Corporate Strategy, Governance, and Ethics: A Critical Analysis of Google

This report critically analyzes Google's product and services, its environment, competencies, and the impact of social, environmental, ethical, legal, and governance issues on the organization. It also examines how Google manages tensions between corporate responsibility and maximizing shareholder value.

Unit 2- Corporate strategy, Governance and
Ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
Critically analyze Google’s product or services..........................................................................2
Critically determine the organization’s environment..................................................................3
Determining how the organization is related its competencies to its environment....................5
Describing the impact of social, environmental, ethical, legal and governance issues on
organization.................................................................................................................................5
Describing how the organization is currently framing these issues in its strategy and operations
.....................................................................................................................................................5
Presenting how the organization is managing tensions between corporate responsibility and
maximizing the shareholder values.............................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Corporate governance is the combination of rules, process and laws through which a
business is operated and regulated. The term is also presenting all the external and internal
factors that may affect the interest of the company’s shareholder and its customers, management.
In the same way, the current report will help to enhance the knowledge related to corporate
governance and ethics (Puranam and Vanneste, 2016). The chosen firm for this report is Google
which is an American multinational technology company who specialize in the Internet related
services to their customer. Thus, the study will determine the chosen company’s product and
services, further, determine the organization’s environment and then determine how the firm is
related to its competencies. Further, study will determine the impact of external factor upon the
organization and provide the best strategy through which the company is operated. Lastly, it
describe the way through which Google managing the tension between corporate responsibility
and maximizing the shareholder value.
Critically analyze Google’s product or services
Google is top American multinational company who provide best Internet services to
their customers such that online advertising technologies and search engines etc. The company is
founded in 1998 and it is privately held company.
Product: Google also offer its own phones with all the advance features that encourage
people to buy the same.
Services: Google offer the wide range of services to their customers such that an Internet
search engine, web email, news aggregator, calendar software, cloud storage for customers as
well as business. Thus, its services are used for personal as well as professional level (Lee,
2020). Thus, it is analyzed that company also keep complying with the advance technologies and
for that it start using Robots assistance , self- driving cars and home video monitoring system for
their users.
Market: From the day of its foundation to the present year, Google occupy around
87.35% of the market share at global level. Thus, it is critically analyzed that it is the top
company which is used by the range of public and businessman in order to get the best output.

Google has dominated the search engines market and secondary results also shows that Google
market share is completely relies upon the advertising. Around more than 50 countries uses the
quoted firm and among all, the highest share of Google is in US i.e. 87.28%.
Division and sub- divisions: Every company have their own division and sub- division
such that its work is completely distributed to all the people in department wise. Such that it has
many department and manager of the company also allotted thee define task as per the
employee’s capabilities. Therefore, the entire working system of Google is divided in different
parts such that IT department, HR department, Finance department, Marketing department and
even there are further sub- division which assist to maintain thee brand image of the company
and provide the best services and products to the customers (Solomon, 2020.). Every division of
the company know their own roles and responsibilities and therefore, keep reporting the head of
manager with regards to their work. This will help the business to maintain at brand image at
international level and maintain the overall performance level as well.
Critically determine the organization’s environment by adding academic theory i.e. SWOT and
Pestle
To determine the internal environment of Google, SWOT analysis is used which
determine the company’s strength and weakness. These are as mention below:

Strength:
 Company occupy highest market share and it did not face any competitor till now that
shows the brand image of the company at global level.
 Company produces more than 1.2 billion hits every month and that is why, it has a
biggest traffic generator and gain highest competitive advantages over the competitors.
 It has a strong financial performance and have a string customer base as well.
Weakness:
 Sudden fall in the advertisement rates is consider one of the biggest weakness of the
company, as it is over dependent on its advertising policy.
 Lack of compatibility with the next generation devices is also consider another weakness
of Google.

Opportunities:
 Cloud computing is one of the high key opportunity for Google because it is already
working on this and that is why, put more efforts on this will help the company to
enhance the brand image.
 The introduction of Google glass and Google play is a biggest game changer for quoted
firm because it is a bets opportunity which the company get after its exploitation (Bakhtar
and et.al.,2020).
 Having a strong financial performance, company may also diversity to non- advertising
business model that assist tomeet the define aim and sustain the brand image at global
level.
Threats:
 Mobile computing is considering one of the biggest threat for the company because it
divert the mind of customers and they collect the information from this only.
 Further, the advent of social media has also seriously threatened the Google dominance in
the Internet and that is why, it is consider another threat for the firm.
To determine the external environment, there are different factors which must be considered by
the company and these are as mention below:
Competitor: Google keep innovating its new product and services and that is why it did
not face any competition from the market. But on the other side, it is completely relies upon the
advertising and that is why, it only face issue from Facebook because it may pull an ace to deal
with an increasing features that attract many customers towards it. Such that market research
shows it keep adding new features like Google toolbar, Google Maps ad Google Earth while
other competitor do not perform to stay ahead in the competition (How Google Maintain its
competitive Advantage. 2018).

