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NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY
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GROUP ASSIGNMENT
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Case study: Tammy Savage and the NetGeneration
Marketing Management 61C_GROUP 6: Đỗ Hoàng Hạnh Trang – 11195213 Nguyễn Khánh Trang – 11195314 Phạm Nguyệt Quỳnh – 11196211 Tăng Hoài Thanh – 11194697
LECTURER: TS. PHAM THI BICH NGOC
HA NOI – 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. OVERVIEW
- About Microsoft Corporation
- About Netgen II. SUMMARY OF THE CASE
III. CASE ANALYSIS
- Question 1
- Question 2
IV. REFERENCES
A. Mission & Vission: Innovation: We believe technology can and should be a force for good and that meaningful innovation can and will contribute to a brighter world in big and small ways. Diversity and inclusion: We thrive on diverse voices. We engage our employees’ and customers’ experiences, strengths, and different points of view to inform, challenge, and stretch our thinking. This is how we innovate. Corporate Social Responsibility: We believe technology is a powerful force for good and are working to foster a sustainable future where everyone has access to the benefits and opportunities created by technology. AI: We believe that, when designed with people at the center, AI can extend your capabilities, free you up for more creative and strategic endeavors, and help you or your organization achieve more. Trustworthy Computing: Check out how we deliver secure, private, and reliable computing experiences based on sound business practices. Responding to COVID-19 together: As the world responds to the outbreak of COVID-19, we’re working to do our part by ensuring the safety of our employees, striving to protect the health and well- being of the communities in which we operate, and providing technology, tips, and resources to our customers.
B. Financial Data: Share Repurchases
Shares repurchased during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020 were under the share repurchase program approved on September 18, 2019. Shares
repurchased during the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 were under the share repurchase programs approved on both September 20, 2016 and September 18, 2019. All other shares repurchased were under the share repurchase program approved on September 20, 2016. The above table excludes shares repurchased to settle employee tax withholding related to the vesting of stock awards of $3.3 billion, $2.7 billion, and $2.1 billion for fiscal years 2020, 2019, and 2018, respectively. All share repurchases were made using cash resources.
Dividends
C. Competitors Microsoft competitors include : Apple, AWS, Google, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, VMware, Sony, Salesforce, and Mozilla. The biggest competitor of Microsoft is Apple, which holds the second position in the global operating system market with 9.4% of the share for its MAC OS. Microsoft is the undisputed leader in this segment through Windows, the world’s largest operating system with 87.7% of market share. Founded by Steve Jobs in 1977, Apple has 137,000 employees and reports revenues of $260 billion, while Microsoft closed 2019 with 14,000 employees and $126 billion.
2. ABOUT NETGEN The NetGen team at Microsoft was formed when Tammy Savage, a manager in business strategy, realized that Microsoft didn’t really know what technologies it needed to develop for 13-24-year-olds (the “Netgeners”, or Internet generation).
II. SUMMARY OF THE CASE
Tommy Savage joined Microsoft’s New York City sales office in Cal State, Fresno, California when she was 22. Due to her expertise in understanding the needs of under-30 internet users - the NetGen, she was soon promoted to be a manager in Microsoft’s business development team in Redmond, Washington.
Using her senior position to re-evaluate Microsoft’s business development efforts for the NetGen, she had concluded that Microsoft risked losing the NetGens to rival companies like Yahoo! and Google due to their well-known competitive advantage of instant messages. Thus, Savage set a goal of earning back loyalty of NetGen and thereby increasing the popularity of Microsoft’s own Internet service and instant messaging system.
Specifically, Savage’s goal is to create a must-have product for the NetGen. After implementing the research program to find out the actual needs of the NetGen, the need for online companionship, which was not of Microsoft’s strengths, she presented her new ideas to the top managers. She explained that a failed product-development solution could risk losing an entire generation of Internet users. Despite others’ doubt, she got the approval of Microsoft Group VP Jim Allchin.
As a manager and leader of the project team along with some competent newly- recruited college software graduates and NetGeners, Savage successfully adopted Microsoft's popular approach to leadership - a participative and achievement-oriented approach. She made it clear to the team members that if they worked together to push the product development quickly, they would see the results of their efforts right away.
