Facebook Case

When analyzing Infosys and their problem, a couple of other companies come to mind with similar issues/practices. First, Facebook, and how they handled the growth. In February 2004 Facebook was known as The Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, a former Harvard student along with some financial help from Eduardo Soverin, created the Internet based social network. This network was established as a tool to link friends and allow communication with others around campus. The network started small and only allowed members who went to Harvard. Due to the massive response and call out from other schools, Facebook branched to Stanford and Yale. Months after the startup, two additional Harvard students, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, joined Zuckerberg in running Facebook. The company relocated to Palo Alto, California in mid 2004. In 2005, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of school so that they could devote more time to running the website.

Facebook originally started with the intention of only allowing students in colleges the ability to join the site. This gave the site more exclusivity. Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone of age 13 and older with a valid email address" (Wikipedia.com) In 2012, Facebook currently has over 1 billion active users due to the restrictions lifted on members only be students.

It was at that point Facebook took off, reaching people globally. The company started selling ad space to retailers and other corporations such as Microsoft. This is when Facebook started raking in the cash. More and more companies started to notice the amount of time consumers were spending online and realized the advertising goldmine that few had tapped. Currently Facebook is valued at $104 billion as of 2012.

Just like Infosys, Facebook started small and grew rapidly. Within 9 years the company had exploded and now needed to focus on growing internally in order to increase the efficiency and constantly evolve. Thankfully for Facebook, unlike Infosys, the company was solely internet based and could operate out of one location. Growth did increase head count in that new IT positions, programmers and analyst needed to be brought in so that the company could stay up to date and change with the steady change in the environment. Mark did a phenomenal job when he made it clear to all of his employees how important the company was, what it stood for; the high values and privacy that needed to go along with user information. This gave way to an easy to handle business model with clear and precise goals that all employees needed to follow and knew when hired on. Communciation was a huge key to the success of Facebook and where it is still going.

Employees at the company, roughly 3000, enjoy working here due to the structure and organization set by the specific goals that the company strives to meet. One employee stated, "I've worked for 5 different companies before here, from investment banking, CPGs, to 3 other tech companies and nothing beats this. The people are amazing not mention wicked smart. You'll be surrounded by the most talented people in the world all with a mission to change the world" (Businessinsider.com).

If Infosys had the clear expectations and goals, they too could have employees who were all happy and enjoyed the work they did. Yes, Facebook grew like Infosys, however, they stood by the original goals and mission. Some goals did change slightly over time, but the changes were clearly communicated and all employees were aware and understood why the change occurred. Infosys ran into their problems due to the lack of communication from all levels of management, especially when it came to changes within the structure of the company.

One major factor in the case for Infosys is that unlike Facebook, their business required some face-to-face interaction. This led to the need for international traveling