Case Study on Google
Competitive Strategy Assessment 2
Case Study Google Inc.
INTRODUCTION
This Business Report primarily addresses 4 questions asked on the Google Inc. case study.
Information is primarily obtained from the case study and from publicly available news reports and articles.
KEY QUESTIONS
1. What were the key factors behind Google’s early success?
A number of key factors contributed to Google’s early success. Google had unassailable competitive advantage in the form of PageRank algorithm that can efficiently index web pages and delivers highly relevant searches to users. It avoided competing head to head with yahoo, etc by choosing not to diversify to portal positioning. Instead, Google focuses on developing its strategic assets (Makides, 1997) and licensing its search technologies to Yahoo and other 3rd party sites.
Operating under a duopoly market structure (Lewis, 1999) and under an expanding market, Google encountered less competitive resistance. Staying true to its competitive advantage and focusing on its search services, Google grew quickly.
Google was able to adopt a very competitive pricing strategy in paid listing and was offering a lower CPC and higher revenue split than its competitions. And by ensuring a higher click through rate, Google became the search engine of choice for both the paid-listers and users alike and was able to capture cross-side networks effect. (Eisenmann, 2006)
Google was able to translate its reach and pervasiveness of its search engine to paid listings revenue. Google’s reach also enables it to avoid the traditional overheads required for advertizing to make itself and its services known.
Google’s also seek out new market space (Kim, 1999) and the move to provide free unlimited e-mail web storage also greatly built its base of loyal customers and good-will.
Google’s corporate values, corporate culture and service offering was well “fitted” for the industry.
Case Study Google Inc.
INTRODUCTION
This Business Report primarily addresses 4 questions asked on the Google Inc. case study.
Information is primarily obtained from the case study and from publicly available news reports and articles.
KEY QUESTIONS
1. What were the key factors behind Google’s early success?
A number of key factors contributed to Google’s early success. Google had unassailable competitive advantage in the form of PageRank algorithm that can efficiently index web pages and delivers highly relevant searches to users. It avoided competing head to head with yahoo, etc by choosing not to diversify to portal positioning. Instead, Google focuses on developing its strategic assets (Makides, 1997) and licensing its search technologies to Yahoo and other 3rd party sites.
Operating under a duopoly market structure (Lewis, 1999) and under an expanding market, Google encountered less competitive resistance. Staying true to its competitive advantage and focusing on its search services, Google grew quickly.
Google was able to adopt a very competitive pricing strategy in paid listing and was offering a lower CPC and higher revenue split than its competitions. And by ensuring a higher click through rate, Google became the search engine of choice for both the paid-listers and users alike and was able to capture cross-side networks effect. (Eisenmann, 2006)
Google was able to translate its reach and pervasiveness of its search engine to paid listings revenue. Google’s reach also enables it to avoid the traditional overheads required for advertizing to make itself and its services known.
Google’s also seek out new market space (Kim, 1999) and the move to provide free unlimited e-mail web storage also greatly built its base of loyal customers and good-will.
Google’s corporate values, corporate culture and service offering was well “fitted” for the industry.
References: Eisenmann, Thomas, Oct 2006, HBR, Strategies for two sided market W Chan Kim, Jan/Feb 1999, HBR, Creating New Market Space Lewis, Geoffrey, 1999, Australian and New Zealand Strategic Management; concepts, context and cases Makides, Constantinos C., 1997, HBR, to diversify or not to diversify http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm