Strategic Management Report: Analyzing Google Company's Business Model

This report provides a strategic analysis of Google's business model, examining its organizational structure, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). It highlights Google's generic strategy, emphasizing product differentiation and intensive growth strategies, which have contributed to its competitive advantages in the information industry. The analysis covers Google's various products and services, its global presence, and its cross-functional organizational structure. The report also identifies key challenges and opportunities for Google, including competition from other tech giants and the need for continuous innovation to maintain its market leadership. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

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GOOGLE COMPANY BUSINESS MODEL
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GOOGLE COMPANY BUSINESS MODEL
Success in an organization is the most important aspect that a business looks forward to. All the
businesses around the globe were started in an object of being successful in their endeavors.
When starting an organization different things are supposed to be considered in order to enable
the business to be able to succeed. Failures in many businesses are because of not putting good
strategies in the management of the business. Different organizations have different strategies for
doing business, which they apply in different ways. The business model or strategy the company
uses determines whether the business will be successful or not in the future. Below is an analysis
of the business strategy of the Google Company. The analysis gives an overview of the company
and its general organization. It also gives the different strategies used by the company to be able
to become the best information providing company.
The globally recognized company, Google, is an organization that deals in the provision
of internet related products and services. Google, the technology organization was founded in the
first month of the year 1966. The organization began through research work by two individuals;
Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Before it acquired its own domain, the company used the
university's domains; Years later, the organization got its own domain name registered. This was
on 15 September 1997. A year after this, the company became legal (Hamen & Google 2011).
Therefore, it can be said that Google officially came into existence on 4 September 1998.
The organization has a large employee margin. It has employed over 72 thousand staff.
These individuals are employed on a full-time basis. There are temporary slots in the company
and individuals who are in the company for internship purposes. In total, Google has 85,050
employees. Out of this total, 31% are female employees (Weber, 2015). This indicates that

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Google has more male employees than female. Of this 31%, 24 percent occupy positions in
leadership. Among the 24% that have leadership positions, 19% have positions in the tech
department. Despite the low number of female employees, Google commits itself to promote
gender balance. The headquarters complex of the Google Company is known as the Googleplex.
IT was not the original complex. The original one, with 2,000,000 square feet of office space is
currently the organization’s first runner’s up in size. The Googleplex became the largest complex
once it went online. With 3,100,000 square feet of office space, the complex stands proud.
The Google Company offers varying goods and services. It offers search tools through
Google Search. This is the company's main product. A search engine provides several results for
any particular search. Advertising services are also provided by the organization. These
platforms offer businesses advertising services through technology. Communication and
publishing tools are another set of services offered by the company. Other products offered by
the company are security tools such as Google Safe Browsing, which is a service that blacklists
web resources that contain malware. Google also offers development tools. Statistical tools such
as Google Customer Survey are also offered. Operating systems, desktop applications, mobile
applications, and hardware are other products by Google Company. Google Company has more
than 70 offices around the globe; in 50 countries to be exact. The headquarters are in the United
States of America while the other branches are located all around the world. Therefore, to be
specific, Google has branches internationally
A cross-functional organization structure is what encompasses the Google Company.
This is a matrix structure, which means that employees can report to more than one manager.
This structure uses employee functions as a method of classifying employees. Examples are a
Product Management Team and a Sales Operations Team. The kinds of products made are

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another method that Google uses to group its employees. For example, the organization groups
workers for developing its Google AdSense business together. Employees who work for
Google’s Fiber business are also grouped together.
The company's organization has a certain degree of flatness. This means that the
employees of Google or even their teams can lack to report to middle-level management and
decide to directly report to the CEO. The employees further have the space to meet directly and
discuss information. This also applies to different teams. An organization's span of control is a
term that means the number of subordinates that report to a single supervisor. Google's span of
control has gradually increased and is now at 10. This is cost effective as it reduces the number
of middle managers employed. This broad span of control also means employees are given more
authority. The chain of command from top to bottom is short.
During the research, different strengths and weaknesses were observed from the company
strategies of doing business. The company is also having many chances to be able to develop and
increase on the way they provide their services and goods. In the study for the business strategy,
we were able to conduct a SWOT analysis of the company (Forte, Forte, and Pinheiro, 2017).
We were able to identify the weaknesses and strengths that the company has and the treats that
are posted to the company by the external environment. To be able to understand the business
strategy that the company employee there was the need to understand the strength of the
company and the weaknesses. The company SWOT analysis was analyzed briefly as follows.
Services such as Latitude and Maps navigation are a great strength to the company. G-
mail has become the most popular web-based e-mail program thus contributing to the strength of
the company as well (Oke, Aghimien, and Adedoyin, 2018). Android Inc has become the best

