Review of Business Organisation of Airbnb: Culture and Stakeholders

Airbnb is a new form of accommodation The Van Gogh-inspired Airbnb room in Chicago. Airbnb is an online community marketplace that connects people looking to rent their homes with people who are looking for accommodation. It was founded in San Francisco in 2008 as a start-up, the company has become a worldwide booking platform. It contributes to the movement of more than 60 million people in 192 countries. The company has 1.5 million listings and has served more than 35 million guests till date. Airbnb sees 140000+ people staying at its home-stays every day. In 2012, it overtook Hilton Hotels in number of nights booked. The company was valued at $31 billion in March 2017 and the personal fortunes of its three founders, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and Brian Chesky.

Airbnb utilises a Aggregator Business Model, like Uber or the Indian company Oyo Rooms. It does not have a linear business model like the traditional hotel chains such as Marriott, Hilton etc. The traditional hotel businesses have to invest millions in building and maintaining their properties. Airbnb’s key resources are people and therefore does not have to do any of that. This enables it to grow incredibly fast at zero marginal cost. People can list their available space on the platform and earn extra money from what they get as rent for their properties. As a platform, it also enables travellers to connect with local hosts and book home-stays instead of expensive hotels, saving them money and letting them “live like a local”. Personal profiles and rating/reviewing systems help travellers make an informed decision about the hosts and what is on offer. Hosts too can choose who to rent out their space to. These help to build trust and reputation in the community. Besides the travellers and hosts, Airbnb business model also includes a huge network of freelance photographers in all major cities of the world. They visit a property and get high-definition photographs of the property. These high-definition photographs improve the click-rate and help in getting more responses. Airbnb pays these photographers directly.

Tosi was financial wiz internally, creating a hedge-fund style investment fund for Airbnb with stocks, currencies, and other investments that contributed as much as 30% of the company’s cash flow.

Airbnb’s marketing strategies are brand partnerships with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, UK bookstore chain and French Government. Secondly, through influencers such as journalists, bloggers, Youtubers and Instagram stars to spread the awareness all over social media. Lastly, they take risks and build a community by creating trust between users. They also build regular communication, detailed profiles and strong review to make engagement phenomenal. Airbnb’s type of ownership is corporate.

Mission of Airbnb is to live in the world where one day we can feel like we're home anywhere & not in a home, but truly home, where you belong. Airbnb’s vision is Belong Anywhere. The goals of Airbnb are eager to work internationally to remove bad actors in our community that are causing a disturbance to their neighbours, and will create a 24/7 Neighbour Hotline where we will service the complaints, to help the world to share the place they love with the people of the world and to create a world that embraces the sharing economy and is stronger for everyone.

Internal and External Stakeholders

To keep a business running, presence of stakeholders are crucial. There are 2 types of stakeholder namely: internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. Some of the internal stakeholders of Airbnb are owners and staff. The owners of Airbnb are Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Natahn Blecharxzyk. They are the one who manage the company and direct the company to its right path. Besides, they also invest money to the company so that the company have sufficient amount of budget to run a project. Next, the staff are also a part of the internal stakeholder. Employees are offered benefits packages that include stock options have an additional stake in the company and its finances. As shareholders, employees are stakeholders affected by your business decisions in the way that the decisions affect your company's bottom line or profitability. Offering employees these types of benefits in which they too have a stake in the company's financial well-being can serve as a source of motivation and can inspire innovation among employees.

Furthermore, external stakeholders also play a part in a business. Some of the external stakeholders are bank and customers. Bank are the one that invest or loan money to the company to start up a business, without their contribution Airbnb will not expand or even created. With an increase in budget, Airbnb can obtain more resources that are needed. Moreover, customers are one of the external stakeholders. Customers contribute to the business whenever they book a room at Airbnb as 6-12% service fee, depending on the total of the reservation. The higher the total, the lower the percentage of the fee.

Culture

The culture here is unique. Airbnb has high innovation and risk taking so it encourages their employees to be innovative and be willing to take risk. It also has low attention to detail. It is important to get input from the company so Airbnb let their employees involved in creating an experience that they want to have at work. For instance, Airbnb have provided good working environment and hire cooks to prepare food for them so that their input for the company will be better. Airbnb is considering what their employees need to be successful and help the company to thrive. Therefore, they will constantly get their feedback from their employees so that they can create an experience that sets them up for success. It focus on results and outcomes in this company rather than individual achievements. Consequently, it has high outcome orientation, high people orientation, high team orientation and has high aggressiveness. The company does not emphasize the employees to maintain their status quo thus it has low stability. This creates a strong employee commitment to the company.

Airbnb have a strong culture of treating their employees like founders and anyone can ask any questions during meetings but they will never get an answer when the employees do not need to know. The employees will be aware of the company’s vision and mission and they will focus on it to thrive them. The employees of Airbnb will have access to data that would help them. Airbnb will encourage their employees to acquire new skills especially in data analytics and read novels to find creative ways to overcome the problem they face. Airbnb also prepared a platform for employees to share interesting information and opinions to their colleague.