This paper is devoted to the analysis of the Google Company pointing out its strengths and weaknesses in order to determine recommendations for its future development that would meet customer’s requirements of convenience, effectiveness, and usefulness.
Google is one of the largest corporations in the world investing in the Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. The Google Company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The paper includes the description of Google and its strategies. It was stated that the company achieved the success due to its innovative technologies and approaches.
The company’s mission is to provide people with convenient, rapid, and relevant search engine that would suit for everyone in every country. That is why Goggle speaks plenty of languages. Based on the analysis’ findings, several recommendations were distinguished for company’s perspective development. Among them the preservation and enhancement of the current strategy, attraction of talented employees, increase of compatibility, and global expansion.
I decided to write this paper as it reveals the main principles of the Google Company. It seems appropriate to consider that company and its product as it is one of the most innovative companies in the world. It expanded worldwide connecting people and allowing them to be closer.
Speaking of my intended readership, it should be noted that the analysis might be helpful for a wide range of people beginning from an average reader to deepen his or her knowledge about Google to other students that might use it in their future investigations. Additionally, Google would benefit as well.
First of all, it is necessary to provide the product description. First, it was incorporated as a privately held company September 4, 1998, and August 19, 2004, it started selling its shares on the stock market (Sutherland 4). Then Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for twenty years, until 2024. The stated mission of the company from the beginning was organizing the world’s information ensuring its availability and benefits for all (Stryker 20). The invention of Google technology could be compared to the invention of a wheel. Today, it is difficult to imagine a web search without Google. Like all brilliant, the Google search engine is a very simple thing.
Nowadays, Google has already ceased to be part of a uniquely American life and culture as 67 percent of its users live outside the United States, and for 77 percent of the audience, English is not the native language (Stryker 18). That is why Google speaks a great majority of languages, in particular, more than a hundred living languages as well as the dead (for example, Latin), artificial (Esperanto), and even fictional (the language of the race from the Clinton planet from the series «Star trek»). Google allows users to search for information in any language by using language technology to understand what is at stake.
It is very important to note that the company has achieved the incredible success without putting a dime in advertising of any kind (TV, radio, magazines, billboards and others) relying only on the viral marketing and word of mouth. It was the innovative step, too. The company’s logo is one of the most recognizable and certainly is the most expensive, it varies periodically in honor of holidays or memorable dates, for example, on the occasion of the artist Edward Munch.
HR management of the company is at the highest level. Google provides employees with everything concerning what they are interested in, feeding them lunch, arranging closets with juice, allowing playing billiards, and bringing pets to the office (Schermerhorn et al. 277). Consequently, everyone becomes a part of a huge mechanism, where each in his place, and doing his job. The work transforms into the creative process (Worstall par. 2). Knowing that you are part of something important gives new incentives.
Thus, Google suggests plenty of opportunities. Moreover, Google provides all employees with some degree of independence, and founders of the company also possess that freedom, too. Sometimes they suddenly come to the meeting, where they were not expected (Brandt 78). Moreover, all Google employees are bright and extraordinary people. Therefore, the company’s products are always unique, original, and easy to use. In addition, Google offers some freedom expressed in working at desired time.
Ultimately, the success of Google depends on concerted actions of all team members each of which has specific responsibilities. Such commonality blurs the lines of communication within the company (Steiber 55). As a result, anyone could ask a question to the authorities during the meetings that are traditionally held on Fridays.
According to one of the company’s founders, Larry Page, the ideal search engine is able to determine exactly what the user has in mind and to show it within the next seconds (Sutherland 5). Its current state corresponds to this definition to some extent, however, new technologies are constantly developing that helps to approach the ideal. Long before the user enters a query into the search box, Google searches websites available on the Internet using programs called spiders or Googlebot robots.
The crawler visits a page, copies the content, and follows links contained on this page. After that, the process is repeated over and over again until the number of pages viewed by the search engine is not as high as several billion. When a user enters a query into the search box on Google, this request is sent to Google’s servers, and the system compares it with the documents contained in the index to determine the most accurate matching. In a matter of seconds, the system lists the closest content of pages and determines the relevant sections including snippets of text, images, video, and other data. As a result, the user receives a list of search results under each of which is a short piece of text from the page.
In order to perform the research, I used the interview method because it involves the collection of information in a free form; it focuses on the understanding, explanation, and interpretation of empirical data that is the source of speculation and productive ideas. I interviewed different managers asking them about the history of the company, its strategy, mission, and other peculiarities. They were polite and answered my questions with pleasure. I visited their office in California to see it and feel the atmosphere of working conditions. My expectations were justified as the atmosphere was kind and friendly.
