Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Mission, Goals & Objectives

      Google, the name of the company, reflects the immense volume of information thatexists, and the scope of Google's mission: to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful (Google’s corporation information, 2010).

    Google’s goals and objectives include the following:

    The company

      • Wants to have an improved infrastructure to make their engineers more productive.      • Wants to be the best in search in the world.      • Wants to push their ad system.      • Wants to push their communities and content.      • Tries to make sure their tools are running everywhere.      • Google is always focusing on innovation (Google’s Internal Company Goals, 2010).

    Overall, Google wants to make the internet searching experience best for its customers and search results more accurate.

Google Company Analysis Paper

Google Company Analysis Paper

Abstract

In this paper, I perform business analysis for GoogleInc, the leading internet search engine provider in theworld. Google Inc., a technology company, maintainsindex of Web sites and other online content for users,advertisers, Google network members, and other contentproviders. Its automated search technology helps usersto obtain instant access to relevant information fromits online index. The company provides targetedadvertising and Internet search solutions, as well ashosted applications (Google profile, 2010).

Mission, Goals & Objectives

Google, the name of the company, reflects the immensevolume of information that exists, and the scope ofGoogle's mission: to organize the world's informationand make it universally accessible and useful (Google’scorporation information, 2010).

Google’s goals and objectives include the following:

The company

• Wants to have an improved infrastructure to maketheir engineers more productive.

• Wants to be the best in search in the world.

• Wants to push their ad system.

• Wants to push their communities and content.

• Tries to make sure their tools are runningeverywhere.

• Google is always focusing on innovation (Google’sInternal Company Goals, 2010).

Overall, Google wants to make the internet searchingexperience best for its customers and search resultsmore accurate.

Overview of the External Environment

The number of people world-wide accessing the internethad grown at an astronomic rate since 1994. The numberof internet users worldwide increased from about 360million in 2000 to nearly 1.5 billion in 2008. Thegrowth in the number of internet users worldwide hadcaused the increased demand for fast and accurateinternet searches. This consumer demand had allowed

internet advertising to become the second most commonform of advertising used in the United States in 2007.

Internet advertisement is the way Google generates itsrevenue. Every time you perform a search on Google, youhave probably noticed that there was a section called“Sponsored Links”. Every time you click on one of thoselinks, Google charges a fixed amount of money to thewebsite for the click (How does Google make money,2010). The growth external environment of internet useand advertisement give Google more optimistic futurethan many of the technology and traditional industrialleaders. For the year of 2009, Google’s total revenuewas $23.65 billion, with net income of 6.5 billion.Google’s total market cap stood at over $178 billion,more than the most of the technology giants such asIBM, Intel and Cisco. Most of the industry experts andWall Street analysts had expected Google to continuegrow at a rapid pace in term of both revenue and profitperspectives.

Porter's Five Forces

Porter's five forces is a framework for the industryanalysis and business strategy development developed byMichael E. Porter of Harvard Business School in 1979(Porter five forces analysis, 2010). The analysis ofPorter's Five Forces as they pertain to Google is thefollowing:

The threat of substitute products or services

I believe, at this moment, the above threat isunlikely. Google has the best internet searchtechnology in the world. Giving the strong reputation

and skyrocketing stock price, the company has been ableto attract the best talents to work for them and buildthe powerful search methodologies. No company, not evensoftware giant Microsoft, have been able to replaceGoogle.

The threat of the entry of new competitors

As the same reason mentioned above, this threat is alsominor. Microsoft and Yahoo had not been able to competewith Google in the past. My experience with Google isextremely positive. I think there is less likely that anew competitor will emerge soon to threaten Google.

The intensity of competitive rivalry

Google has been hiring an excellent management team torun the company. I think the company should be able torespond to any certain behavior by another competitor.

The bargaining power of customers (buyers)

At this time, the bargaining power of Google’scustomers is low. Google search provides the bestsearch results to the internet users. Companies arewilling to put their sponsor link on Google. Hence,Google can charge its customers reasonable fees.

The bargaining power of suppliers

Google does not sell or manufacture products, andtherefore does not have suppliers.

STEP (social, technological, economic, political)analysis. The STEP analysis pertains to Google is asfollows:

Social.

Google's mission statement represents the deep beliefand core purpose as to where they ultimately want togo. The mission statement is "to make the world'sinformation universally accessible and useful." Hence,bring more convenience to the public society. They havea code of conduct that all employees must adhere to:

The core message is simple: Being a Googler meansholding yourself to the highest possible standard ofethical business conduct. This is a matter as muchpractical as ethical; we hire great people who workhard to build great products, but our most importantasset by far is our reputation as a company thatwarrants our users' faith and trust. That trust is thefoundation upon which our success and prosperity rests,and it must be re-earned every day, in every way, byevery one of us. (Google Code of Conduct, 2009)

Technological.

