Analysis Caso Digital Chocolate (Ingles)

Digital Chocolate Case Analysis

* Tripp appears to have placed a large emphasis on culture when he started Digital Chocolate. To what extent is organizational culture an important consideration for start-ups?
Org culture is a critical component for any start-up organization, especially start-ups dealing in relatively new fields with lots of change like social mobile gaming. From theclass readings, it is critical that a start-up continue to structure itself in an adhocracy. It is necessary to establish a climate of openness in order to tap the full potential and creativity of all of its employees, as well as nurture the intrinsic values of passion and love for technology and casual gaming. The drawbacks of adhocracy (less structured communication, no economies of scale) areminimal when in small team configurations, which was certainly the case for Digital Chocolate when it operated out of its HQ of San Mateo. From the case we can see that indeed Digital Chocolate behaved accordingly – we can see how their core values of Energy, Innovation, Integrity, Excellence and Ownership are very much aligned with the needs of a young startup company. And we can see how Mr. Hawkinsdid enforce the values to make them more than mere words in a Mission Statement. For instance, he would choose to replace executives in San Mateo if he noticed issues with cultural fit, specifically, people who labeled themselves as ‘solo players’. We can also see how Mr. Hawkins place the utmost importance to cultural fit when he decided that the Indian firm Small Device is the right target foracquisition after learning that Indians and Finns would work well together.
* Digital Chocolate quickly became a global organization with operations in (and employees from) many different countries. What challenges does this present for the company?
Once Digital Chocolate became a global company, the adhocracy drawbacks became much more significant; especially, the ability to communicatebetween teams. We can certainly see an example of that (which by the way happens to all global companies) when we hear Mr. Paananen share how it definitely is a challenge to join calls with the San Mateo HQ for a 9 a.m. call when it is 7 p.m. for his Finland team. Another communication issue that may have already been plaguing the company when they went global (and even before its jump to SocialGaming) could certainly be the decreased effectiveness of established communication norms, like the Monday staff meetings and the every-3-week meetings with the department heads. Subtle communication cues that are evident in face-to-face meetings are not so easy to capture over the phone or even video conferencing, which can lead to disagreements or worse, lead to remote employees not sharing 100% ofwhat they are thinking or feeling. Finally, I also see a potential contradiction between the company’s established philosophies and values and the decision to have dedicated teams in Mexico and India do the porting to different platforms and networks, while limiting the game design and creation tasks to the Finland and Spain teams. The reason I say this is that porting existing applications isdefinitely a less creative task than designing and building them. In a start-up environment the job could easily be labeled as ‘boring’. Therefore, in a company that prides itself of being innovative and creative (especially in a start-up like Digital Chocolate) designating teams to work on the non-creative tasks is almost like saying they are second-class citizens. The case does not delve into thisbut I would bet it is a latent issue at this point in the company’s history.

* Will the shift to developing social games require a change in Digital Chocolate's organizational culture?

The shift to social gaming will definitely require organizational culture changes. As per the Christensen reading “What is an organization’s culture?” past Digital Chocolate successes will already have...