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selling Smartphone platform. The company through the sale of commodities which are of very
high quality has enabled acquired many competitive advantages over the other companies in the
same industries. We were able to identify the company's business model as the strength of the
company. Having a good business strategy has enabled the company to be very successful and to
maintain the high market share in the available market.
Google has also some weaknesses, which the company needs to de3al with. The company
is vulnerable to fluctuating demand for its ads considering that the highest amount of its income
comes from advertising. Google also has a very high employee turnover in both the ordinary
employees and the top officials (Abdel-Basset, Mohamed, and Smarandache, 2018). Google also
has various opportunities such as having Android and Chrome for work, which is aimed at
pulling businesses away from Microsoft, and Apple will help expand Google. The streaming of
music with Google play music will be an opportunity to earn more income from ads and
subscriptions. Google is facing a lot of threats from Face book, Apple, and Amazon. The many
active Face book users make it a more preferred platform for advertising by advertisers. Most
people go directly to Amazon to shop before going to Google first. This weakness and strengths
contribute a lot to the business model as the company is able to be more innovative.
The company applies a very strong business strategy that enables it to be able to be the
best company in the world by providing information. The company has a generic strategy of
doing business, which has increased its competitive advantages and has contributed a lot to its
success. The business strategy is directly related to the nature of the commodities and services
that the company provides (Baden-Fuller, & Morgan, 2010). It is also based on the attributes of
the company and the nature of the industry in which Google Company belongs. The strategy is
the one that governance the company’s operations and the way the company operates. The

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company has another strategy is based on the growth of the company. The strategy has helped
the company be able to maintain the option of having the best brands of commodities in the
world.
The generic strategy of the company has enabled it to gain many competitive advantages
over the other companies in the same industry. It has also brought a lot of influence on the
development of the company. Through the combination of the two strategies, the company has
been able to meet its objective in providing sufficient services to the clients and being able to
satisfy the world with information (Kozak, and Kozak, 2017). The company applies a generic
strategy of making their products very different from the products of other companies. The
intensive growth strategy is applied in the marketing of the company’s products. The strategy is
used in acquiring new customers and being able to reach the market in the world.
The generic strategy is based on the porter’s model and is aimed at making the services
different. The strategy involves big market scope. The company sells a variety of products to the
world. It provides commodities to individuals in the world at the same time. However, the
company needs to come up with a way to develop unique capabilities by coming up with an
appropriate strategy to be able to compete effectively (Preikszat, et al2015). This is the reason
why the company has developed the generic strategy to be able to acquire competitive
advantages over other companies in the world. The company has been able to compete
effectively in the information industry and has been able to acquire the biggest market portion in
the world.
The company has been able to set itself away from the other companies by making the
products they offer very different. The company has increased the uniqueness of its products by

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use of different methods (Lazer, et al 2014). The company has strived to become very innovative
and has come up with different ways to make the products very different. The innovations made
by different people in the company have enabled the company to be able to increase the quality
of their products and have added different special features to make their product more attractive.
The company deals with different information from all over the world. This enables the workers
of the company to be able to come up with different strategies to make the company’s products
very different. In addition, the company has been able to increase the variety of commodities in
their market (Abdi, et al 2018). The commodity includes fiber, Google Glass, and Google
Search. This commodity clearly shows that the company is innovative and is applying different
strategies to come up with differentiated commodities for its market.
The generic strategy used by the company is a strategy that needs to be maintained so that
the company is able to acquire the competitive advantages over the other firm in the industry.
The company is in a critical condition where they need to keep on being innovative to maintain
their sales and their customers (Brea‐Solís, Casadesus‐Masanell, and Grifell‐Tatjé, 2015). The
company also has an alternative in the generic business strategy where the company needs to
continue coming up with new products to be able to maintain the uniqueness of the commodities.
The company will be able to compete with other forms from the same industry if the company
will be able to apply the generic strategy continuously.
Through the generic strategy, the company has been able to become the leading company
in the information industry. The company has been able to develop the fastest and the smartest
engines used in gaining information about all fields in the world (Carayannis, E.G., Sindakis, S.
and Walter, C., 2015). The company has been able to come up with different services that are
favorable to the customers and have created needs for the people in the world. The new products

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of the company are targeting organizational, individuals, and professionals. For instance, the
company has brought chrome and other browsing engines to help those who are involved in
developing systems. The company is doing all this to be able to achieve its vision, which is to
provide all kind of information in the world online.
The company through innovations has been able to develop its main source of revenue,
which is advertising. The company has been able to acquire the largest share of the advertising
market through the strategy (Vörösmarty, et al 2018). The company is able to rule in the field of
advertising because it has employed the strategy of differentiating the services they offer to the
client. The company has become the most innovative company in the way they do their things
and has been able to compete well with its rivals. The company’s search engines have been said
to be far much better as compared to the rest of the competitors in the world.
On the other hand, the company is using the intensive growth strategy in its operations.
The strategy entails four other strategies, which includes; product development, market
development and diversification (Millar et al, 2018). The strategies are used by the company to
develop the market for their products and to increase the market share that the company has in
the available market. The strategy also enables the company to improve the brand and the market
for the brand. The strategy enables the company to make more sales of the commodities and the
services they offer. They are able to improve the image of the brands in the public thus increased
in the market of the commodities.
To start with, the company uses a market penetration strategy. This is a very important
strategy that the company uses in its operations to be able to meet its market goals and to
maintain the great market share that they have. The company’s name has become very popular in

