Leadership of Richard Branson Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Leadership of Richard Branson - Research Paper Example In total, there are over 60 companies operating under the Virgin brand name with the most recent being Virgin Galactic that was created in September 2004. Virgin Galactic illustrates Branson’s high-risk appetite where he signed a 21 million dollars deal that would see the company carry out space tourism. Primarily, the Virgin Group operates in three main areas lifestyle, entertainment and travel where Branson has been cited as saying that his business model has been found on starting businesses in new countries and markets as opposed to expanding the current businesses as this affords him a global presence. Notably also, the coming up of the business name Virgin where one of Branson’s associates stated that this signified their commercial innocence as every business they got into they were a virgin (Pfister & Tierney, 2008). In the 1970s, Richard Branson came up with principles that have long since defined the Virgin Group as they are its brand values; these are value for money, good quality, innovation, competitively challenging and fun. There being over 200 firms and foundations, the Virgin Group is not a single object but a congeries of firms and institutes that are mostly based in the United Kingdom. A distinguishing characteristic of the Virgin Group is the fact that the companies are all run separately and the only thing connecting them is finance and the brand name. Prior to being listed in the stock exchange in 1986, the Virgin Group was privately managed. This corporate structure, however, was not prosperous and as such it was made private again and this saw the market crash in 1987. Thereafter, Branson and other shareholders bought back all the shares at their original price of offer. In the subsequent years, Branson got into business ventures where customers were underserved and the Virgin br and name was only given to companies that had certain characteristics- innovation or high quality. The Virgin