Google stands alone in its focus on developing theperfect search engine. The key to its success is theease of Google's web page, which consists of a oneinviting search box mostly surrounded by white space.Google is a combination of different applications thathave revolutionized people's life by the use of thesearch function giving all of the world information atfree of charge. Searching is a way to get answers toquestions that people have. Queries allow the mostpowerful and accessible information tool to create adatabase of desire, permitting Google to understandfully what our society wants, which clearly posesprivacy issues. It also allows Google to conduct

business transactions by capturing customers while theyare googling.

As a result, the company developed its servinginfrastructure and breakthrough Page Rank™ technologythat changed the way searches are conducted. Page Rankreflects Google’s view of the importance of web pagesby considering more than 500 million variables and 2billion terms. Pages that Google believe are importantpages receive a higher Page Rank and are more likely toappear at the top of the search results (Google’stechnology overview, 2010).

Economic.

Google’s fast and accurate search technology bringvalue and convenience to modern public society. Forexample, students can study course concepts easily fromGoogle’s search results without going to the library;people can find the phone number of their favoriterestaurant from Google search and order delivery foodwithout leaving the house etc. Google’s large profitand skyrocketing stock price also create immense wealthto its employees and investors. Almost all itsemployees, who joined Google before its 2004 initialpublic offer, became millionaires. The housing price inSilicon Valley area, supporting by the wealth createdby Google, stood stable when the majority of thehousing market crashed in California caused by thefinancial crisis since 2008. I believe the economicimpact brought by Google is remarkable since thebeginning of this century.

Google has changed the way people use to do businesstransactions because Google has changed the way people

trust each other. There is hardly a day that goes bywithout a major article on Google's impact on business.Google has totally redesigned the notion ofadvertisement. In the Google age, if a business wantsto succeed, it must advertise on the Google website.Google capture people while they are interested.Advertising on Google proved to be an effective way forcompanies to reach potential customers. Advertisementon the Google page only represents 15% of their netannual benefit. In an effort to increase revenue,Google created Gmail, a new email service offered byGoogle that use Google's technology to place anadvertisement alongside user's email message.

Political.

Google’s primary goal is providing fastest and mostaccurate search results to the public. This goal maycause conflicts when it displays sensitive politicaland human right information to its users in a country,such as China. Currently, political issues between theU.S. and China have caused Google to redirect itsChinese-language search engine to Hong Kong. Google andChina have been battling over censorship for sometime.China is not the only country that censors theinternet. There are approximately 40 countries thatblock or filter access to Google. However, "Google saidChina was where it wanted to take its most public standbecause it felt the communist nation was becomingincreasingly more repressive". The Beijing-basedresearcher reports that Google's share of China’s paid-search market fell to 30.9 percent in the first quarterfrom 35.6 percent three months earlier. This was thefirst decline since the second quarter of 2009.

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used toevaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, andThreats involved in a project or in a business venture.It involves specifying the objective of the businessventure or project and identifying the internal andexternal factors that are favorable and unfavorable toachieving that objective (SWOT analysis). The SWOTanalysis of Google is as follows:

Strengths

Google’s strength is that it offers its customers valuewith its state of the art technology. Google offersinternet users:

• Internet search

• Web based email

• Online office applications

• Online calendar

• Online task manager

• Online contact manager

• Mapping tools

With Google, internet users can get a tremendous amountof information. Google makes people’s life much easier.

Weaknesses

As the company grows bigger and bigger, Google is rigidand slow for fresh ideas outside of its core to gaintraction. That is why creative, innovative Googlersleave. I believe it is common for large size company.

Opportunities

I believe Google still has tremendous growthopportunities at this point. Google has widened itslead in the Internet search market from its rivalMicrosoft and Yahoo and is entering markets for onlinevideo, print and television advertising. Google stillhas potential to enter the market of internet traveland grow its revenue.

Threats

Lately, Google had threats from the Chinese governmentand may withdraw from the China market. Google, whichhas a significant share of the search market in China,announced in January that it no longer intended tocensor search results in that country and wouldconsider leaving (Computer Talk Radio, Free ComputerHelp, Weekly Podcast, 2010). Google has identifiedChina as the source of attacks on prominent U.S. Webproperties and e-mail accounts belonging to humanrights activists, though it has not revealed the peoplebehind them. Chinese government has limited Google todisplay search results pertain sensitive political andhuman right issues, which conflicts Google’s initialgoals to deliver accurate search results to itssearchers. As the results of Google’s withdrawal fromChina, it may lose a significant amount of revenue fromChinese market, which is the world’s second largesteconomy.

