My GOOGLE INC. experience

By Elliot Duncker

Hello everybody,

Today, I would like to share a great experience I had with my class. As a matter of fact we were able to visit the Google’s office in Chicago, thanks to our great teacher, Valerie Beck. She introduced us

Matt Jones that has worked for 6 years there. And we learned a lot about this multinational firm and about one of our most important topics, mentoring. It was a great experience, because the company sticks really to those values and we were able to go through a lot of information.

Firstly let me tell you about Google.

Google's entrance  

Matt brought us into a conference room of the Chicago’s offices, to give a little presentation about what Google was, and what it was all about.

Headquartered in Dublin, this big company started at his first office in California in the tiny garage of Susan Wojcicki – who is now the CEO of Youtube by the way. Two IT passionate, Larry Page (Google) and Sergey Brin (Alphabet) founded it. Since 1998, Google is known as a constantly innovating company. The business really started to grow. They increased their value consistently to finally reach Wall Street’s stock options. Now, the firm has become Alphabet employing 54 000 employees around the world, including 700 in Chicago, 10 000 in New York and 12 000 in San Fransisco. It has over 70 offices and we had the chance to visit one of them.

Inside the offices everything is maid to increase the productivity of the employees. The working experience is great. The atmosphere seems very good as well. You have a lot of space to work. What I found amazing is that they had a lot of stuff maid to relax! Such as a massage chair and a machine that allows you to walk while working. They have quiet places were to rest or hold meetings or discuss. Matt has told us they had this funny habit during mealtime at noon. They lock people inside the cafeteria to force them to discuss and have social interactions. Personally I find it very clever. You can always get to know new people employed in the company, it helps for teamwork and moreover it can help you learn something new.

Mentoring for Google

A mentor towards his mentee is basically the same as a teacher to his student. The only difference is that a mentor teaches what the mentee wants to learn. The mentor will teach very practical stuff based on personal experiences and real life cases.

Matt Jones explained how Google, throughout its program favourites mentoring. It encourages leadership coaching internally and externally.

“It is all about making sure to help people”. Matt told us that Google Inc. encourages Global Rotation that provides a new cultural experience and a professional chance to explore the business. It organizes events for its employees, to relax them and to allow them to think about something else. It creates leadership opportunities for everyone.  As a matter of fact the firm wants his employees to be in a constant will of learning. So it proposes many professional benefits but it also encourages doing the same outside of the company. Indeed they force people to do something else not related to work. 20% of the time needs to be time spent outside of the company.

Picture with Matt Jones (center) our host

As last words I would say that Google Inc. is a great company it acts internally to promote innovation and productivity. Those strong values helped the firm develop throughout time. But it is also willing to help people from the outside. Its purpose is to organize the information to make it universally useful and accessible and its strategy to this is really well thought. Matt said that working for Google is a great experience although it was really hard work. But everyday is different and learning by being curious, making new contacts is a factor of success.

I would like to thank Matt Jones for the time he spent with us, and Valerie Beck our teacher for this experience.

THE GOOGLE CHICAGO OFFICES

                                      THE GOOGLE CHICAGO OFFICES

                                                                                    By Mathilde Meynieu

        We had the opportunity to visit the offices of Google in Chicago, with Matt Jones. We were able to understand the functioning of this multinational and the way it works.

By Mathilde Meynieu

Matt Jones:

Team lead and Principal Account Manager, Travel Vertical at Google in Chicago, Illinois. He studied marketing in Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School.

« With hands on experience in global business analysis, strategic consulting, project management, sales strategy & execution, stakeholder management, program development and team member mentoring/leadership. Exhibiting consistent high-performance across increasingly complex roles, demonstrating the ability to drive significant value and build strong client relationships. »

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-jones-0a592415

"Our mission is to organize the world’s information 

and make it universally accessible and useful"

      Google Inc. is a company based on September 4th, 1998 in the Google garage in the Silicon Valley, in California, by Larry Page and Sergueï Brin, creators of the Google search engine.

Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google.

Beyond the search engine, Google offer free of charge of numerous software and services (email, office automation continuation, video, photo, blog…) and finances by the advertising from the year 2000 with a principle of link sponsored in search results and an invoicing in the " cost by click " for them announcers. However, the increasing situation of monopoly and the questions of private life worry more and more, of the occasional Internet user up to certain big organizations.

Google has many employees, it changes every week but now Google has become over 54 000 employees in 70 offices worldwide. For instance, Matt Jones has just visited 17 offices under 70.

By Mathilde Meynieu

         For Google, the competitors are a positive point for the company. Indeed, they allow Google to innovate always. The engineers are constantly urged to create new processes, new products and services. The competition thus allows increasing the productivity in the company. Google is thus constantly in search of innovation and of production.

By Mathilde Meynieu

Google in some figures:

- 20 billion pages crawled daily

- 100 billion searches every month

- 1 billion YouTube visits every month

- 100 hours of content uploaded per minute

About Mentoring,

Google use also mentoring which is a personal developmental relationship; in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn. Making a successful leadership transition requires a shift from the confines of a clearly defined operational network.