The final result of the whole team’s efforts was the 3-degrees Windows peer-to- peer networking application that allowed users to listen to a shared playlist, send digital photos and initiate group chats with MSN messenger. Its users were able to build online “togetherness” through a club by sharing their music, feelings and experiences with each other. It turned out to become highly popular after being debuted on Microsoft’s internal website and helped create a new competitive edge for Microsoft. The team’s effort was well-paid and Savage succeeded.
III. CASE ANALYSIS
QUESTION 1: How would you describe Tammy Savage's approach to leadership
Leadership is a technique to guide the members- how they can achieve their set targets. Leadership is completely accountable for their leadership. The leader has complete influence over the performance of the other and makes sure that their performance is going in the right direction. a) Terminology about Path-goal leadership In the Path-goal theory of leadership, there are four types of leader approach: directive, supportive, participative and achievement oriented.
- Directive leadership: give specific guidance as how to accomplish tasks, schedules work to be done
- Supportive leadership: friendly and show concern for subordinates’ status, well-being and needs
- Participative leadership: consult with subordinates about issues and take their suggestions into account
- Achievement-oriented leadership: set challenging goals, expect subordinates to perform their highest level, show strong confidence about subordinates b) Tammy Savage’s approach to leadership Tammy used achievement-oriented and participative approach to guide the team: Achievement-oriented approach includes setting challenging goals, providing employees with autonomy and freedom to decide how to perform their job, expecting subordinates to perform at the highest level and showing confidence in employees. In this case, Tammy expressed achievement-oriented approach through these activities:
putting across her idea of developing a new generation of Microsoft Internet software to Jim Allchin, VP of Microsoft Group. Secondly, this skill is expressed through her motivation to employees. She used a participatory and achievement-oriented approach, which emphasizes the cooperation among team members. She encouraged her team to work together so as to achieve the best performance. She made it clear to them that their efforts would be recognized right away by this way, which strongly motivated the team members to push their cooperation.
b) Conceptual skill Definition: Conceptual skills are the ability to think in the abstract. A leader with strong conceptual skills is able to see the “big picture”, in which opportunities are discovered instead of problems. In the case: Tammy reevaluated the whole of Microsoft’s business and found out that Microsoft was missing the boat and risked losing the NetGens to its competitors, which hardly anyone could recognize. This was the “big picture” that the manager and leader needed to be aware of. Then, she used her conceptual skills to identify the principle need - the need for online companionship and socialization. She knew that if they want to overcome the rivals, Microsoft needed to satisfy that need.
c) Diagnostic skill Definition: Diagnostic skills are skills that allow managers to better understand cause-and-effect relationships and to recognize the optimal solutions to problems. In the case: Tammy expressed high diagnostic skill in this situation: First of all, she saw the cause-and-effect relationships in Microsoft’s problem. Her job was to seek out what NetGens needed and develop software to meet those needs, so she went to figure out why Microsoft failed and how to solve it. She found out that Microsoft is at the risk of losing NetGen customers because Microsoft did not satisfy their “needs for online companionship and socialization”. That is the perfect answer for the situation and her diagnostic skill to find out that cause is considered brilliant. She thought of the networking software for young people as the optimal solution. After getting approval from her bosses, she went on finding a team with whom she worked and developed that software. Later on, her team’s result was the 3degrees Window peer-to- peer networking application that allowed users to listen to a shared playlist, send digital photos, and initiate group chat with MSN messenger. The outcome was dynamic, as “it is proved to be highly popular”. Many people got into the game and Microsoft even incorporated the software
onto its online offerings. It showed that Tammy’s optimal decision was right, and once again proved Tammy’s incredible diagnostic skill.
V. REFERENCES
- Microsoft Annual Report 2020, https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar20/index.html? _fbclid=IwAR3Lmz_yRoPt90QfKAwJl61Elzpe-F6ZuLGvpkamkvgBWxShzuyZ0ApgVII#home
- Communicating effectively in Organizations.docx,_ by Course Hero _https://www.coursehero.com/file/26658045/Communicating-Effectively-in-Organizationsdocx/
- Case Study #1 Paper from University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. https://www.coursehero.com/file/8841139/Case-Study-1-Paper/_
- Managerial Skills, by Henri Fayol _https://www.managementstudyhq.com/managerial-skills.html
- Path-goal leadership,_ by Robert House _https://www.toolshero.com/leadership/path-goal-theory/
- What is Leadership? – Forbes,_ by Kevin Kruse https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/?sh=1625f3fc5b
