In the past few weeks in the ‘Company’ segment, we have talked a lot about vision: namely, companies that are aligning their actions with their visions in a quest to deliver a quality customer or guest experience. We have also seen some great innovations: a brewing company giving bikes to employees and a bar operator turning his bar 180 degrees.
Now, if any company has ever existed that is synonymous with “vision” and “innovation,” it is, hands down, Google, which is described in this portfolio.com article. In just a few short years, Google tamed the unruly world wide web like their forefathers tamed the Wild West. They brought order to the chaos of the literally billions of websites out there, giving internet users a reliable place to seek answers to their most pressing questions.
Google has always appeared to have a pretty strong sense of purpose: Google does search. So, it may surprise many people that Google has devoted itself to working with General Electric and the Obama administration on renewable energy. Say watt?!
Critics warn that Google is overextending itself with too many disjoined ventures unrelated to their core competency of search. (Other such ventures include robots, AI, and submarine cables.)
Yet when you listen to Larry Page, co-founder of Google, you have to pause and consider whether Google’s core competency actually is search. What if Google’s true core competency is creativity and innovation? What if Google’s true competency is solving big problems? Problems such as making sense of (as well as dollars and cents from) internet search; and now, fixing the global energy crisis.
The lesson for hospitality companies, then, is to question their true core competency, on which both vision and innovation are often based. Providing clean hotel beds is very different from providing a phenomenal guest experience. Putting food into bellies is very different from creating memorable occasions. If a search company can go beyond search, where can a hospitality company go?
Read the article here.