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the world and the consumers in the world have valued its commodities (Luftman, Lyytinen, and
Ben 2017). The company has used its search engines to make advertisements that have lead to
the increase in its market share. The company’s name has developed in the world and people
started becoming popular with their brands. People started using the commodities of Google and
thus the company was able to penetrate the market. The company was able to penetrate more in
the western market where there was a rapid growth of the internet in those countries. The
company was able to expand their market share at a faster rate and they became very popular in
the countries.
Secondly, the company uses a strategy of market development in their effort to meet their
goals. The strategy involves new markets where the company comes with different strategies to
be able to enter into the new and emerging markets (Großer, and Baumöl, 2017). The strategy
also involves targeting new regions and new segments of the market. The use of internet has
increased in the world. The market for the commodities has therefore increased. Google
Company has therefore been able to penetrate the new markets to be able to maintain their great
market share in the information market.
The company has also applied the strategy of product development in their operations.
The strategy is based on the innovations made by the company. This innovation has led to the
development of new products and the improvement of the existing products. The company has
been able to maintain their innovative culture and is able to come up with new products and
services. The company has been able to develop new products from their search engines and
browsers. For instance, the company has come up with different apps and services. In addition,
the company has commodities such as Android phones that are the most used kind of phones in

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the world. The company has therefore been able to develop its product lines which are now full
of varieties.
Diversification is also another strategy used by the company to promote their sales. This
strategy includes expanding into new business areas to be able to increase their market share and
the number of sales. The company has invested in making Android phones, chrome books in
small scale. This has enabled the company to generate more funds from the diversification. The
company is now reducing the reliance it has on advertisement as its main source of revenue. The
company has been able to make some more revenue from the sale of these other commodities
and therefore is not much dependent on advertisement.
Using the five forces analysis of the business, model that the company applies we are
able to see whether the model is most appropriate and whether the company has achieved the
objectives through the model. From the porter’s five-force analysis, competition brings the
strongest force in the company. The other external factors exert a moderate force in the
company. For instance, the bargaining power of the customer and the suppliers have a very small
impact on the company. Below is the analysis of the company’s strategy in consideration of the
five forces.
The strongest force exerted on the company is that of competition. As it is well, no
competition from firms brings the growth of the firms down. The company, therefore, must be
able to make considerations of the following forces that contribute to the strong competitive
force. A large number of firms in the information industries increased the diversity of firms and
the lowering of switching cost by the firms. The company has very many competitors starting
from Apple, Yahoo, Comcast, and others. The company also experiences an added number of

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competitors due to its variety of commodities. The company receives competition from other
firms in the information industry and from other company’s dealing with the added commodities
of the company.
Bargaining power is also a force that is exerted by the environmental factors to the
company. However, the bargaining force is not a strong force that the company receives from the
external environment and therefore is not that essential to the company. The force is only
considered in decision making only in rare cases. There are different factors that contribute to the
weak bargaining force of the consumers of the Google products. These factors include; reduced
size of individual buyers, high and ever-changing demand from the consumers and average
quality of information offered by the company.
Each person who buys their product contributes to the company's revenue. Therefore, the
force of bargaining the customers exert to the company is negligible. The company does not
experience a direct force from the bargaining powers of the customer because the customer does
not access the services directly (Singh, et al 2018). The individual buyers of the commodities
only exert a very small force in the company. For instance, the advertisers are able to access the
information on how complex the advertisement process is but the consumer will only get the
advertisement. The customers of Google Company, therefore, are not able to know the average
cost of making the advertisement available online and therefore are not able to bargain on the
price of the advertisement. This minimizes the force exerted by the bargaining power of the
customer.
In addition, the company experiences the weak power of the suppliers. The company has
many suppliers of information (Tyagi, Nauriyal, and Gulati, 2018). This gives the company the

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chance to choose from the variety of suppliers. Therefore, the suppliers contribute to the less
power that is exerted by the company. The following are some of the factors that contribute to
the weak force exerted on the company by suppliers. The company has a higher access to
different suppliers of information. Therefore, the force that the suppliers exert to the company is
very weak. In addition, there is a large population of different people who supply information to
the organization. The increased number of suppliers of information has lead to a decrease in the
strength of the force that the supplier exerts to the company.
Having a very high population of suppliers and available supply has led to the
minimization of the effects of the bargaining power of the suppliers. The company, therefore, has
the freedom to move from one supplier to another (Singla, Sethi, and Ahuja, 2018). The
company’s suppliers are of different kinds because the company deals with a variety of products.
This reduces the force that a supplier may have on the company. This is because the company
does not depend on the individuals but depends on a large group of suppliers.
The company also experiences a threat of substitution. The clients of the company can
use very many channels in the advertisement of their commodities and services. This channel
includes TVs, Radios and other different mediums that can be used in advertisements. The
different channels that serve the same purpose of advertisement can, therefore, substitute the
company (Hacklin, Björkdahl, and Wallin, 2018). The substitution threat according to Porter’s
model of analysis exerts an average force on the company. This also means that the consumer
has a variety of alternatives in case they are not interested in the services of the company. The
overall influences brought by the above condition if the threat that the customers can substitute
the company with other advertising channels.