Google as a World Information Technology Leader - Research Paper Example

Google as a World IT leader Name: Course: Tutor: Institution: Date: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 Competitive Edges 3 2.1 Market Share 3 2.2 Diversified Product Base 4 2.3 Superior Infrastructure 5 2.4 Organizational Brand and Reputation 6 3.0 Secrets Methodology 7 3.1 Division of Labour 7 3.2 Limited Disclosures 7 4.0 Conclusion 8 References 10 Appendices 11 Appendix 1: Google Financial Performances 11 1.0 Introduction The global market is gradually developing and new industries are emerging. Among the emerging industries is the global market is the information technology (IT) industry. This industry has many sectors including the internet, online businesses as well as technological appliances. Chang, Chen, Duh and Li (2011) stated that due to its current and future growth forecasts and trends, the industry has attracted increased competition from the existing competitors as well as new market entrants. However, despite this competition, the Google Inc. Company has established its influence as a global leader in the IT industry. This reputation is despite the increasing industry competition is on the high organizational industry control. This concept leads to the development and emergence of research question to explain on the reasons and causes of this overall market influence. Therefore, this research paper develops a research question evaluating reasons why Google Inc. Company remains an industry leader (“Google Inc.”, 2014). Moreover, the research evaluates the approach and nature through which the organization retains its high secrecy management approach. Therefore, these research objectives are fundamentally the establishment of the overall key Google Inc. competitive edges as well as the approaches through which the organization ensures these secrets is retained both in the short and long run organizational periods. 2.0 Competitive Edges Google is considered as a Global leader in the IT industry. In this regard, the organization is perceived as leading in a variety and almost all of the industry sectors and avenues. This is especially due to the organization sustainable competitive edges. This section evaluates in details the various Google Inc. strategic competitive edges that place it above other IT industry competitors. 2.1 Market Share One of the key merits of Google as a player in the IT market is its global presence. In this regard, the organization is a leader in terms of revenue generations. Statistics demonstrate that the search engine has a global presence of 65%. As such, this implies that the organisations occupy more than half of the global search engine market (Jones, 2013). This leaves the other global search engines such as Bing and Yahoo with less than 35% of the market to share. In addition, although a majority of the organisations revenue earnings are not publicly available, the 2009 statistics established $ 22.9 billion earnings. This signifies on the financial capability and gross margins obtained by the organization. Increased organizational earnings signify an increased capital base through which organisations operates in. Consequently, this signifies that the organization has an increased working capital base to allow for the financing and funding of the operational activities. Through increased operational funding, the organization acquires advantages over its market competitors such as Apple and Samsung, which often face cash flow challenges. In addition, an evaluation of Google Inc. leadership in terms of market share can be evidenced by the organizational share values changes and trends over the years. Prior to 2004, the organization was owned as a private venture. However, the organisations offered its shares in the initial public offer (IPO) in 2004, where each share sold at $85. However, a decade later, the shares have multiplied and grown at a rate more than 1200%. This growth rate led to the share pricing at an average $1000 (“Google Inc.”, 2014). An evaluation of all the other industry players share values indicates an unequal trend. In particular, a majority of the industry competitors’ shares declined in the wake and after the 2008 global financial crisis. Therefore, Google Inc. stands as the only organisations with such share growth trends, indicating the overall investors’ confidence on the venture as compared to its competitors. 2.2 Diversified Product Base An additional Google Inc. IT industry leadership edge as well as a sustainable competitive edge is its products diversity (Friedrichsen, 2012). Products diversity incorporates the presence of a wide products portfolio. One major merit of products diversification is the subsequently ripple effect of market diversification. Through increased product portfolio development, organisations in the society acquire a wider market base. Through increased diversification, organisations overcome market concentration competition challenges. As such, market losses and competition implications under one product or service are offset by gains in other products and services provision, therefore increasing the overall organizational performance and success in the market. Google Inc. increases the overall industry leadership and influence in the IT industry through product diversification. One of the largest and most influential organizational products is search engine. The search engine offers the internet users with an opportunity to access the organizational developed open product