There are some companies whose product and service, impacts the global lifestyle in a significant manner, and for this reason, becomes part of the consumer’s everyday life. There are very few brands that connect with consumers on a personal level on a daily level.
Google has been part of the consumer’s life at all times, the mission of Google is to organize the world’s information and make it collectively accessible and useful in an effective manner (Company Overview, 2016). The impact of Google is such that, the name of the company is used as a reference for researching or finding something online i.e. Just Google it.
The now multinational technology company was launched in April 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who met at Stanford, and start collaborating on a search engine on the Stanford server and registered the google.com domain in 1997.
The company progressed at a rapid pace and by the end of the year, i.e. in December 1998, Google was recognized by the PC magazine as a reliable company and was listed in the top 100 websites for 1998 (History, 2016).
The role of the CEO at Google has been dynamic and the founding partner Larry Page was the original CEO until 2001, after that Eric Schmidt served as the CEO till 2011 and in April 2011 Larry Page became the CEO again, just last year, Sundar Pichai’s was appointed Google’s CEO, having started at Google in 2004, as the Vice President of Product Management of Chrome, and have been growing ever since, the main role of Sundar is conflict management to the point that people like to work with him.
The main influence that Sundar has over his peers that helped him in getting the coveted position of the CEO is that, he is excellent at asking the right questions and also most importantly, take in all the information and make sense out of it that is the key at Google (Eadicicco, 2015).
The motivation that eventually led to the launch of Google is the stuff of a mega Hollywood movie script, the legend is that, Larry Page had a night vision in the middle of the night and in it he was able to download the entire web and examine the links amid pages that led to a written algorithm that was called PageRank, and was utilized to power BackRub, that was later renamed as Google (Carlson, 2014).
Even before the company was launched the first major investment was $100,000, by Sun Microsystems (JAVA) co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. Besides, there had been many major investments at Google in the initial phases and one that stands out is the investment made by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos amounting to $250,000 at four cents a share.
The big investment amounting to $25 million came a year later in 1999, by Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital (Swisher. 2009).
Every company has their own vision, mission statement and philosophy to be able to revisit them, whenever it is required to move forward, resolve a conflict or create themes to reconnect with the core business values that may need changing with the constant changes in the dynamic business environment.
At Google the initial set of philosophy was written as ten things that are as follows (What We Believe, 2016):
The user to be the focus with ‘experience’ being the core, in view of the service offered, this resulted in a clean homepage of Google.com with quick loading capability.
A web based search engine company with focused on solving search problem, the intent is to provide information when required and do it effectively.
Time is the key and simple page style is based on saving time by being fast.
Collective effort is the key at Google since it connects with millions of links posted for content.
Mobile technology as a key medium to perform tasks from anywhere and now the technology is the main medium of communication.
Revenue generation with an advertising model.
Always more information is the requirement.
Global avenues to get information.
Informal culture to maximize productivity.
Excellence is required at Google.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is part of the founding philosophy at Google, and the company is committed to various causes in relation to tackling global climate issues, education, poverty alleviation and philanthropy (Corporate Social Responsibility, 2016).
The CSR has been developed significantly, with the China initiatives in 2007, by launching Social Innovation Cup, supporting China during the earthquake.
Google grants are also part of CSR that supports Red Cross, Youth and Charities; in essence Google lives and breathes CSR.
The evolution of Google as a company is immense, it is impossible to not interact with a Google product as they have an amazing array of companies. Some big group names are, Andriod, You Tube, Waze, Songza, Nest Labs to name a few, with $5 billion spent on acquisitions in 2014 (Page, 2015).
Last year Google restructured, with the launch of the Alphabet led by Larry Page, and Google became a subsidiary of the Alphabet (Eadicicco, 2015).
Google have been consistently performing above the S&P 500 Index, with the major revenues, gained from advertising. The global desktop search engine market share of Google as of February 2016 is 67.73% (Net Market Share, 2016).
The financial overview of Google Inc. as shared in (Alphabet, Inc GOOGL, 2015), shows that the financial health of Google is very healthy in terms of revenues, i.e. 74.99 Billion, investor share value with shares outstanding at 687,348,000 and dividend yield is 0 i.e. (N/A).
The debt and tax burdens at Google are there, and the company just recently, agreed to pay British authorities in £130m in back taxes, although Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, said that Google has always complied with tax laws globally (Rawlinson, 2016).
Google comes in the list of top companies spending big amounts on research and development, as evidenced with spending of 3,530.00 million in a 3 month period ending 30th June 2015 (Financials, 2015).
Google as a brand is a phenomenon, and the brand is recognized globally, by everyone who uses the internet, that mean practically the whole world, with excellence and innovation as the bedrock of Google the brand equity and positioning is bound to grow in a profitable manner.
As a technology company, Google’s main competition are Yahoo (YHOO), AOL, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, Oracle and Intel to name a few major companies that operates in the same genre as Google’s extensive array of technology solution (Investopedia, 2015).
Google as a brand is a class apart and with the technology growing in a dynamic manner, on a daily basis, the impact on Google will only be positive to retain its market position and extend the brand’s reach in an effective manner.
References
Alphabet Inc (2016). GOOGL Overview. Investing.com Retrieved from http://www.investing.com/equities/google-inc
Carlson, N (2014). The Story Of How Larry Page Got Forced From The Top Of Google And Came Back A Decade Later. Tech. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.sg/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4/?r=US&IR=T
Company Overview (2016). About Google. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/about/company/
Corporate Social Responsibility (2016). About Google. Retrieved from http://www.google.cn/intl/en/about/company/responsibility/
Financials (2015). Alphabet Inc. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:GOOG&fstype=ii
Eadicicco, L (2015). It was ‘very clear’ that Sundar Pichai was being ‘groomed for CEO,’ former Google employee says. Tech. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.sg/sundar-pichai-google-ceo-2015- 8/?r=US&IR=T#.VvyV7nqmF94
History (2016). About Google. Retrieved from https://www.google.com.sg/about/company/history/
Investopedia (2015). Who are Google's (GOOG) main competitors? Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120314/who-are-googles-goog-main- competitors.asp
Net Market Share (2016). Desktop Search Engine Market Share. Retrieved from https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market- share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=0
Page, V (2015). The Top 6 Companies Owned By Google. Investopedia. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/052015/top-6-companies-owned- google.asp
Rawlinson, K (2016). Google agrees to pay British authorities £130m in back taxes. The Guardian 2016. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/22/google-agrees-to-pay-hmrc- 130m- in-back-taxes
Swisher, K (2009). New Yorker: Bezos' Initial Google Investment Was $250K in 1998 Because "I Just Fell in Love With Larry and Sergey". All Things D. Retrieved from http://allthingsd.com/20091005/new-yorker-bezos-initial-google-investment-was- 250000-in-1998-because-i-just-fell-in-love-with-larry-and-sergey/
What We Believe (2016). About Google. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/
