IntroductionLarryPage and Sergey Brin co-founded Google LLC in 1998 with an ambition to organizeand provide information stored on the internet to the users whenever theyneeded it.
Gradually the name “Google” became well known across the globe asthe best search engine and an internet brand. In 2004, the firm became publicand issued an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in order to raise funds for itsfuture endeavours and to extend its technological and customer base. In August,2015, Google reorganized various business activities into a conglomerate calledAlphabet Inc.
providing Google to pay detailed attention to the products andservices it provides as well as to satisfy the consumers’ needs. Ever sinceinception, the company has witnessed enormous and nourishing growth in almostevery aspect; be it revenue generated, market capitalization, number ofemployees or profits. Starting its base as a search engine, Google hasperformed a multinational technology giant that not only provides online searchsupport but also deals in a variety of internet related products and services,namely; Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Home, Gmail, Smartphone OS Android,Driverless vehicles, Google Energy, automated machines using artificialintelligence, etc.
Apart from these services, it has also taken part in a seriesof acquisitions (Blogger, Applied semantics, YouTube, Motorola mobility) and partnerships(AOL, GeoEye, and LG & Huawei for its smartphone brand lines – Nexus andPixel). Lawrence Edward Page also known as Larry Page is a computer scientist andwith his knowledge and skill set was soon known as an internet entrepreneur. He is the backbone and an internaldisciplinarian who drives the force behind the company, giving it the ultimateambition and zeal of “open ideology”; the passion for creativity, and hisdemocratic leadership approach for constant and sustainable innovation to almosteverything that the company does today.
He has always been the silentpenultimate power and the final decision maker inside Google.’Googleis not just a company; it is an entirely new way of thinking.’ (Anderson, 2006,as cited in Jarvis, 2011) Google has developed its ethics around the values ofcreativity, openness, innovation, simplicity for the customer and buildingconnections throughout its journey. It has evolved from being a simple searchengine to actively participating and growing in every market segment possible.Its decentralized approach helps enhance independence among employees andchannels them to think & perform more innovatively. Google’s search engineranks number 1 on the Alexa index, thereby proving to be the giant in theworld of search engines.
In fact, the term ‘Google’ has evolved to become asynonym to ‘internet’ where we often find ourselves saying, “Let’s Google it”instead of “Let’s search it on the internet”. Business ModelGoogle’sbusiness model consists of Google search, AdWords and AdSense which functiontogether and generate revenues for the search engine giant. Search helps usersto obtain relevant and most specific form of data which they wish to extract bysearching across the internet and retrieving the best possible results for the search.AdWords enables users to create and publish their advertisements acrossnumerous locations on the internet, such as – search engine results pages(SERPs). And AdSense provides the technological support that enables AdWords toobtain the best match and cater its advertisements to the right audience. Thecompany provides a product or service to the audience without chargeanticipating to seek maximum attention and eventually generating revenuethrough advertising, sponsorship, etc.
In order to maximize its reach thecompany dominated the online search market by leveraging its networked economyand providing outstanding range of online products and services to thecustomers. Business EnvironmentAccordingto Kuratko, There are five specific dimensions that serve as importantdeterminants of an environment which is conducive to the company’s behaviour.They are:Topmanagement support, work discretion/autonomy, rewards/reinforcement, timeavailability, and organizational boundaries. (Kuratko et. al, 2014)1.Top management support: At Google, each individual is expected to think beyondthe limits and develop ideas that are unconventional, unique and innovative.
Innovation is a key phenomenon that fuels the company and its employees basedon which their success is achieved. Management at each level primarily focus onembedding these morals within the employees and ensure a comforting andconvenient rapport between the two. Entrepreneurial skill and thinking is oneof the most important qualities that are expected from all the employees.2.Work discretion: Any idea is an opportunity to discover something new and doesnot depend upon its success or failure.