The next part of the paper examines findings. I would like to divide them according to the leading features of the company.
Relevanc
During the creation of Google, one of the key innovations introduced by its founders was the Page Rank technology that determines the significance of web pages by analyzing the content of resources which it referred as well as other related information (Sutherland 8). Now, for the determination of rank websites more than 200 parameters are used. For example, users could get personalized search results that are based on stories of their work on the Internet and their location data. However, it might cause some problems with law as a violence of the private life of individuals.
Completeness
In 1998, Google search index included 25 million pages that only a small part of the Internet. Today, the index contains billions of web pages, and its size reaches about 100 million gigabytes. In 2007, Google implemented the universal search working with images, video, news, books and other resources displaying all the results on one page.
Topicality
Initially, Googlebot viewed websites every three or four months, therefore, the information which users have found using the Google typically was out of date. Now the search engine spiders operate continuously, and the real-time search technology allows users to find the latest news, blog posts, and status updates that have been published in just a few minutes or even seconds.
Speed
Google’s average request processing time is about a quarter of a second. For comparison, when a person blinks, the eyelids open and close in one-tenth of a second. Google considers the speed is one of the main characteristics of the search engine, and never introduces new features if they slow down the work. However, specialists involved not only in the development of new tools but also looking for ways to improve the search speed. Well-written and optimized program codes as well as distributed computing systems located in different parts of the planet provide a very high performance of the entire system. Such technologies as auto complete and Google Instant help generate search queries and display search results even before the user finishes entering the text of the query.
Additional advantages
However, in addition to the standard search, Google provides a variety of other opportunities for users and for other companies. Google also remembers about Web applications. Previously, users had to install on their computers special applications such as e-mail clients, word processing, calendars, and spreadsheet editors in order to communicate and collaborate with each other. If the owner accidentally spilled coffee on his or her computer, the valuable data could abyss forever. In addition, it was necessary to constantly monitor the emergence of new versions of software and install them manually. With the advent of Google Cloud, all these problems became solvable.
For many, a mobile phone is the main or even the only means of accessing the Internet, so the access to the products from their mobile devices is important since Google is committed to making information available to everyone. The goal is to build mobile applications, in particular, Google Maps and Gmail that would work on different devices and in different regions. Google believes that Android platform would contribute to the emergence of innovative solutions and expand the choices that would benefit all users of mobile devices.
For all these reasons, it might be noted that the company constantly developing becomes more and more successful.
On the basis of the produced analysis of the external environment, one might conclude the following positive aspects:
- The increase of Google users in the world;
- Increasing the amount of advertising;
- New products;
- Development of new markets;
- Increase in the international market;
- Improvement of the technology;
- Weakening of competitors.
Similarly, as a result of analysis, the following list if factors having negative impact on the company and threatening might be created:
- The emergence of new competitors;
- Strengthening the old rivals;
- Google could get bogged down in litigation regarding the information;
- The loss of market share due to the competitors bringing together;
- International conflicts
Based on the analysis, it seems appropriate to expressed some recommendations concerning the future strategy.
In my point of view, one of the main tasks of Google is to improve end expand the legal service as the only thing that sometimes restrains perpetual running of Google is lawsuits most of which are suspicious claims of ordinary consumers.
Moreover, it would be better for Google if managers would perform the following recommendations:
- improve the compatibility of the company creating new strategies and products;
- develop the current strategy;
- attract new talented employees and improve their skills;
- expand in other markets.
In conclusion, it should be stressed that Google is a public multinational corporation that invests in the Internet search, cloud computing, and web applications. Google maintains and develops a number of Internet services and products including web browser, Gmail, and Android applications. The principal features and goals of Google are compatibility, efficiency, convenience, and solving problems. Among its key strengths, one might note unlimited resources and highly qualified personnel while its main opportunity is the development of new markets. According to the provided analysis, recommendations for the future company strategy were identified and formulated. Thus, it is important to continue the actual strategy and develop new strategies as well.
Works Cited
Brandt, Richard L. The Google Guys: Inside the Brilliant Minds of Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, New York: Penguin, 2011. Print.
Schermerhorn, John R., Paul Davidson, David Poole, Alan Simon, Peter Woods, and Ling Chau. Management Foundations and Applications, Milton, Qld.: John Wiley, 2011. Print.
Steiber, Annika. The Google Model: Managing Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World, New York: Springer, 2014. Print.
Stryker, James. Google: The Story of the World’s Greatest Dot Com, Charleston: CreateSpace, 2013. Print.
Sutherland, Adam. The Story of Google, New York: Rosen Central. 2012. Print.
Worstall, Tim. “Lessons From Google’s Management Style“. Forbes. 2013.