Google's Strategy

Google's Strategy in 2012

Webster University

Google's Strategy in 2012

Problem Statement

Can Google remain competitive in the search industry?

Analysis and Evaluation

In the last 14 years, Google has set the standard for on-line search. Millions of people perform daily searches from home, company, and mobile devices. Google has created an innovative way for people to obtain information by a simple click of the finger. Google focused on the user as a way to attract people to their simple white search page and distinctive colorful log with no ads or editorial content on the page, which lead to easy and fast searches that Yahoo could not imitate. Google uses over 500 million different variables and two billion terms to generate a list of best-matching search results. The results were generated in seconds wherein many internet users found Google’s search results more relevant than the results generated by competing search engines. There are four major search engines along with Google, and they are Yahoo (which is considered one of Google’s biggest competitors), Bing from Microsoft, MSN and Baidu (China’s leading search engine). Since 2009, Google has dominated the search industry market by owning 65 percent of the American market and 85 percent of the global market. The only market Google has not conquered or fully acquired is China because China’s main search engine is Baidu, which controls 65 percent of the market in China while Google only controls 35 percent.

Porter’s Five Forces Model

Bargaining Power of Suppliers – Low

Google search market is local and it has not dominated the market internationally. The competition level is low; therefore, the suppliers bargaining power is less; however, Google needs to remain vigilant as a huge search engines can strike the customer base of Google. In addition, Microsoft is embedding their search engine tool into their Explorer browser, which would increase bargaining power of suppliers.

Threats of New...