The Strategic Threats Facing Google - Research Paper Example

Google Inc Company Background Google was initially a project that was built and initiated by two scholars, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who came from Stanford. During the year 1996, they invented a search engine that had strange techniques of ranking the results from searches. The need for appropriate search engine was on the rise, making Page and Brin to register the domain Google.com in the year 1997. This was the official opening of Google Inc and took place in the month of September 7, the year 1998. During this time, the firm had several advantages as compared to the competing search engines since the ranking of its search results were more relevant compared to the other search engines. Moreover, the firm was far ahead of other search engines because their search results were of high quality, and due to this, the company has become very popular and successful. Besides being so popular, the firm employs several people globally; moreover, it has always been ranked as one of the best firms to work for. The firm has acquired several firms to enable it to continue being innovative. In the year 2003, it acquired Applied Semantics Inc, which advanced the advertising campaign of the firm. In the year 2006, Google acquired Writely, and as the end of 2006 approached, it acquired YouTube by outbidding other competitors for $1.65 billion. Similarly, early in the year 2007, the firm at $3.1 billion acquired Double click. The firm has acquired several other firms since then; one of them is Tonic Systems. Google mission statement The mission statement of the firm, which is to sort out the worlds’ information, makes it available and helpful to its users; moreover, this statement refers to their goals; however, it is not reflecting how the firm is supposed to earn profits and revenue. Moreover, the mission statement of the firm does not provide a timeline but it just states the end-result. However, the mission statement of Google is very original and distinctive and very relevant, thus, it should not be altered. Products and Services sold by Google Google is an internet search engine. It enables individuals to get information that is kept in several other sites. The main product or service of Google is internet search; it also enables individuals using the internet to search for single words or word combinations. Other than being a search engine, Google also advertises the products and services of other firms, which is also another source of revenues. Besides, Google has a number of online productivity tools and some of them include Gmail, which is a free webmail and Google voice talk. The major source of revenue for Google is its advertising services, AdSense, as well as AdWords. Advertising contributes to 99% of the total revenues of the firm; in this case, firms make payment to Google to put their AdWords on Google sites as well as in its affiliates. Google also offers a number of products like mobile products, hardware products, web products, as well as desktop products. Geography of Google and issues facing it Google is a multinational company in American providing services and products that are related to the internet. This includes internet search, cloud computing, advertising as well as software technologies. A huge amount of revenues of the company is generated from its advertising. Google operates almost in all countries globally; however, it is headquartered in the United States. Like any other big firm, Google is facing numerous problems. It should be noted that there are myriads of issues that affects the firm. The first one is copyright infringement lawsuits; moreover, it is one of the major blows to the firm, while the other issues include the dented image of the firm. The other key issue that affects the firm is lose of talents to other firms as it loses a number of employees to the rival companies, which is a major setback for the firm. The goals and objectives of Google Google strives to improve its infrastructure in order for their engineers to be more productive. It also strives to be excellent in search. Besides, Google strives to have their ad system enhanced. For instance, in the year 2006, the firm aimed at selling $1Billion of the new inventory. The firm strongly believes that by making the inventory of the world available, it will be very easy for marketers to go to it. In addition, Google aims at improving its content and communities, while at the same time it strives to be highly innovative. Finances The revenues of Google have steadily risen from the year 2001 to the year 2008, considering that its net income in 2002 was $100 million, while in the year 2006; the net income was $3.077 billion. Generally, the firm has posted exceptional growth figures over the last five years. The diagram below clearly provides the financial position of Google in comparison to its major competitors. Adapted from (El-Ali 1) Competitors As far as search is concerned, the main competitor of Google is Yahoo. Other major competitors are Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter. The strengths of Google Google has a number of strengths; firstly, the