risk assessments and the steps that the management routinely takes in order to manage significant risks. The finance committee takes care of investment, tax, foreign exchange and other financial risk while the compensation committee manages risks that relate to remuneration policies and procedures. There is an antitrust compliance committee that manages the risks related to competition law. All these committee report to the Board and the board's responsibility is to ensure that interests of the shareholders are protected by managing the risks to the best of the company's abilities (Microsoft, 2010).
Microsoft's current Product-line
At Microsoft there are five business divisions through which the company aims to cater to the needs of the customers. The first division is the Windows and Windows Live Division that revolves around the relationships with PC manufacturers and includes the Windows product line. The second in line is the Server and Tools that include software products and services such Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, Silverlight etc. The third division is the online services division that contains an online advertising platform with provisions for publishers and advertisers. Products such as Bing and various...
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Additionally, he argued that the best interest of the consumers, as promoted by Gate's organization, was in fact not the core element of new endeavors, as the company had argued, but that whenever a new product or service was being projected, this would be done in order to serve the financial interests of the organization rather than increase customer utility (Kegel, 2006). In order to better understand why the above mentioned
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