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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

June - 2011 - issue > In My Opinion

Building a Winning Culture in a High Growth Environment

Satbir Khanuja
Monday, June 6, 2011
Satbir Khanuja
Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks, sums up the value of good company culture in a nice quote: “Our philosophy is that if you love your work, and you love coming to work, then the work will be exceptional.” According to a Bain & Company survey of senior executives at global companies, 91 percent of 1,200 executives agreed that “culture is as important as strategy for business success.”

Building an entrepreneurial and productive culture is essential to building a successful and a great company. I have been part of two high growth companies – first at Amazon and now at DataSphere Technologies, where our culture has been instrumental in driving 250 percent year over year revenue growth and an increase in staff over the same period from 35 to more than 400 people. In both instances, I have seen culture play a big role in driving the success of the companies throughout the growth cycle. It is also critically important in weathering the inevitable dark days and maximizing opportunities presented when things are going well. Many other highly successful companies such as Netflix and Zappos have similarly stressed the importance of their company culture in driving business growth.

In this article, I will share the principles you can utilize to build an amazing productive culture for your company.
* Set up company philosophy so that everyone is aligned

We have built a culture where every employee is asked to act as a CEO of their role and leverage others as resources to best service their customers. We have also established key company philosophies that guide everyone’s actions-
a) Pursue “game changing” opportunities
b) Obsess about delivering value to customers

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