firm has an established brand name, indeed a number of individuals view it as the best search engine. Similarly, the speed as well as simplicity the search engine of Google is highly reliable and besides, it is friendly to users. Google also falls among the best brands within the U.S. Google also offers a number of products like mobile products, hardware products, web products, as well as desktop products. In addition, Google enjoys very low cost of operations of its services and products. The firm also uses first class technology in order to catalog pages, thereby providing highly updated results to the users. Google offers services like Email, Groups, News, as well as Directory among several other features and this places it far above the competitors (Schonfeld 1). Weaknesses of the firm Trapping the best talent is very difficult for Google since it being a company that everybody wants to work with, they receive so many CVs and resumes that getting the best candidate for any job is very difficult. Thus, it is hard for all the CVs and resumes to be vetted due to their large numbers. This is a problem to the firm ("100 Best Companies to Work For 1). Opportunities There are a number of opportunities are available for Google, first, the firm is capable of getting to newer segments. It is also capable of getting new contents, and besides, the firm is capable of increasing its total ads. The firm should also improve through more acquisitions. Moreover, the firm has the opportunity of eliminating consultation costs (Schonfeld 1). Threats Despite the fact that there are a number of opportunities available for the firm, there are some threats that it faces. For instance, imposition of censorship is capable of rendering a number of services of the firm ineffective. The fierce competition between the firm and yahoo, MSN, Bing, among other firms is also a big threat that the firm faces. The threat of losing staff is also experienced by the firm, for instance, the firm may lose talents to other firms. Inadequate data dissemination policies are also a big threat to the organization. Strategies that can be employed by Google There are several strategies, which can be applied by Google in order counter the threats that it faces. In order to counter their weaknesses, the firm should invent management of data trainings. The firm should also enhance efficiency of its information systems by doing away with redundancies. Moreover, the firm should create software modules that are capable of tracking integrity of their data. SWOT Chart Strengths Importance Weaknesses Importance Very strong brand Strong market position Good infrastructure base 1 1 1 Poor product integration Acquisition of the best talents is hard 1 2 Opportunities Importance S/O strategy W/ S strategy Stable growth of domain names Enhancement of advertising market 1 3 Use of state of art technology Reaching newer markets Enhancing advertisement market Threats Importance S/T strategy W/T strategy Stiff competition Risk of foreign exchange Economic uncertainties may affect advertising spend 1 3 3 Maintaining its competitive edge over the competitors Staff retaining strategies Problems raised by the case study The case study has raised a number of problems, for instances, the fierce competition between the firm as well as its numerous competitors. The major competitors of the firm are Yahoo, MSN, Bing as far as search engine is concerned, and the other rival competitors of the firm are facebook, Apple, as well as Twitter. Furthermore, privacy issues are also a major setback to the firm as raised in the case study. Solutions Solutions to the above problems are beneficial to the firm, as they will make it to enhance its success and will result in increasing its profitability. When the issues are resolved, the customers of the firm will not shift to their competitors. Moreover, the firm ought to embark on Change Management systems that are capable of addressing customer privacy as well as support issues. It should be noted that Change Management system projects are capable of solving privacy as well as disrupting innovation issues. In order to deal with the stiff competition that faces the firm, it should maintain its competitive strategies, and this will place it far above its rival competitors within the market. Works Cited  "100 Best Companies to Work For 2010: Google - GOOG - from FORTUNE." Business, financial, personal finance news - CNNMoney.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2010. . Schonfeld, Erick. "The Strategic Threats Facing Google -- Seeking Alpha." Stock Market News, Opinion & Analysis, Investing Ideas -- Seeking Alpha. N.p. March 27, 2009. Web. July 8, 2012.. Schonfeld, Erick. "Mobile Advertising: The Next Big Growth Area -- Seeking Alpha." Stock Market News, Opinion & Analysis, Investing Ideas -- Seeking Alpha. N.p., October 7, 2009. Web. July 8, 2012. . El-Ali, Adam. Google v. Competitors: Financial Comparison of Net Profit Margin, Return on Assets and Return on Equity. November 14, 2011. Web. July 8, 2012. < http://www.adamelali.com/2011/11/14/google-v-competitors-financial-comparison-of-net-profit-margin-return-on-assets-and-return-on-equity-2/> Read More