Microsoft Corporation: Impact of Globalization & Technological Changes

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Microsoft Corporation
Introduction
Microsoft is a multinational technology company that licenses, supports, develops, and sells personal computers and software. Microsoft’s flagship products are Microsoft Windows line of operating system and Xbox video game consoles. Since its establishment, the company has increasingly diversified through numerous acquisitions, with LinkedIn being the most significant acquisition for $26.2 billion. Due to its diversity, Microsoft publicly trades at the New York Stock Exchange as a component of DJIA, S$P 500, S$P 100, NASDAQ-100, and NASDAQ: MSFT. This paper aims at describing how the vision and mission statements, globalization, and stakeholders have influenced Microsoft’s success. The paper will also analyze the company using the industrial organization model and the resource-based model to establish how the company can earn above average returns.
The impact of globalization and technology on Microsoft
Just like other multinational corporations, Microsoft has significantly benefited from globalization in terms of market share, accessibility, growth. Since 2010, the company has reported an increase in sales and revenues that are mainly generated from the international market (Patel, 2017). The sales have increased since the company can quickly sell its products to foreign clients through online platforms. On the other hand, technology improvement has been valuable in the invention of products. Uniformity of technology worldwide has allowed Microsoft’s products to be compatible with other products, Windows with Samsung PC, for example. However, other than just being influenced by globalization, Microsoft also plays a vital role in facilitating the same. The company’s continuous improvement of information and communication technologies has facilitated global interactions. Various institutions across the world use these technological improvements to increase the effectiveness of their IT infrastructures.
Nevertheless, the international market is more complicated than the domestic market and entails a huge amount of dedication, capital, rigorous market research, and aggressive business strategies (Rothaermel, 2013). As a result, Microsoft is always under pressure to design quality products that are not based upon a single language, culture, or locale. In some regions, the company is subjected to a hostile environment through policies that favor home companies and disadvantage foreign companies. However, the company has embraced such challenges by embracing diversity in employment, which integrates different cultures into its products and services.
Industrial Organization Model and the Resource-based Model
The success of Microsoft has been anchored on its industrial organization model as well as its resource-based model. The resource-based model encourages companies to look inside the organization and find sources of competitive advantage rather than focusing on the external environment. Microsoft Corporation already has unique internal resources in form of human capital that has been integral to the growth of the company. Gates realized the significance of human resources and recru...