Back in the year 1996, two Stanford graduate students began a research project. They hoped it would interconnect the world by enabling all technologies for a universal and integrated digital library. At that time, they explored the components of the internet and familiarized themselves with the structure and overall concept. They worked together and built a search engine called back rub. The search engine used links and it determined the importance of individual pages on the web. Two years later, they had created a company that we know as Google (Botchers, C. 2010).
Google strategy, mission and products
The main mission of Google is to reorganize the information in the world making it globally valuable and easily reached. The company has grown enormously but In order for it to prolong on a competitive plus, it needs to reassess both internal and external environment in terms of weaknesses and strengths. A SWOT analysis on the company requires very detailed focus on both the internal and external. The analysis that I will give will concentrate on the internal strengths and weaknesses, which will automatically uncover the external threats and opportunities. Google has products such as mobile phones and pads. The common products are the ideos phones and Ideos tablets. These products have penetrated well in the market and they are doing very well. I cannot forget to mention that they will be successful because they already are.
Google strengths
The company runs the array with the renowned search engine that deeply belongs to Google. It has none of its kind in the search engine marketplace. However, it has some competitors that dominated the early market of search engines. They include Yahoo, Lycos, msn, and many more. Nevertheless, Google became a household name as searchers quickly discovered that it was not just an ordinary engine of searching. Google differentiated itself from the rest by showing detailed and only one of its kind information (Fred, R.2009).
How did Google manage to differentiate itself from the rest by giving unique and beneficial content? The answer lies in the system that the company used to know how the content it gave was useful. The pages on the web got rank according to significance and unsavory reputation. Researchers say equity in brand uplifts Google’s fundamental nature. In the world’s most powerful brands list, Google has emerged top several times. According to mill ward Brown, a renowned internet-marketing firm that deals with research, the significant company is valued at 86 billion dollars. On average, Google receives over 30,000 searches per every second. This is roughly equivalent to 2 billion searches per day. The brand Google promotes trustworthiness, steadfastness, ease of understanding and swiftness (Botchers, C. 2010).
Apart from giving constructive information, a tool from Google designed to help those who own the sites with information such as who visited the site, where the visitor to the site came from, how long the visitor and how the information met the user’s needs. Other details on the tools help include; the geographical area of the user, the keyword used to bring the visitor, questions that they could have. In addition, the time the user took and the pages viewed.
This tool gives the company opportunities of being more valuable in return with the view of the fact that no other search engine is capable of providing such information. Google gets strategic advantage from this tool in providing quality information. The company is not limited to search engine technology and it specializes in provision of free software used globally by many businesses. Google has a consistent growth clearly shown by its accumulated cash reserve (Botchers, C. 2010).
Weaknesses
In order for Google to gain popularity internationally, the company will need to customize the services they give based on culture in each country. Report from researchers; show that Google does not hold any position to satisfy cultures in foreign countries. Google is also very weak in security terms in that its expertise relies on the search engine it owns (Fred, R.2009).Google should take more caution on security by designing a tighter system or outsourcing. This will avoid supplementary measures on allocation of security to mobile devices and personal computing.
Opportunities of Google
Technology, populations and market segments as factors of the industry reveal the opportunities. These opportunities show off with threats therefore divulging the consequence. Google plus as one of the biggest company’s application, has the ability of combining all Google services. This will make it the best tool in social networking and internet search. Maps and offers are also opportunities that Google has. Shopping is an opportunity in that every consumer is always curious about reviews on products. With the use of Google plus, friends can tell who viewed what product. More to it, shopping on Google shows coupon deals for products available. This is only possible if Google shopping developed an interface that links to Google offers. Other tools that are opportunities to Google include; news and finance, iMobi, Google Books and Google TV.
Google threats
Quite possibly, court cases are the biggest threats to Google and it uses a lot of money in courts defending itself in court. Completion and political threats have always been threats to many companies with reasons well known to us. Economic downturn destroys the company’s ability to invest in research and development aggressively. Mobile search could be another threat to the company since it lowers Google searches.
Conclusion
A penetrating SWOT analysis of an industry that keeps changing is the most effective means to keep Google’s competitive forces at play. Assessing things that have happened in order to apply the lessons learnt is all what involves finding a competitive edge (Fred, R.2009).
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The Most Expensive Keywords in Google: AdWords.
