Google Business Environment
Google’s Business Environment Michael Lubrano Management 521 February 6, 2012 Sam Cunningham Google’s Business Environment Investigating Google as a leader in the search engine industry proved to be extremely interesting. The company began back in 1996 under the guidance of Larry Page and Sergey Brin both graduate students from Stanford University. The original search engine was called “BackRub” a search engine working with connecting the importance of web pages using links.
Google with such humble beginnings offered the services in a single language and offers their services in scores of languages. After careful review of Google’s income statement balance sheet and cash flow statement information it was clear the company is a leader in the industry. There are many companies trying to develop as large a customer base as Google but none to date have passed this Internet giant. While reviewing the annual data Google’s total revenue for the past three years has been on a continual increase.
Recent conditions in the economy have not seemed to be a major hindrance to Google and seem not to have deterred its growth over the past few years. The statement tracks annual total revenue with numbers in thousands in December 2009 of $23,651,000 growing to $29,321,000 in December 2010 and an increase to $37,905,000 in December 2011 The growth shows an increase of almost 6,000,000 in 2009 -2010 and another $6,000,000 in 2011. With a potential climb of this magnitude for the years to come Google will be a force to be reckoned with on a continued level as it has been to the present day.
The report also gave a gross profit figure with a continual annual growth gaining on a greater percentage level as well with an ability to add a larger amount of funding toward research and development increased by almost 2. 4 billion dollars in three years. Finally there was a net income applicable to common shares with a growth from 6. 5 billion in 2009 to 9. 7 billion in 2011. In further review of Google’s balance sheet and cash flow statement information, Google shows a marked growth in cash and marketable securities from close to 24. 4 billion in 2009 growing to a whopping 44. billion in 2011 listing total assets of in excess of 72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011. Reviewing the statements the predominant concern should be when if ever there will be a potential downside to the growth of Google. It has been on a steady climb and the statements portray continual growth for Google. Therefore there is usually concern with all growth in a positive direction slowing down over time. Many of the world’s industry leaders have a tendency to fall over time if growth is not clearly studied and additional products along with continued development of traditional products maintained.
If the company can no longer keep up with demand or because growth in the industry inspires competition to develop, Google may lose some of the momentum. In the past former Google employees formed Twitter. Twitter has not been a problem for Google but as another company developing it can be in time. This along with others that may form due to the nature of the business can be a problem in the future. Google has been envied over the way they run their management teams. It has been said by many other managers employed by other companies the way Google approaches innovation is superior to many in the market today.
The engineers are never expected to be non thinking. They are encouraged to dream and work with their own pet projects. Google encourages this and ensures the best ideas get the funding. According to Google’s Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt Google set up innovation reviews allowing department heads the opportunity to look at and compare all ideas discussing those with promise and allow those to proceed. This was due to the fear of ideas set aside and not allowed to develop. The concept was that one of those ideas set aside may be the one idea to be the next big money maker for Google.
There are several companies that have comparable data to Google and can be clearly involved in benchmarking. Google has introduced analytics comparing data used by those companies along with Google to include visits, bounce rates, average time on site, new visits, page views, and pages per visits. According to Eric Schmidt “Today we have one very clear competitor, which is Microsoft, we used to two, with Yahoo, but Yahoo largely outsourced the search stuff to Microsoft. We see them as the core competitor; we have additional competition from different corners, so Facebook is a competitor in a bunch of properties and also for attention. Russell, p85. 2011)” Google has maintained the mantra not to be evil in its business endeavors and with the integrity it has maintained Google’s mission. That mission has been to bring information without censorship helping societies with heavy censorship to circumvent the censors and gain access to all information. Google has been an innovative company and one of their strategies was Google Shared Spaces. This is a business efficiency increasing tool with the ability to share information needed by all in real time.
This permits global businesses with many divisions in different locations and employees in need of brainstorming a means to do that brainstorming, surveys and time frame management in one gadget (Moons, 2011). Google also has developed through their Andriod creation application the ability for those who do not have a programming background, just ordinary people to create applications. This allows for a large amount of user made applications to be placed online. Many applications could not have been produced without this application.
