Software and Internet Industry in the Global Economy - Assignment Example

 Software and Internet Industry in the Global Economy Answer 1 Software and internet industry still remains one of the most innovative industries in the global economy. It is boosting growth and reaping revenue of around $150 billion each year. According to a research by Datamonitor, the market size of software and internet industry is more than $303.8 billion. More than half of sales are driven through software applications and the rest from infrastructure software, and development tools. Microsoft is one of the major players in this segment, and Google is also regarded an internet giant. Companies like IBM, Silicon Graphics, Next software, and Apple Inc had to face heat in the past due to their wrong strategic policies and strategic myopia. In the internet industry players like Yahoo, and Bing have majority of market share, especially in search engine segment. Companies like SAP, Oracle, Sage, AG, etc are the successful players in the industry who provide business process solutions in production, marketing, finance, etc (Blythe, 2009). Answer 2 The critical success factors of the computer software and internet industry are stated below: 1. It evolves the early mass market or stimulates the new markets by good quality products that get established as industry standards. 2. Continuous improvement through introduction of better technology and making the old products obsolete. 3. Pushing the volume of sales in order to ensure that the products have become and will remain as the industry standards. 4. Leveraging the existing industry standards, in order to innovate products and ensure market linkages. 5. Simplify, integrate and extend products and services in order to reach out to the new set of mass market (Brassington & Pettitt, 2007). Answer 3 The political and legal factors are the external environmental factors which has a significant impact on the computer software, and internet industry. The political factors ascertain the interest or focus of the government towards outsourcing information technology (IT) assistance, software, etc. This also affects the job opportunities and national income. The multinational software and internet companies operate from various countries, and regulations are developed for these companies by the government based on the existing legal framework. These are also known as cyber regulations. Companies failing to abide by the cyber guideline of different countries have also faced penalties like cancellation of their license to trade in the respective country (Factor, 2013). Google faced pressure from the Department of Justice in order to abandon their search terms, and censor the search results from the Government of China. Apart from this, the demand of the government to abide by the privacy policies were also considered and in 2008, Google started responding to the concerns of the customers by adding a link to the home page that will directly take them to the privacy center and show Google’s policies for privacy and security. The political trend affects the subsidies, tax holiday, or rule relaxations, which also affect the sources of revenue generation for a country. Countries like India outsource maximum IT services for countries like US, UK, or Australia (Google, 2013). Answer 4 The companies in the computer software and internet industry got badly affected like any other industry due to the recent financial crisis and recession. However, companies like Google were relatively isolated from such effects due to the strong search engine and internet based methods of advertisement in the world economy. Google was typically well-positioned even when other companies were facing problems of survival. This is mainly because of its diversified operations. Google Inc mainly benefited from advertisements, which made the company a recession-proof business (Google, n. d.). Answer 5 Google Inc is presently testing some new advertising agendas that pay the site owners on the basis of cost per click model. This program, which is also known as Cost per action was floated through email invitation from Google AdSense to different website owners. Google Inc has been investing generously to keep up with the changing preferences of customers and users. Google possesses the advantage of excellent IT framework, which supports its high performance in a cost effective manner. Apart from this Google also enjoys massive cost advantage over its competitors like Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, or Amazon. Google Inc considers mergers and accusations to be one of the ways to sustain in business. In this process, they purchase DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2007, and were also looking forwards to buy out SimplyHired (Jackson, 2012). Answer 6 The probable threats that exist for Google are stated below: 1. Size of the company, and the regulation interference with the structure and framework of the organization 2. Copyright lawsuits for the books, music and movies. 3. Legal trouble for sites like YouTube 4. Rising rivalry of Microsoft and Google 5. Possibility of partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo 6. Security status of Google servers (Jobber, & Fay, 2006) 7. Loss of business and development if the privacy policies are made stringent and strict regulations are implemented 8. Location of the international data server and legal issues that is related to its ownership, usage, and privacy. 9. Foreign exchange rates can also be a problem for the company 10. The anti-spywares such as NoAdware and XoftSpySE can block the cookies that are used for monitoring the web activities (Kotler, Armstrong, & Wong, 2008). Answer 7 There are various strategic alternatives that Google can consider and explore; they are stated below: 1. Google Inc. can get into research and development of 3D messaging and image recognition products. 2. Develop server software and hardware for continuous technological improvement and security in order to update the data system of Google. 3. Google Inc can develop partnership with other companies to offer next level searching opportunities in specific areas like scientific research, medical data, genealogy, and government data uses. 4. They can also determine whether the hardware can do search algorithms and it successful, they can also sell these for the embedded systems. 5. Emphasize on the privacy policies for various public relations. They consider themselves to be market leaders, so in case of privacy right also they should meet such standards. 6. Google Inc. should also penetrate deeper into the mobile market, as Android was widely accepted around the world. Research and development can be extended towards development of advertising technology, etc. 7. Green initiatives that Google has already started should be continued because this would be mandatory in future, in order to sustain in the industry. Initiatives for reducing carbon footprint would be one of the most significant alternative strategies (The New York Times, 2013). Answer 8 The crisis events that Google Inc should consider mainly depend on the drawbacks or loopholes in their operational functions and strategies. 1. Google Chrome, the most used browser is likely to fail because it lacks flexibility, and even the latest version of Chrome, called beta is all the same without any improvement, so people switch to different browsers which are better and offer flexible work environment. 2. The email services have chances of failing because the privacy policies of Google mail have various loopholes. The hackers can send emails in the name of Google team, and can also attach a Trojan file and send to receivers. This will corrupt the whole mail network slowly, and negatively affect million of Gmail users. 3. Google + would fail to exist if it does not introduce strategies to grab customers’ attention. Orkut has been already eradicated by Facebook, and if steps are not taken to revive the condition of Google+, then it is soon going to join Orkut. References Blythe, J. (2009). Essentials of marketing. 4th ed. New Jersey: Harlow Prentice Hall. Brassington, F., & Pettitt, S. (2007). Essentials of marketing. (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Harlow FT Prentice Hall. Factor, S. (2013). Deconstructing Google's strategy: Will Google eat your business next? Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevefaktor/2013/05/23/featuredeconstructing-googlersquos-strategy-will-google-eat-your-business-next/. Google. (2013). A better web. Better for the environment. Retrieved from http://www.google.co.in/green/. Google. (no date). Ten things we know to be true. Retrieved from http://www.google.co.in/about/company/philosophy/. Jackson, E. (2012). Here's Why Google and Facebook might completely disappear in the next 5 years. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-facebook-might-completely-disappear-in-the-next-5-years/. Jobber, D., & Fay, J. (2006). Foundations of marketing. (2nd ed.). London McGraw-Hill. Kotler, P., Armstrong, G, & Wong, V. (2008). Principles of marketing. (5th ed.). New York: Prentice Hall. The New York Times. (2013). Google Inc. 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