Required information: Corporate Culture and Strategy Execution In this exercise

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Required information:

Corporate Culture and Strategy Execution

In this exercise you will explore the corporate culture and values of Epic and the important role of corporate culture plays in strategy execution.

Just as every human being has a unique personality, every company has its own unique corporate culture. These corporate cultures include shared values, ingrained attitudes, and company traditions that determine norms of behavior, accepted work practices, and styles of operating. The character of a company’s culture is a product of the core values and beliefs that executives espouse, the standards of what is ethically acceptable and what is not, the “chemistry” and the “personality” that permeate the work environment, the company’s traditions, and the stories that get told over and over to illustrate and reinforce the company’s shared values, business practices, and traditions. In a very real sense, the culture is the company’s automatic, self-replicating “operating system” that defines “how we do things around here.” A company’s culture is important because it influences the organization’s actions and approaches to conducting business. As such, it plays an important role in strategy execution and may have an appreciable effect on business performance as well. When a company’s present culture promotes attitudes, behaviors, and ways of doing things that are in sync with the chosen strategy and conducive to first-rate strategy execution, the culture functions as a valuable ally in the strategy execution process. The foundation of a company’s corporate culture nearly always resides in its dedication to certain core values and the bar it sets for ethical behavior.

Case:

Epic Systems Corporation creates software to support record keeping for mid- to large-sized health care organizations, such as hospitals and managed care organizations. Founded in 1979 by CEO Judith Faulkner, the company claims that its software is “quick to implement, easy to use and highly interoperable through industry standards.” Widely recognized for superior products and high levels of customer satisfaction, Epic won the Best Overall Software Suite award for the sixth consecutive year—a ranking determined by health care professionals and compiled by KLAS, a provider of company performance reviews. Part of this success has been attributed to Epic’s strong corporate culture—one based on the slogan “Do good, have fun, make money.” By remaining true to its 10 commandments and principles, its homegrown version of core values, Epic has nurtured a work climate where employees are on the same page and all have an overarching standard to guide their actions.

Epic’s 10 Commandments:

Do not go public.

Do not be acquired.

Software must work.

Expectations = reality.

Keep commitments.

Focus on competency. Do not tolerate mediocrity.

Have standards. Be fair to all.

Have courage. What you put up with is what you stand for.

Teach philosophy and culture.

Be frugal. Do not take on debt for operations.

Epic’s Principles:

Make our products a joy to use.

Have fun with customers.

Design in collaboration with users.

Make it easy for users to do the right thing.

Improve the patient’s health and healthcare experience.

Generalize to benefit more.

Follow processes. Find root causes. Fix processes.

Dissent when you disagree; once decided, support.

Do what is difficult for us if it makes things easier for our users.

Escalate problems at the start, not when all hell breaks loose.

Epic fosters this high-performance culture from the get-go. It targets top-tier universities to hire entry-level talent, focusing on skills rather than personality. A rigorous training and orientation program indoctrinates each new employee. In 2002, Faulkner claimed that someone coming straight from college could become an “Epic person” in three years, whereas it takes six years for someone coming from another company. This culture positively affects Epic’s strategy execution because employees are focused on the most important actions, there is peer pressure to contribute to Epic’s success, and employees are genuinely excited to be involved. Epic’s faith in its ability to acculturate new team members and stick true to its core values has allowed it to sustain its status as a premier provider of health care IT systems.

Note: Developed with Margo Cox.

Sources: Company website; communications with an Epic insider; “Epic Takes Back ‘Best in KLAS’ title,” Healthcare IT News, January 29, 2015, www.healthcareitnews.com/news/epic-takes-back-best-klas; “Epic Systems’ Headquarters Reflect Its Creativity, Growth,” Boston Globe, July 28, 2015, www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/28/epic-systems-success-like-its-headquarters-blend-creativity-and-diligence/LpdQ5m0DDS4UVilCVooRUJ/story.html(accessed December 5, 2015).

Answer the assignment questions for this exercise after reading about corporate culture and strategy execution in Chapter 12.

What are the standout features of Epic’s corporate culture?

Explanation / Answer

Corporate culture is very essential in defining and formulating a strategy for an organisation. According to the organisational culture, dependencies of strategies are changed. Corporate culture define the type of strategies which is needed for the organisation in the meantime. Different aspects of diversity as well as cultural and corporate needs of the organisation effects the formulation of an strategy. Decisions which affect the organisational equity and interferes in the organisations management are usually excluded from strategy formulation different people in the corporate culture also effects the formulation of the strategy and their effect is reflected on the strategies which are created

In this case epic corporation is a software development company which has a very strong culture. Their claims about the softwares as highly inter operable through the industry standards as well as the quickness to implement the specific software into the organisation with high level of customer satisfaction is one of the most satisfactory terms that can be provided by a company. Call proving this is specific term this company has already won awards for their softwares.

Is company causes extremely strict undefinedndment great culture some of the greatest features of the culture are as follows

Expectations = reality

This is one of the best practices for the organisation as the expectation of the customer is directly related to the reality. This situation increases the overall reliability of the organisation towards the customer and increase the level of satisfaction for the customer by providing the actual service. Any expectations into reality is a best available practice for any company for its customers.

Keeping commitment

Keeping commitment and staying on that commitment is another aspect of good ethics from the company.It shows the commitment towards the customer and the service from the company which increases the overall level of morality and ethics in the organisational structure.

Have standards be fair to all

Having specific standards of a work inside the organisation and being fair for each and every employee as well as customer is also a fine example of high cultural ethics.

Have courage. What you put up with is what you stand for

This is specific term increases the overall problem solving capabilities of employees even after the face problems. Having a strong backend support for the employees, overall level of implementation different situation give courage to the employee to conquer the goals.

Some of the principles which are very influential and shows strong ethics are as follows

Making the products joy to use.

This is specific term ensure that the product development company is easy to use and the product is not monotonous for the customer. This directly increases the customer involvement in the product and increased customer involvement results in better usability of the product.

Design in collaboration with uses

By collaborating yourself with the users in design. Overall level of design can be done according to the need of the user. Designing a software according to the users interest could be very beneficial for the organisation as it would be directly usable to the customer and it would increase the overall customer experience.

Generalise to benefit more

More the things are generalized, more the ease of use happens. By generalizing multiple terms, overall satisfaction level of the customer can be widely increased which benefits in increased loyalty.

Follow process. find root causes .Fix process

This procedure ensures best available rectification for the problems. By having this simple architecture of problem solving, overall time taken in solving the problem is widely reduced which is directly responsible for better efficiency and productivity.

All in all we can say that epic's culture is very high performance and offers wider adaptability of the situations as well as provide better working environment for the employees using high morals and ethics. By using these standard for morals and ethics Epic is going to compete in the market with a better platform.

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