access. Through this portal, individuals’ access diversified products and information as per the search input data. Moreover, the organization through its widely established online platform offers advertising and marketing opportunities. In this case, advertisers through fees payment acquire advertising opportunities. This is often linked to the search engine. For instance, the website presents pop up advertisement windows based on the users search needs. For example, for a user seeking information on sports related issues, the search engine develops pop up advertisement windows for sports related products. An additional organizational advertisement merit is the provider ability to customize the advertisements. In this regard, it is possible to focus specific adverts into individual countries, or even cities. Therefore, the operator acquires an increased ability to host not only global advertisements but also local and market specific advertisements Further, the organization has its Google toolbar. Through this and other Google application, the venture increases its services delivery to the consumers allowing for additional non technology related and diversified services. One key example is the Google Health tool bar. Through this toolbar, individuals upload their health issues and status. In return, health professionals review the uploads and offer free medical advices. This is an indication of the organizational approach in product diversification to the institution and establishment of social oriented products. In contrast a review of the organizational competitors such as Apple and the Bing search engine establishes that the organisations have developed a single line products base (“Google Inc.”, 2014). For instance, the Apple Company only offers technology devices as well as applications, while being majors on search engine products. As such, this presents Google with an opportunity to acquire diverse market segments, reduce on existing industry sectors concentration competitions and instead earn increased revenues through its diverse products portfolio. 2.3 Superior Infrastructure One of the approaches through which Google Inc. gains its increased market performance and success rates is through its overall increased market infrastructure development. An organisations infrastructure especially in the IT industry influences and dictates on the level and quality of products and services offered. The Google Company unlike other IT organisations that have leased or share their IT infrastructure has developed a widely diversified it infrastructure. For instance, the organization has a wide range of patents ranging in the excess of 1500. This patents acquisition ensures that the organization acquires the rights and liberties to generate and develop its own IT contents and applications, a virtue most of the industry competitors hire and outsource due to rights limitations. For instance, the organization has a patent right through the acquisition of the Motorola mobility in 2013. In addition, the organization is reported to have over 36 data centres in 2008 which were classified as hosting in the excess of 900,000 data servers across the globe. This entire IT infrastructure is privately owned by the corporation. Consequently, this has two strategic implications on the organizational operations and industry leadership. On one hand it increases operational efficiency as the organization can control its servers and ensure on data flow subsequently enhancing quality and reducing technology and data availability interruptions. In addition, the organizational IT infrastructure ownership reduces the overall organizational market costs. Therefore, unlike is peers who hire the infrastructure, it acquires an added advantage through costs reduction. In this regard, the search engine operational costs as well as the costs of advertising through Google are relatively reduced, making it ideally preferable and attractive to majority of the investors. 2.4 Organizational Brand and Reputation The Google Inc. organization has its major organizational strategic advantage in its branding and positioning in the market. An evaluation of the global market establishes that the organization has over the years developed and established its overall reputation. As Zhangand Jasimuddin (2008) stated, currently, the organization has a high market perception through which the organizational performance rides on. This is influenced by the organizational increased marketing activities through not only through the formal channels but also through its social systems involvement through its many social corporate social responsibilities. 3.0 Secrets Methodology 3.1 Division of Labour The Google Company operates in the highly volatile and changing IT industry. This industry is characterized by the changing destructive technology changes that often influence the operations and workings of the respective industry sectors and players. In this case, the industry is especially faced by security and information privacy challenges in the long run due to the hacking as well as the non allowed access challenges. In this regard, the Google Company is classified as a highly secretive organization due to the nature of security and protection it offers its information and data storage. In this regard, the organization has developed and purchased a wide range of data servers across the globe. In this case, the data servers are managed and operated by the organizational employees. In this regard, the employees operate