Business and Marketing Strategy

Corporate Strategy

Google corporate strategy could be centered aroundthree vital strategic components.

• Strategic Sales

• Technical Strategy

• Strategic Delivery

First, Sales Strategy (or Strategic Sales)

In Google case, it is a soft Pre-Sell, Get thevisitors, create relationships, then later Monetize forprofit. This strategy means that Google must firstbecome popular by first, creating good will and trustculture around its services. Second, providing freeservices, such as search, e-mail, free office suite,web design tools and hundreds of other free products.Then make money later by charging for advertising forexample not to mention other products they will have inthe pipelines (http://www.easy-strategy.com/strategic-4.html).

Second, Technical Strategy (which is around "PageRank")

Everyone knows about "Page Rank"; but what no one knowsabout is how Google changes "Page Rank" every so oftenand the algorithms behind it. This alone enables Googleto stay ahead of the competition and provide the "bestsearch result" for the surfers.

Here is the mystery of Google corporate strategypartially resolved. The strategy is the CHANGES theymake to their "Page Rank" algorithms to determine bestresults for the surfers (or the customer experience).

So what is it that gives Google's technical strategygreat power, sustainability, and edge? Ironically andparadoxically enough it is their competitors and thesearch engine optimisation experts (SEOers). Thecompetitions keep Google ahead by showing Google what"bad" and slow results looks like.

The SEOers (Search Engine Optimisation experts) showGoogle the changes required for "Page Rank" to "expel"them, and to stay ahead of everyone else.

The Google “Page Rank” algorithms are a secret thatthey guard with their lives. Not only that, it has beenand is the most influential single factor in building a$160billion empire called Google.

You will not find more than three people withinGoogle's world who know and fully understand the wholeworking of "Page Rank", and rightly so, if “Page Rank”is to remain a winning technical strategy that fitswith the overall corporate strategy (http://www.easy-strategy.com/strategic-5.html).

Third, Delivery Strategy

Google may have the best search results in the world,but if they don't deliver it quickly or in a matter ofa fraction of a second, their customers will goelsewhere, as happened to Yahoo and AltaVista whenGoogle came along.

Google don't use any computers from any manufacturer onthis planet, they design and make their own computers.They have the largest computers network farm in theworld; 200,000 proprietary small computers connected toeach other, using Google own proprietary operatingsystem and software to provide search results rapidlyto their customers.

The Google hardware and software environment is thelargest and most sophisticated computer system setup onplanet Earth by a factor of ten.

We should not be surprised to see Google one daycompeting head to head with the likes of Microsoft,IBM, Dell, Oracle and many more including such entitiesas the advertising and media tycoons of our age. Butthey will certainly keep this as a "secret corporatestrategy" for now!(http://www.easy-strategy.com/strategic-6.html)

High-Level Competitive Strategy

“Competitive strategy refers to how a company competesin a particular business (note: overall strategy fordiversified firms is referred to as corporatestrategy). Competitive strategy is concerned with how acompany can gain a competitive advantage through adistinctive way of competing” (Competitive strategy,2010).

Google's high-level competitive strategy is much deeperthan search-related advertising. Google appears to bepromoting a momentous shift from information storage,processing and transport primarily managed at the edgeof the network into the middle of the network. By

providing server-based services that connect to end-user devices, Google can take business away fromMicrosoft. With Google in the middle of that network ofdigital information flows, they will have accomplishedtheir goal of bringing the world's knowledge to anyone,anywhere, anytime.

Google’s chief managers believed that, in the very nearfuture, most computer software programs used by thebusiness world will move from local hard drives orintranets to the internet. Moving software applicationsto the internet offers many potential benefits tocorporate users, lower software acquisition costs,lower computer support costs, and easier collaborationamong employees in different locations. Google haslaunched its Google Apps as a free word processing andspreadsheet package for individual users.

Bill Gates had speculated that Google’s long-termcompetitive strategy involved the development of web-based software applications similar to Word, Excel,PowerPoint, and other Microsoft products.

Assessment of Google’s Financial Performance

From my perspective, few large U.S. companies, in S&P500 index group, had enjoyed better financialperformance, from the beginning of this century, thanGoogle. Google’s revenue increased nearly 200 foldsfrom 2001 to 2007. In the mean time, the company’s netprofit increased 600 folds. The following are theanalysis of Google’s key financial ratios. (Numbers arein $million)

Profit margin

In 2007 its profit margin is calculated as

4203/ 16594 *100% (Net income / revenue) = 25.3%

Return on equity

In 2007 its return on equity is calculated as

Financial report : https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:GOOG&fstype=ii