At Google, they believe that anyopportunity should not be cast off without experiencing. The delegation ofauthority and responsibility is provided to the lower level management as well.Employees are provided with a great amount of freedom along with responsibilitywhich they must use optimally. 3.Rewards and reinforcement: The company provides its employees withextraordinary benefits some of which include free meals, sports and gameslounges, recreational facilities and much more inside the work environmentencouraging employees to feel at home and at the same time to set-free theirthoughts and imaginations in seek of continuous creativity and innovation.
Other ways in which the employees are rewarded is through shares, flexible workhours, sufficient holiday period, bonuses, etc. 4.Time availability: Everybody at Google is given enormous amount of time toensure that they are stress free and that they work till their optimumpotential. There are various projects designed by the company in order tofacilitate interaction and activities across the entire workspace. For example:The “20 percent” project focuses on providing employees with an opportunity tospend 20 percent of their work week time on activities or ideas that suit theirinterests.5.Organizational boundaries: The organizational culture at Google is employeefriendly and customer oriented.
It promotes any type of entrepreneurialactivity which might benefit the external as well as internal environment as awhole. Innovation is inscribed within the work culture and is considered as astructured and purposeful process. Through such vast opportunities of growthand innovation the flow of information between the external environment and theorganization also increases. Organizationalboundaries within Google are set to the limit where there is no more scope ofinnovation or improvement within the workplace and its employees. Economic and Policy EnvironmentWhilst most of the businessgenerally decrease their workforce or cut down on their activities during timesof economical bane, Google’s sustainable and innovative work model keeps itresilient to such events. In fact, it has managed to constantly grow apace yearafter year showing no negative signs in its economic performance and hasconstantly secured its position as a technology conglomerate. The company hasmanaged to maintain a stable and continuously growing market share all acrossthe globe and till date plays a dominant role in the field of search engines.
The company works on firm internet guidelines and also has a few policies ofits own which have been mixed in the work culture. For example: Providing theleast amount of harm to the external environment while performing itsactivities. Google has adhered to its policy by being carbon neutral since adecade and aims to function on 100% renewable energy by this year. External EnvironmentGoogle aspires to create a means throughwhich every aspect of information can be found on the web by aiming to deliverwhat the customers or the users of the web are searching for. The main aim ofthe people at Google is to deal with the problem of delivering such services ata great speed along with providing interesting data to encourage the customer toexplore more. Google had reached the average search target of 0.2 seconds whichwas much better from the previous 3 seconds approximate.
Google takes its twomost important assets; attention and trust of its customers very seriously andkeeps them as prime target objectives because they know that slow and inferiorresults would lead to loss of their users. Another aspect which Google dealswith is by providing related data of two different words that are connected.For example, if a user searches for ’emotional philosophy’ then Google Searchmust make sure it finds data relevant to the desired term.
Here the term hastwo words with different outlooks, this is where Google’s search engine playsits role by selecting the most clicked links from the searches and tries tomake it even better by clearing out the unwanted data along with adding furtherlinks for reference purposes; hence enabling Google to distinguish between differentdata inputs at different speeds so it can provide more useful and accurate datato the consumer.Google also faced a problem ofbeing able to interpret large amount of search data from users from differentnations, to be able to understand what the users wanted and to be able toprovide them the data required. It has not only been ableto find and provide accurate results of those words but has also improved toprovide the relation these words hold.One of the major problems facedby Google is that it is lacking behind in mobile apps segment as the mostcommonly used apps are the facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsAppwhich are all owned by Facebook. Google’s approach towards fixing theseproblems is by leveraging its existing mobile apps such as YouTube, Gmail andGoogle Maps which are highly operated on mobile phones and will help grasp theusers’ attention. The other approach it has pursued is through creating oracquiring new messaging apps or enhancing chrome and bringing in new featuresinto the webpage interface. Internal EnvironmentIn its internal environment,Google deals with that part of the society that wants to be a part of thecompany or as they call it ‘Googlers’. They deal with over 1500 resumeseveryday and look for two kinds of people to maintain their working sense aswell as participate in the society.
