Organizational Effectiveness Assignment PDF

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES TRENT UNIVERSITY
MSMG 5120 – Organizational Effectiveness 2021 Winter Term
Team Project: Organizational Effectiveness within "Shopify”
“We clarify that this work has been prepared as a result of my own effort. We have not
submitted this work for grading any other course”
Prepared By:
1. Rubaiat Abde Rabby
Student ID: #0697263
2. Pritom Charls Gomez
Student ID: #0708842
Submission Date: 22/04/2021

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 About Shopify:
Shopify is a Canada-based multinational e-commerce company that provides support for its
customer to start their business. It was founded back in 2004 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and
Scott Lake after they attempted to open an online store for snowboarding equipment name
Snowdevil. However, after they were dissatisfied with the existing complicated and expensive e-
commerce options, the owners of Snowdevil launched Shopify in June 2006, headquartered in
Ottawa, Ontario. According to Carney (2020), Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce website builder
and it helps people build their very own online store”. Shopify helps people to create their shop by
handling everything from marketing and payments to checkout and shipping. Wikipedia (2021)
reported that Shopify has more than 1,000,000 businesses currently in about 175 countries as of
January 2021, but according to Builtwith (2021), more than 3.6 million online stores run on Shopify
and they have more than 5000 staffs working. According to Singleton (2021), over $200 Bn has
been generated by businesses using the Shopify platform. With more than 58 million visits in 2020,
the average Shopify conversion rate is 1.6%. Also, its partnership with TikTok has opened the door
for over 1 million sellers (WebsiteBuilder, 2021). As of July 2019, Shopify’s net worth is $6.17
billion (Csiszar, 2020). Based on our research we are focusing on 5 sectors where Shopify excels
and has room for improvements to become one of the best e-commerce platforms.
1. Developing diversity and equity within the host organization:
Diversity refers to the differences that the individuals of the organization have among themselves
(Dyson, n.d.). According to Nelson (2020) equity refers to the contribution (Time, Creativity, and
Experience) that all the employees input to the company and receive equal outcomes (Pay, Award
and Benefits) in return. Nelson (2020) stated that diversity is surrounded by a lot of variations
among the employees, including culture, gender, age, ability, religion, personality, social status, and
sexual orientation. According to Nelson (2020), Cultural differences contribute a great deal to the
diversity of the workforce, but other forms of diversity are important as well. Nelson (2020) also
stated that organizations need to be open to hiring individuals from many different countries so that
the organizations become as diverse as the communities in which they operate. Dhillon (2018)
indicated that diverse people inside the company increase the innovation and creativity of the
company.
Shopify believes that effective organizational culture can be created by involving a diversity of
people in work. Nelson (2020) said that by the year 2020, the workforce will be more culturally
diverse, more female, and older than ever. However, Shopify has been criticized for its lack of

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diversity based on gender and racial differences. Firstly, it’s been seen that Shopify used to give
more priority to White and Male people. Male people and people with white skin tone get more
facilities and benefits than female and black people. According to Voidonicolas (2021), Shopify’s
small business loan applications which are submitted by women are found frequently rejected. It is
almost 31% less than the man-owned businesses. Secondly, Voidonicolas (2021) also said that
Black and Latin founders represented just 2.6% of the total $87.3 billion in venture capital funding
and this statistic is more horrible for the black women as they represent only 0.64% of the total
capital funding. However, in percentage terms, women now hold 9.44% of these important jobs
compared to 9.02% a year ago in Canada (Nelson 2020).
It has been said whatever gets the team’s focus, does get more time and attention (Nelson, 2020).
Nelson (2020) also stated that managers who need to motivate diverse workgroups must
communicate with employees who have different values and language skills. By measuring the
organization’s diversity and looking at it objectively, it helps to improve the overall diversity levels
by putting more focus on the actions required to improve them (Miller, 2016).
2. Possible areas for technology innovation and technology integration:
Using the latest innovations in eCommerce can become the key difference between the company
and rivals; also, it helps to increase the brand value of the company. Having an eCommerce
platform can help us to experiment, adapt and implement new technology. Shopify is Canada’s one
of the most technologically advanced companies. Shopify uses 79 technology products and services
including HTML5, Google Analytics, and jQuery (Crunchbase, 2021). Shopify is actively using 143
technologies for its website and these include Viewport Meta, IPhone /Mobile Compatible, and
Apple Mobile Web Clips Icon (Builtwith, 2021). However, there are areas where Shopify is lacking
behind and can use more technological advancements to improve its services.
Shopify can add more technological advancements to their app to improve their
service. Firstly they can work over their payment system. According to Shackleton (2017), Apple
Pay will give customers a seamless, speedy checkout experience that makes buying from your store
a joy, and in the case of Shopify, they have Apple pay in all their stores. However, not all customers
are comfortable with Apple Services and they prefer to use other payment options. Although
Shopify has a very convenient checkout system unless someone uses Shopify Payment Service, they
have to pay Shopify's enforced transaction fee (Carney, 2021). Secondly, they have a lack of
control over their checkout process. According to Rogers (2019), The Shopify checkout is very
locked down, which again is both a good thing and a bad thing as there are very rarely issues in this