This was considered a revolutionary tool allowing for collective creativity from all over the globe to merge. It is also the catalyst for applications to be developed by those not as knowledgeable about programming making the expectation of those applications to be much more user friendly. This brings the final global strategy in Google’s arsenal Aardvark. This program will be the platform connecting information seekers with information holders. Basically it connects those looking with those who have and this is a major move in the real-time search network.
As a portion of this study it is also important to understand the Google culture. In this market of the day culture of a company is important as well as the attitude they carry in the business world. Its development has been above the norm in industry looking to keep its employees comfortable along with being hands on contributors and capable of doing many jobs. The employees are always able to pose questions directly to the founders Larry or Sergey at a weekly all hands meeting. The company is aggressively inclusive in their hiring and works to continue building a global team with many languages spoken within the company.
The corporate office known by the staffers as the Googleplex is headquarted in Mountain View, California, but their mission is to accommodate the entire world with information. Although the corporate office is in California the many offices around the world share similar attributes such as cubicles for the employees, bikes, and scooters to travel between meetings, hundreds of laptops, foosball, pool tables, volleyball courts, yoga, and dance classes offered, pianos, ping pong tables, and other items similar to unwind when stress is too high.
There are also a variety of cafes within the complexes offering healthy lunches and dinners along with snacks and drinks to keep the Google staff going. The company has always kept the spirit of the crew being maintained at the highest level keeps the company at that level as well. Google also maintains these things they know to be true. First focus on the user and all else will follow. Second it is best to do one thing really, really well. Third fast is better than slow. Fourth, democracy on the web works. Fifth, you do not need to be at your desk to need an answer. Sixth, you can make money without being evil.
Seventh, there is always more information out there. Eighth, the need for information crosses all borders. Ninth, you can be serious without a suit. Tenth, Great just is not good enough. The attitude Google has is also one that believes finding answers on the web is not the problem of the individual searching but Google. They recognize the needs of the world information seekers and will continue to meet them with products and services. With a company that maintains this philosophy it is hard to think of any reasons they would not be in the position they are in at present.
Google maintains a good healthy attitude and will be a presence for many years in the future. It also is easy to understand why they continue to dominant the competition and will continue to do so. In conclusion, Google is a force in the online information market that has no comparables at present time. There search engine is one of the most recognized and used more than others but also the Google site has a large advertisement base as well using their AdWords Express program. It was developed to place ads related to the content and relate to the users accessing the information page.
Google has incorporated ways to show relevant ads allowing visitors to search the site helping to monetize, promote, and measure the success of the site as well. This is one factor that keeps Google in front and ahead of the competition. There are many who offer some form of information and information sharing Microsoft and Facebook are two to mention yet both of these along with the others now operating with too small a presence to be mentioned today have a large mountain to climb to be close to Google’s size, strength, abilities, and success.
It is not impossible for a new and innovative company to develop that will someday give Google some competition but as of today there are none close to their level and there does not seem to be many in their shadows, either. References 2011 Google financial tables retrieved February from http://investor. google. com/financial/tables. html Anthony, S. (June 22, 2009). The search engine company famous for creative freedom is realizing there’s a place for discipline, too, according to Scott Anthony Harvard Business. Org Russell, J. December 2011), Eric Schmidt discusses Google’s competitors, China, acquisitions and more. Retrieved February 5, 2011 from http://thenextweb. com/google/2011/12/27/eric-schmidt-discusses-googles-competitors-china-acquisitions-and-more/ Moons, L. (February 23, 2011), Google’s Global Development Strategies, Retrieved February 6, 2012 from http://www. businessandsoftwarestrategyforglobalisation. com/google%E2%80%99s-global-development-strategies/ The Google Culture, Retrieved February 6, 2012 from http://www. google. com/about/company/culture. html