Majorly, they hire PhDs from top programsand research labs and some who possess entrepreneurial skills and risk takingattitude. The challenge here was negotiating between the risk and caution. Theyhad set up a team of managers who kept advising on what was supposed to be doneand how and tried to maintain a particular-way of doing things for which Googlehad to fire that team as it contradicted with Google’s basic values which givesits employees the freedom at work and to be able to get the best out of theircreative minds.The company has no suchstrategic-planning department as it doesn’t really restrict the employees fromperforming any task or idea but insists to creed on innovation.
Googlers aregiven importance and credit to create and provide great results such as the Googlenews. In 2001 Krishna Bharat came up with the idea of providing news to peopleby presenting latest news sources once an hour and eventually making itavailable to be read by users. Later Marissa Mayer got together and created’Google News’.
Within a month and a half it had 155 news sources along with asearch function ad, which within weeks generated 70,000 users per day,promoting the young engineer to a project manager. This was the kind of freedomand encouragement given to the Googlers to provide ideas and implement themfreely. New opportunities, threatsand innovative solutionsAccordingto Larry Page, “The biggest threat to Google is Google itself”. (Miller, 2011).Googlers believe that the greatest threat to the company is the lack ininnovation and entrepreneurial performance among the organization which woulddeeply impact the functioning of the company. Employees at Google are givenfreedom and are constantly urged to be innovative and quick in performingactions in order to be able to deal with any threat with ease. However, apartfrom itself, Google also faces threats from Apple in the Smartphone industry,Amazon in the online shopping and artificial intelligence based home appliancessegment and from Facebook in the social networking app segment. But thesethreats have not affected the company much as it has been constantly evolvingitself and improving the products and services offered in order to stay aheadof the competition.
For instance, apart from improving camera and screenquality, Google provides its users with unlimited photo storage in order tostay ahead of Apple; it enhanced the accuracy and efficiency of its artificialbased appliance in order to dominate over its rivals; and to get ahead ofFacebook, it developed various social networking apps such as Google+ and Duo.It has also leveraged its leading apps such as YouTube, Maps, Docs, etc. inorder to attract more audience and seize greater market share.
The latestsuccess in innovation is the development of photographic memory in GooglePhotos which enables users to enjoy what they capture and create. With the helpof its AI capabilities, the Google assistant can also compile and transformthese stored images into clips, animations, collages etc. It recognizes theperson involved in the picture and spontaneously compiles all pictures of thatindividual in a folder. ConclusionGooglehas consistently adhered to its core values and basic principles of innovationand continuous creative performance. Google’sentrepreneurs aim bring the various innovative start-ups and build new spacesfor their employees who are given the opportunity to be an entrepreneurthemselves by pitching in their own creative ideas, to improvise and reachtheir capacities.
Google has constantlybeen able to preserve up with is essential values along with basic principlesof innovation and creative performance.Googles major accomplishmentswere the acquisition of YouTube, creation of google maps; which not just actsas an individual app but also is the backbone of other services like mappinglocations, latitudes, and places, Gmail which has been a vast platform of emailprogram, purchase of android which is a great competitor to IOS, the Verizonpartnership in which has given the marketing push to android mobile phones andother successful achievement is of partnering with apple to create the searchengine in iPhones which has made google the control in the market of mobilesearch engines. The company hasits three major aspects;a. theentrepreneur; which in this case has a different outlook of business likediggingout the best in its employees and the has the possibility to show its image andthe company’s image a great success,b. employees;who have been selected with specific abilities to think out of the box and actas individual businessmen to have come up with ideas such as google news,google wave, and google readerc. thecustomers or the users whose satisfaction and attention has been kept in mindas a major motive where google aims in making life better and easier.
The companyhas shown in various stages how it has created new apps besides expanding thefirm through the help of skilled internet businesspersons and creative’Googlers’. It has confronted many challenges from its competitors, users,economical and internal technical problems; despite, which it has demonstrateditself towards being one of the firms that has given its employees a secondhome and a platform where every individual finds its solution. It has alwaysdealt with creating solutions not just for the users but for itself to be ableto solve problems in a very original and imaginative manner.
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