under the oath and requirement not to disclose the operations and information stored under the servers. On one hand, the organizational management and ownership of the servers denies any external stakeholders in the industry access to such information. Moreover, through the increased organizational capital and financial base, the organization has established strong firewalls against external un allowed access through hacking. Further, through its structured IT management system of division of labour, employees acquire knowledge of their areas and specifications only. Therefore, apart from the management, no other employee has full information on the overall organizational production and supply chain. As such, it withholds information not only from the consumers and the public only, but also from the organizational employees themselves. 3.2 Limited Disclosures Traditionally, organisations operating in the global market report their financial as well as assets possessions in their annual statements. In this regard, the organisations not only disclose on their assets but also their liabilities (“Google Inc., 2014). However, despite its offering the shares to the public, Google Company has retained a high level of organizational secrecy with respect to its actual assets as well as their actual proportions. In this regard, Google does not disclose its actual assets possessions to the public. Instead, Google analysis, due to its online operational platform laxed regulations on disclosures only lists the overall revenue gains against the expenses and overall liabilities. However, it does not provide specific assets as well as their proportions. In this regard, information on Google employee base, IT infrastructure and patents numbers and their rights remain mere industrial and market specific reports speculations and assumptions. The adoption of this management secrecy approach is defended under the nature of operations and competition in the IT industry that the venture operates in. In this regard, it is argued that disclosure of the venture assets such as IT infrastructure expose it to increased threat of hacking and online attacks by the external threats once they establish the models, numbers and the technology platforms through which they operate in. Such a move would not only implicate on the reduced organizational market performance but also risk the security and confidentiality of the various clients data stored online through cloud storage services offered by the venture. Therefore, in order to ensure absolute secrecy of its systems, Google has developed measures and strategies to bar and reduces different sectors and production centres. Therefore, interactions and relationships between different sections employees are substantially reduced. This approach as well as the already discussed division of labour ensures that the employees have limited organizational operational model information and thus curtailing its eventual exposure to the public. Thus, based on this analysis, it is apparent that the organization unlike other stakeholders in the industry retains a high level of information especially assets ownership as well as operational models secrecy. 4.0 Conclusion In summary, this research paper offers a critical evaluation of the Google Inc. Company. In this regard, the research paper focuses on establishing the key competitive edges through which the organization gains market and IT industry leadership. In this regard, the research paper establishes that factors such as its market branding and reputation have offered increased market success. In this regard, the research paper argues that the increased use of non conventional marketing means such as CSR practices as key among its reputational gains. Moreover, the research paper establishes other factors such as superior infrastructure, increased market share as well as increased products and services diversification. Therefore, the research paper concludes that through this approach, the Google Inc. Company has acquired increased leadership influence in the IT industry against its competitors. In addition, the study focused on the development of the key areas through which the Google Company has developed and increased its secrecy management approach. This is motivated by the increased global reputation of limited organizational specific information in the public domain. In this regard, the research paper establishes that increased employee labour division as well as limited annual disclosures characterizes the organizational secrecy policies, which is more than any other in the IT industry. In summation, the research paper concludes and establishes that indeed the Google Inc. Company remains a global IT industry leader as well as the most secretive organization in the industry. References Chang, H., Chen, J., Duh, R., & Li, S. (2011). Productivity growth in the public accounting industry: The roles of information technology and human capital. Auditing, 30(1), 21-48. Friedrichsen, M. (2012). Handbook of Social Media Management: Value Chain and Business Models in Changing Media Markets. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Google Inc. (2014). About Us. Retrieved from Jones, K. B. (2013). Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing. New York: Wiley. Zhang, Z., & Jasimuddin, S. M. (2008). Pricing strategy of online knowledge market: The analysis of Google answers. International Journal of E-Business Research, 4(1), 55-68. Appendices Appendix 1: Google Financial Performances Read More