Keniel Yao

A business report undertaken for Snell Incorporated on how Google operates.

Contents Page
Google Employees ..................................................................................................... 4 Goals of Google ......................................................................................................... 5 Googles Competitors ................................................................................................. 5 Googles Products and Services ................................................................................ 6 Googles Target Market .............................................................................................. 8 Googles Advertising Methods.................................................................................... 8 Googles Substitute Products ..................................................................................... 9 SWOT Analysis .......................................................................................................... 9 Strengths................................................................................................................. 9 Weaknesses ........................................................................................................... 9 Opportunities......................................................................................................... 10 Threats .................................................................................................................. 10 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 10

The business structure in Google is different from the majority of companies in that engineers are valued more highly than managers. The aim is to flatten the hierarchy to continue an influx of free ideas and creativity. Another point is that the majority of employees do not have a permanent role, instead they constantly change roles. This is true for the employers too, with Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt changing roles recently. All this shows the focus of Google is not to earn money as much as to help solve the worlds problems.

Google Employees

Google is known for its informal corporate culture and constantly ranks as one of the best companies to work for. A motto in Google is, work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun which is also reflected in the work atmosphere. Thus Google ranks as the one of the most popular employers for computer engineering graduates. One of the advantages that Google employees (Googlers) enjoy are free food 24/7, a gaming room, and 20% of their working time to spend on projects of their own choice.

Goals of Google
The main goal of Google is to organise the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. This mainly applies to search, its expertise. The Google philosophy is to: 1. Focus on the user 2. Its best to do one thing really well 3. Fast is better than slow 4. Democracy on the web works 5. You dont need to be at a desk to need an answer 6. You can make money without doing evil. 7. Theres always more information out there 8. The need for information crosses all borders. 9. You can be serious without a suit 10. Great just isnt good enough. From Googles actions, one can infer that it has indirect aims to provide all services that are sold for desktop computer use, onto the internet and for free. Essentially, a perfect Google would be able to offer all the services a person would need, via a website or account of Google on the internet. This is already quite close to succeeding with the launch of applications such as Google Docs and Gmail. It is important to note that Google earns revenue, not from searchers but from advertising, investment and selling applications to companies.

Googles Competitors
Google offers a variety of products around technology thus has a lot of competitors. These include Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Yahoo, Cisco, IBM and Nokia. Company Apple Area(s) of Competition Applications, Web Browsers, Online Music, Smartphones (Platforms) Microsoft Amazon Web Search, Word Processing Books, E-Books

Facebook Twitter Mozilla Yahoo Cisco IBM Nokia

Social Networking Social Networking, Real-Time Search Web Browers, Default Search Web Search, Collaboration with Microsoft Collaborative Word Processing, Smartphones Collaboration tools, Selling software to businesses Smartphones, Operating Systems

Googles Products and Services

Google offers a host of technological products and services as would be expected by its aim of being able to offer everything one would want on the internet, and is also reflected by the multitude of competitors it has.

Product Google Chrome

Icon/Image

Google Earth

Sketchup

Android

Google Chrome OS

Buzz

Gmail

Google+

AdSense

AdWords

Google Docs

Google Wave

Product Search (Froogle)

Googles Target Market

Googles main target market is corporate businesses, regardless of size. Google offers many different products and services, ranging from advertising, its main service to company search software. They also offer specialised teams to help new businesses that it wishes to invest in to grow, hire people and develop their products. As many millions of people use Google each day, advertisements are quite popular. Additionally the AdSense and AdWords program, as well as a click-to-pay offer causes the deal to seem quite attractive. Additionally Google Analytics gives the business a reflection of their results allowing better ways to be created to reach their own target market.

Googles Advertising Methods

It seems ironic to discuss this considering that Google earns the majority of its revenue from advertising other businesses. However a main way Google advertises its new products is through advertisements on its established websites, like Gmail and Google.com. These sites with high traffic cause new products and updates to be constantly monitored and noticed. Additionally, the constant updates and improvements on some of the services they provide cause Google to become increasingly popular. Another form of advertisement, though not necessarily paid for is spreading new products by word of mouth. This is quite popular among avid computer hobbyists, and will account for a large portion of advertising.

Googles Substitute Products

There are several substitute products for Google search on the internet but none have reached the size, capability or efficiency of Google yet. Bing can be considered Googles biggest substitute product, launched by Microsoft in 2009. It is becoming a bigger threat as Microsoft is entering a joint venture with Yahoo! to improve the site. However, Bing only has a web, image and news search, and no maps, documents, books or translators as Google does. There are in fact, only few search engines available on a global, general scale like Google, hence why it has dominated this market for a long time.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Google has a work environment that encourages employees to work harder both for their own benefit and the world around them. The facilities in Googleplex are vast and well developed leading to a home-like environment for the employee to enjoy and relax work. As they say, the work should be fun. Google has a relatively good public view because of the free content and services it provides the internet user. The vast array of services should continue to be developed and enhanced to keep this. The strong shares of Google is also a positive attracting more people to invest in the company and its ideals.

Weaknesses
Google may have expanded too much in the internet world creating too many competitors and products, thus splitting its resources too thinly. The system of switching projects every 3 months or so for the employees may cause instability and inefficiency in some cases. The unpredictable nature of Google in investing and new ideas may cause some people to lose trust in it. Additionally there is an issue with privacy concerning the personal information that the Google servers hold. The censorship issue in China also caused debate to fire between people who believe that information should be available to everyone, and should not be restricted and Google who decided to pull out.

Opportunities
The Smartphone market is still developing and the Android software has huge potential as an operating platform. The search for a reliable, sustainable form of energy is still important and Googles investment and research into that will surely pay off. The translation of languages and availability of computers and internet to less advanced countries will expand Googles market and exposure. As society leans towards speed and simplicity the Google mind frame and services will also seem more attractive.

Threats
Microsoft and Yahoo are joining forces in order to attack Googles share of the web browser market, this may pose a deep threat to Google. Also, with the American economy dropping, less profit may be made by Google as less advertisements will be paid for as companies may become bankrupt. Additionally, faster software and products on the internet are constantly being developed which may overturn Googles products. Censorship in other countries where Google operates may also cause more debate over privacy and information control.

Bibliography
http://www.theofficialboard.com/org-chart/google#145468 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/a-view-into-googles-inner-workings/2065 http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-10-25.html http://www.buzzom.com/2010/01/10-toughest-competitors-of-google-in-2010/ http://nz.bing.com/ http://www.google.co.nz/