[First Last Name]
Management [Number]
[Date Month Year]
INTRODUCTION
Since its founding in December 1998 by Max Levchin (then a new college graduate) and Peter Thiel (a fund manager) (Livingston 1), PayPal became the leading technology platform company, which facilitates digital and mobile payments both for consumers and merchants around the world. As of December 2015, it has customers in over 200 markets. Its total payment volume grew 20 percent to $282 billion in 2015 (PayPal 1).
PayPal (2) publicly disclosed its three organizational goals: (1) Top line growth; (2) Expanding customer base; and (3) Driving customer engagements. In order to measure its annual performance, the company use respective metrics: (a) Revenue to measure its top line growth; (b) Active customer accounts to measure its expanding customer base; and (c) Transaction per active account to measure its performance in driving customer engagement.
In 2015, PayPal reported a revenue of $9.24 billion, up by 19 percent from its 2014 figures. Its active customer accounts went up 11 percent to 179 million. And its customers’ transactions per active account reached 27 transactions, an increase of 12 percent from the previous year. It has pioneered the high-technology payment model and redefined payment functionally (Hazan n. p.). Current chief executive officer John Donahoe had given PayPal a new vision, which involves levelling the playing field for all merchants globally regardless of their company’s size; thus, connecting all consumers around the world through PayPal.
The subject of this work is Laurent Le Moal who is PayPal’s vice president and general manager for its international markets, comprising of Continental Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (Hazan n. p.). He joined the company in 2004 as head of business development for the United Kingdom. He moved to France in 2006 to lead the growth of PayPal’s merchant services in the country. Two years later, Le Moal became the general manager of PayPal France. In 2010, he became vice president and appointed general manager for the three major continental markets. His fast rise into the PayPal hierarchy testifies to his effectiveness as a high-ranking manager.
DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
Diversity in contemporary organizations presents a strong potential for greater productivity and competitive advantages (Wambui 200), particularly in global companies like PayPal. Although, PayPal’s business model enables it to establish and maintain business transactions with clients, whether consumers or merchants, around the world, the diversity of its customers drives home the value of effectively managing diversity at home or abroad.
Le Moal is at the forefront of PayPal’s strategy of growing diversity. His market portfolio alone – Continental Europe; Middle East; and Africa (Hazan n. p.) – describes that high diversity both in customers, cultures, and markets. Currently, he is already planning to enter more diverse markets such as “Russia, Turkey, and Africa”. In managing this customer diversity, he learned to approach segmentation in a more nuanced manner than PayPal used to do in the past.
DECISION MAKING AND STRATEGY
Managers are key pieces in the corporate strategies. They have the responsibility to formulate strategies to achieve competitive advantage and to put these strategies into motion in their specific jurisdictions (Hill and Jones 5). However, simultaneously, they are responsible to lead the decision-making process itself. Le Moal’s strategic approach is highly adaptive to the current market situation. As the general manager of PayPal Europe, he has the responsibility to the overall performance of PayPal in this market (Hill and Jones 5). Amidst the demand for marketing flexibility in the media channels, he approaches domestic market through pure cross-border strategy, going from small size markets to larger ones. His market strategies are fully informed with facts. For instance, McDonald’s, which experience high usage of their apps in ordering food resolved the payment issues by allowing PayPal to imbed its interface in the McDonald’s apps, letting customers pay the chain restaurant through PayPal (Hazan n. p.).
Strategic decision making involves not only planning systems, but more importantly the manager’s effective use of available information in making such decisions (Hill and Jones 17). Cognitive flexibility and sensitivity allow the manager to be aware of his personal beliefs and biases so as to respond strategically to the changing market environment with effective solutions. Le Moal’s decision making is highly evidence based with close contact and knowledge of his markets and consumers. His flexibility allowed him to utilize these information in formulating strategies that will have long-term beneficial effects in the continental markets he oversaw.
MOTIVATING PERFORMANCE
Ozutku (29) observed that intrinsic rewards have strong positive relationship with work performance. The loyalty of PayPal employees to the company make the employees essentially motivated through intrinsic rewards, such as accomplishing personal responsibilities, autonomy of work, stimulating challenges, and the prospect of being accomplished before the eyes of their supervisors and managers. Knowing this, Le Moal tends to motivate his people to act or change the way they act by citing the way their actions impact on the market or the customers. He knew that their successes add significantly to their self-esteem and sense of accomplishments (Ozutku 31). For instance, the changing behavior of customers in responding to problematic customer service, particularly their propensity to share their bad experience with a company in Twitter and Facebook, became a center point in his message to the customer service team, prompting further training, retraining, and redeployment of people who have capabilities to effectively deal with social media channels as their sole responsibility (Hazan n. p.). He is aware on the sensitivity of customers in identifying unauthentic messages from customer service to address their concerns.
CONCLUSION
Laurent Le Moal role as vice president and general manager for its Europe-Africa-Middle East markets had contributed significantly in the company’s achievements abroad and for making new markets from the United Kingdom to France, Russia, and most of Africa (Hazan n. p.). He accomplished this not just because of the superb business model of PayPal. But, he achieved this essentially through his leadership and managerial skills in handling such a large market, spanning three continents as well as a highly diverse population of customers and employees alike. His strategic decision making skills are marked with flexibility and openness to market information, which allowed him to take advantage of opportunities in unpenetrated markets and increase PayPal’s customers in these markets from bottom up. His market strategies reflect such nimbleness and flexibility; thus, effectiveness.
Moreover, Le Moal was adept in motivating his people intrinsically, instilling in them the love and loyalty for PayPal and its customers and fostering a deep-seated desire to serve the customers better, fast, and effectively. That allowed them to provide customized services when needed and satisfying disappointed customers with genuine customer care. Perhaps, such leadership reflects the factors, which propelled him to high management posts in less than ten years. Such a feat is something to be emulated with positive results.
Works Cited
Hazan, Eric. “PayPal’s Vision for a Global Marketplace.” McKinsey & Company. Aug. 2014.
Web. <http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/paypals-vision-for-a-global-marketplace>.
Hill, Charles W.K. and Gareth R. Jones. Essentials of Strategic Management. 3rd Ed. Mason,
OH: Cengage, 2012. Print.
Livingston, Jessica. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. Berkeley, CA: Apress,
2007. Print.
Ozutku, Hatice. “The Influence of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards on Employee Results: An
Empirical Analysis in Turkish Manufacturing Industry.” Business and Economics Research Journal 2012, 3 (2): 29-48. PDF file.
PayPal. Annual Report 2015: Form 10-K. San Jose, CA: PayPal Holdings, 2016. Print.
Wambui, Tabitha W., James G. Wangombe, Margaret W. Muthura, Alice W. Kamau, and
Solomon M. Jackson. “Managing Work Diversity: A Kenyan Perspective.” International Journal of Business and Social Science Dec. 2013, 4 (16): 199-218. PDF file.
