There are some companies whose products 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 and 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 remarkable that, the name of the company is used as a reference for researching or finding something online i.e. Just Google it.
The current multinational technology company was launched in April 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who met at Stanford and started collaborating on a search engine on the Stanford server, 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; 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. During the last year, Sundar Pichai was appointed as Google’s CEO. He started at Google in 2004 as the Vice President of Product Management of Chrome and has been growing ever since. His main role has been conflict management, he is so talented to the point that people like to work with him.
The main skill Sundar has over his peers that helped him in getting the coveted position of the CEO is his excellent ability of asking the right questions. Moreover, his unique analytical skills of taking in all the information and making sense out of it, 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 legacy is that Larry Page had a vision in the middle of the night that he was able to download the entire web and examine the links amid pages which led to a written algorithm called PageRank. It 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 have been many major investments at Google during the initial phases. One that stands out, is the investment made by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos amounting to $250,000 at four cents a share.
A significant investment amounting to $25 million came a year later in 1999, by Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital (Swisher. 2009). The current top investors now in Google are Vanguard Group, Inc., FMR, LLC and State Street Corporation which are considered to be the Top Institutional Share holders.
Every company has their own vision, mission 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 its initial 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 and continuous review of the service offered, this resulted in a clean homepage of Google.com with quick loading capability.
A web based search Engine Company that focuses on solving search problem. The intent is to provide information when required and do it effectively.
Time is the key. A 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.
Access to more information is an essential requirement.
Global avenues to get information.
Informal culture to maximize productivity.
Excellence is required at Google.
XiuXiu offers a partial definition at the start, and lists three examples with China. But she does not discuss them and their impact. You need a more developed definition at the beginning. By referring to Google’s web page, you make the case that CSR is important to the company. However, in the paper you do not support this claim with real data or financial numbers. You need to show me!
XiuXiu states that the user, the consumer is the focus. Does this value lead to CSR practices? What about the outreach to China?
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 for companies is responsible for achieving sustainability in societies by implementing and executing different programs.
The CSR has been developed significantly with the China initiatives in 2007, by launching the Social Innovation Cup which is mainly responsible for empowering the youth, by supporting their ideas and funding them. Another initiative also helped China during the earthquake incident in 2008 by reconstructing damaged buildings (mainly schools).
Google grants are also part of their outstanding CSR that supports Red Cross, Youth-run organizations and Charity ones in spreading their messages by providing them with free AdWords advertising. In essence, Google lives and breathes CSR
The evolution of Google as a company is immense; it is impossible not to interact with a Google product as they have an amazing array of companies. Some famous group names are, Andriod, You Tube, Waze, Songza and Nest Labs with a total of $5 billion spent on acquisitions in 2014 (Page, 2015).
Last year Google was reconstructed with the launch of the Alphabet that was led by Larry Page and Google became a subsidiary of the previously mentioned company (Eadicicco, 2015). This change came in order to achieve more specialization within the company in order to improve the productivity. This resulted in Google being a sister company to others like Nest, Calico, Fiber, Ventures & Capital as well as X Lab.
You place a 0 for dividend spending – you need to explain why google does not distribute dividends to shareholders. Also it would be important to see revenues over the last 5 years, and share price. Without going into a lot of detail, it would be good to discuss why Google schose to restructure, and make google and other companies a subsidiary of Alphabet. Is it a holding company? How many companies does google own, now Alphabet, and of what type?
Google has 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 total revenue for the company during the past 6 years escalated from $29.3 in 2010 to $74.54 in 2016 with an increase in the share price from $324 in 2012 to $ 682 in 2016.
The financial overview of Google Inc. as shared in (Alphabet, Inc GOOGL, 2015), shows that the financial profile 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 tangible; the company recently agreed to pay British authorities in £130m in back taxes, even though Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said that Google has always complied with tax laws globally (Rawlinson, 2016).
They do not distribute dividends to investors. The money is used for R&D. This distinguishes google further, and still they have investors. Who are the top shareholders?
Google decided not the pay dividends to its shareholders as most other large technology companies also do. The main reason behind this strategy that is followed by many is to avoid taxation. However, the shareholders get their profit share in the form of stock buybacks for the company. In addition, the money is used in R&D for the company which allows it to stay on top of the game when it is compared to other competitors.
Google comes in the list of top companies spending tremendous amounts on research and development. The evidence is spending a total of 3,530.00 million during a 3 month period ending 30th June 2015 (Financials, 2015).
Google as a brand is a phenomenon; the brand is recognized globally by everyone who uses the internet. Technically speaking, that means the whole world. Having 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 competitors 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/