They must also accept that networking is one of the most important requirements of their new leadership roles and continue to allocate enough time and effort to see it pay off. 

Google is a Leadership opportunities with Women@google* by creating the right environments, programs and policies can support women in pursuing their dreams and building tools that change the world. Google uses also a global rotation program where 20% of time, so one day per week, the employees can do an another job in the company, to create events to involve creativity. There is a very good working atmosphere, the employees know each other well and share the same offices. Moreover, there is a strong team spirit by urging the employees to pass of good time with activities outside the company, as by creating sports teams and team events. Besides, they have good benefits, for example they have free lunch for employees and guests. It permits to employees to talk to each others. Furthermore, they work in depth with agencies and clients.

* https://www.google.com/diversity/women

To conclude, the mentoring is very important within a company as we saw it in the multinational Google, he allows the leaders to teach to know how to them make for their mentee. Indeed, it is a key of the success in a company. It is an implemented way that allows creating links, to develop capacities and skills of each. All this in a good working atmosphere that allows the employees to be effective and productive. It was very interesting to visit the offices of Google and to learn better on the concept of Mentoring. 

I wish to thank Matt Jones 

and Valerie Beck.

   

How Centigrade Start his Business in the United States ? By David PIOCHE

Doing business in the United States is easier than in France. If you want to start your businesses in the US you can check on the internet how to do it. There are several websites like the US Small Business Administration. Then you can also ask someone to be your mentor, and he will helps you with your business. For instance, he can helps you for a show

Centigrade Logo

or a blog. You have many ways to start your business in the United States, that’s why the United States are a unique country, but also why everyone says that in the United States everything is possible. We are going to talk about Centigrade which have been created 16 years ago by Chris WARD (Vice President) and Julie BARNARD (President Americas and Joint CEO). Centigrade is an international company marketing and communication agency. Today, this company works with clients across 33 countries. In the first part, we are going to speak about Centigrade in general thanks to the interview with Julie. Then, we are going to talk about the development of Centigrade thanks to mentoring, volunteering and networking.

Centigrade North America Headquarter in Detroit

When they started their business in the United States, Centigrade set up their company in Detroit, Michigan. They started their company because Bentley Motors needed support for their operations in the United States. They choose the name Centigrade because it was fitting with every standards that they wanted. Indeed, they wanted to have one word linked to their marketing and communications services. Moreover, they worked with experts to make a name that correspond with their vision, voice and identity. Furthermore, it was important that the website contains “.com” in relation with their customers. In fact, their customers need to see when they go on the website that the company is a top level domain for commerce.  Afterwards, they choose to be in Detroit because they wanted to be close to their customers, but also to have an easy access to the UK and Europe. They also wanted to be downtown, that’s why they started their company there. At the creation of the company, they set up a business plan. With time, they changed it because objectives are different from time to time. Julie said that businesses change shape, and it is important to

recognize that your initial goals and objectives will remain however the economy, your clients, your people and the needs change therefore you have to be flexible. Centigrade have been financed thanks to the Centigrade shareholders. In addition to that, they had bank support, but most of the time, it depends on their needs because profits are reinvested back in the company. Centigrade Inc. is set up as a C corporation, which means that Centigrade is an individual entity and that they are separated from their shareholders. Concerning business licenses and permit, Julie told me that it is not hard to have it, but it takes times and resources. Indeed, they had to prove by laying out clearly that they were offering something special as a foreign company, but also that they had customers in Europe that wanted to extend their business in the US.

Networking is important in the US. In fact, Centigrade have been created thanks to

networking because European companies needed an agency in the United States that can

Lamborghini World Final Race in Sebring

helps them in the goal of growing their businesses. Since 16 years, they have grew considerably their number of customers, particularly in the automotive and luxury industry. Thanks to the increasing number of customers, they widen their services like events, digital, Motorsport, Press Relation or Customer Relationship Management. Moreover they also enlarge their businesses. Indeed, they have offices in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City and Atlanta. Julie said that networking is a key to a successful business because people come back to the company because they are glad of the work done by the company, and those persons are going to recommend you if you do a good job. Consequently, for Julie, it is very hard to grow your business without networking. However, the key of success is also about the work atmosphere. You need people who can work together, learn from each other, and push each other forward, even if friends of Julie and Chris have always been supportive to their company. Learning from someone else is mentoring. At the beginning, Centigrade asked help to organizations working in the lawful sector out of London and New York. Those companies helped Centigrade with the E2 Visa registration process.  Every five years, they do again a visa application paperwork, build a new business plan and make investments into the USA. Centigrade is part of a business partnership, it helps them to mentor each other. That means that each person in the team works with external individuals who influence and guide the company. The best value of this business partnership is that they are linked to different people. In fact, they count on legal persons, financial persons, business owners, coaches, local groups, friends and families. To Julie’s mind, mentoring is very important, and it is something you should continue throughout your life. Centigrade is also making sure that their employees support voluntary groups and local charities. Volunteering is essential for a business because it shows that you are integrated in the society and you are not selfish, you think about the others and you help them. A company which is doing volunteering will always be well recognize when someone will talk about it. That’s why Centigrade initiatives include domestic violence support, animal shelters, youth groups, sponsored events and partner programs.

