Organizational culture and its impact on customer service

Organizational Culture, Customer Service and Customer Base

Organizational Culture Essay

The organizational culture of Oracle Corporation is one that typifies many of the high-tech start-ups that have transformed themselves from small companies into worldwide leaders in their chosen markets. What is unique about Oracles' specific transformation are the successful balancing of high levels of investment in Research & Development (R&D) on the one hand, and a strong entrepreneurial focus on getting new business on the other. What is most appealing about the company's culture is the market leadership shown in new innovations in software, from databases through Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for example.

Known for acquiring smaller companies in high-growth software markets, Oracle has successfully integrated each acquisition into their product strategy. The result is a culture that reflects the strengths of each acquired company (Eden, 2006). The intent of this paper is to define how the Oracle culture serves as the catalyst of its growth. Second, the customer base of Oracle is defined. Third, a new set of customer service standards of Oracle are evaluated and discussed.

The Oracle Organizational Culture

Despite being one of the world's largest software companies, Oracle continues to be highly entrepreneurial. What makes Oracle's culture unique is the initiative and freedom it provides employees to attain their job's short- and long-term goals. Instead of a culture of high conformity, the Oracle culture is known for its focus on outcome orientation over conformity (Greenbaum, 1992) (Buchheim, 2005). This outcome orientation is best seen in the company's approach to streamlining the new product development and introduction (NPDI) process. This strength of the company culture is seen in the acquisition of Siebel Systems, one of the leading CRM companies globally. Within twelve months of the acquisition Oracle integrated the CRM applications purchased from Siebel into the Oracle 11i Suite of eBusiness Applications. The Oracle culture also has the characteristics of being aggressive in winning new customers through sales engagements. This cultural value of aggressiveness also galvanizes marketing, sales, service and pricing together in an effort to win new business. It is common to find teams dispersed geographically but synchronized with one other on key projects and programs (Eden, 2006). Oracle is unique in that the team orientation is so strong that telecommuting has become commonplace. This cultural aspect of Oracle has opened up recruitment practices to pursue the most qualified candidates regardless of their geographic location. Software companies are not known for a high level of stability. Oracle however has been able to attain this cultural characteristic by rewarding innovation and risk-taking over conformity or seniority alone. All of these factors taken together create a unique corporate culture that is entrepreneurial and aggressive, open to innovation and risk. Oracle's culture also relies on teams instead of larger and highly hierarchical organizational structures (Eden, 2006). These teams give employees an opportunity to personally identify with their team goals and have a higher level of accountability and performance as a result (Kumar, 2007). Of the seven primary characteristics of an organizational culture, Oracle has a strong outcome orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness, and innovation and risk-taking.

One of the most appealing aspects of the Oracle culture is the sense of urgency of getting goals accomplished both individually and as part of a team. There is an intensity that teams have to get to their goals together. The potential for job satisfaction is very high in that type of environment. Having the chance to define ones' own objectives in a job and also decide how to achieve them critical for job satisfaction. That's what is most appealing about the Oracle culture from a potential employee standpoint. Valuing and allowing investments in innovation and risk taking also contributes to a more achievement-oriented mindset by employees as well. Having the opportunity to be part of teams managed in this way, in a culture so committed to continually improving, is appealing.