To conclude, if you want to start your business in the United States, you have to think about a lot of things like the name of your company. Nevertheless, it is easier to start your business in the US than in France. Moreover, you can grow your business easily thanks to

networking, volunteering or mentoring. Then, you need a good team that knows how to work with each other. The example of Centigrade was a good one because they are questioning themselves concerning their way of managing their business. They are doing a new business plan every five years and they reinvest their profit in their offices in the United States. Thanks to their success, they are going to build a new office in Toronto which is going to expand their Business in the United States. Then, Centigrade goal for the next 5 years is to grow through organic sales and agency acquisition to create $1M of EBIDA (Earnings before Interest, Depreciation, and Amortization). Afterwards, for the next 10 years, they want to do a management buyout or a merger. Consequently, Centigrade is well established on the American market and they will expand their Business in the next few years.

“You mustn’t wait for opportunity, you have to create it, 

The United States is the country were everything is possible” David PIOCHE

Lamborghini Super Trofeo 2015 : World Final in Sebring : 

Few pictures from Sebring World Final: One of the biggest event of Lamborghini Motorsport organized by Centigrade

Doing Business in the United States : Case Google by David PIOCHE

Doing business in the US is very different from France even if our culture have some similarities. That’s why we learn at school how to do business in the US. Today, we are

From left to right, Elliot DUNCKER (BBA INSEEC student), 
Matt JONES (Principal Account Manager at Google) 
and David PIOCHE (BBA INSEEC student)

going to talk about Google. Google is a company that have been created in San Francisco in September 1998 by Larry PAGE and Sergey BRIN. Thanks to our teacher, we met Matt JONES who is principal account manager at the google office in Chicago. In the first paragraph, we are going to speak about google and how they grow their business. Then, in the second part, we are going to talk about google mentoring and innovation.

New Office in Chicago

First of all, the first office of google was in a garage in a house in San Francisco. Since 17 years, they grow their business worldwide. Nowadays, they have offices around the world. In Europe, the biggest office is based in Dublin, however you have small offices in Paris, London, Madrid, etc. Then you have also offices in Africa, Asia, South America and North America with the headquarters based in Mountain View in California (United States). They don’t have any offices in countries like Saudi Arabia because of the rules of shareholders. Alphabet Inc. is the parent company of google since 2015. Google represent 96% of the employees working for the parent company. Today, Google have 54000 employees, whereas the parent company has around 60000 employees including Google employee. Thanks to the restructure, the number of shareholders have increase and the action in Wall Street have been increased in the meantime. Matt have been at google for 6 years now, and he can sees how Google is well established on the market. In fact, when he came to Google, Chicago office contain only 200 employees. And right now, 700 employees are working in Chicago Google office. During the past 3 years and a half, they have built a new building (see picture above) were they are working now. Matt loves this new building because it is really representing Google. They could built this new building because Google is a multimillions dollars company. The first revenue of Google is advertising which is representing 90% of their revenue. Then, they are also making money on few application, even if it stills a smallest revenue.

Google is innovative, and this is probably one of the reasons of their success. Matt preferred application are Nest and Google Now. Nest is an application which control the energy in your house. With the geo-localization, they will know where you are in your house or if you

are at work. In fact they cross several factor that are going to say if you are at home or at work. For instance, if you are at 7am in traffic, you are probably going to work, which means that you don’t need your heating or cooling system at home. Then, the second application, Google Now is preventing you when you have something unexpected in your day concerning traffic for example. Indeed, in the case that you leave at 7am your home to go to the work, the application can say hurry up you have an accident on the Highway and you need to leave 30min earlier. Nevertheless, this creativity is linked to Google way of managing. In fact, 20% of your time per week is about doing something else than work, or you can move to another country or city and work for another office. Thanks to this time off, employees have time to think about new product. Moreover, for google, family is first because if you have family problem, you won’t be productive at work, and you can still work online when you are at home. Afterwards, mentoring is essential for Google. They have session of leadership coaching because they want to give the opportunity to employees to rise to the top. Then, leaders are available and you are not going to be inappropriate if you invite one of them to lunch with you. For Google, mentoring is the opportunity to gain experience with people. In addition to all of that, google offer free lunch sometimes or the possibility to be part of a sports team. Consequently people in the company are going to talk with other people and it makes you more sociable.

To conclude, Google is a huge company today, thanks to their creativity they are clearly an international leader in their sector. They are very well trained in case of a catastrophe. Indeed, they trained 3 times a years in case of a crisis if the data center is down. The data

center is next to the ocean in the goal of cooling the facilities thanks to the water and it helps to use less electricity. Nowadays, Google is improving their application like Google Map and they try to find new product for their customers. Moreover, they are expanding their market by implanting new offices. The next office will be in India because the market doesn’t have access to internet. And sometimes they implant new offices because the market is not saturated.

Google Mission:

“Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”