Political factor: Sudden instability of the political factor may also affect the overall
performance of the Google in opposite manner. While on the other side, wider free trade
agreement is consider the opportunity for a Google while increasing online business is consider a
threat for a firm (Liang and et.al., 2020).
Technology factor: Google is one of the leading technological brand that is having the
best technologies in the world. Everyone is aware that the Google provides the most efficient
technology to its users. However the innovations of new technologies are also developing that
might cause the company to consider those factors for providing the customers with all their
requirements. For example, Google recently introduce Google Assistant, a voice controlled
system who answer and perform an increasing array of task and command. This reflect company
is complying with advance technologies to stay ahead in competition.
Suppliers: Being an IT company Google is not required to have big supplies from
outside like the other production organizations. It develops the technology with high security
with its own resources. There are not external suppliers to the company in terms of software or
other applications. Therefore it does not have the threats of supplier management for its business.
Determining how the organization is related its competencies to its environment.
Google is the most widely used and popular search engine around the world. It has
emerged as the fastest growing multinational company in the world. Biggest competitive
advantage of the Google is that it is recognized as the best search engine by the users of internet.
Several millions of customers are using it worldwide. There are other competitors also but it has
developed a significant presence in the market. Major competitors of Google are yahoo and bing
and they compete significantly with company.
Core competencies are the managerial or technical process which integrates the diverse
technology, resources, processes and the knowhow for creating unique offering for customers
and gaining competitive advantage for the organization. Core competencies help in developing
core products with wide variety of the competitive products (Rugman and Verbeke, 2017). They
also help in developing end products by the core products and crating competitive advantage for
the company on long term and short term basis.

Core competencies of Google are in software engineering in the content indexing and
marinating the scalable hardware infrastructures (Scherer and Voegtlin, 2020). It has a culture of
continuous innovation and that could be highlighted as the core competency of the company.
Core products of Google are PageRanka, C indexing technology, Google Ads and Google
Mapping platform. On the basis of theses products it has developed variety of end products.
These core competencies have helped the Google in entering into large number of
markets. Today almost every business requires the information from before the planning stage to
the end of the business. Information is needed at each and every stage of the business and Google
provides the most trusted platform where all the information are available and could be used by
the experts and business for making wide variety of business decisions analyzing the similar
circumstances and situations of other businesses.
The core competencies have helped the Google in achieving various long term and short
term profits. Google ads have helped the company to earn large amount of revenues. It was the
new concept innovated by the company that proved to be beneficial for both company and its
customers. Using these customers have achieved new growth levels expanding their business to
new horizons. For example getting the information over worldwide platform helps the business
to be recognized in all over the world (Hernandez and Menon, 2019). Competencies of the
business are related with the business environment and this is helping the organization to achieve
the organizational goals and objectives.
The strategic management of the company has enabled the company to deal effectively
with the external business environment. It has effective strategies that are focused over giving
the customers with the best quality of services and products. The quality services have helped the
company in achieving the competitive advantage for the company as other competitor companies
do not give after sale services for resolving the issues of customers.. Competencies has helped
the organization to achieve considerable growth and in becoming one of the most recognized
company of the world that is known for the search engine.
These competencies to the business have the essential features for the corporate survival
over both long term and short term survival of the company. They have created a unique identity
around the world with which it is continuously growing in the market. It is the mix of skills and

resources that result in the end products that help the company in running competitively in the
business environment.
Describing the impact of social, environmental, ethical, legal and governance issues on
organization
Every business is required to face the challenges framed by dynamic business
environment. Google is also face number of challenges due to the external factors. These factors
are not within the control of every organizations and they are required to face these issues in the
best possible manner so that it does not affect the growth and success of organization. For
identifying the impact of external factors PESTLE analysis is conducted
Political factors
It is mainly internet based business, and this does not prevent from the political forces
that could influence its business. The political issues could have deep impact over the working
and operations of the business. For instance drive of EU against technological giants. The US
based technology firms are the target of EU mainly the Google & Amazon by its rules and
regulations (Johnson, 2016). Google is facing serious criticism for the ant trust issues faced by it.
It has led the company to suffer the fines of 3 billion Euros. Political environment is different in
every market, some may be beneficial while the other might be problematic. The government of
different countries introduces their own rules for the protection of their society. Google for
operating successfully in those regions are required to comply with these regulations that are
very difficult for the company.
Economic factors

Economic forces have direct impact over the profit levels and business of company.
Growth of every organization depends over the economic state of the country in which it is
operating. Google serves in various markets that have weaker economy that affects the sales of
company (Buertey and et.al., 2020). It is a internet based services. The rise in prices of internet
by imposing taxes could directly influence the profit margins and the business of Google.
Economy refers to the purchasing power of consumers to make purchases of the products and
services. Strong economy has increased business that also helps other companies to grow along
with the economy.. Foreign exchange rates, changing rates of interest and many other factors are
related with the economic factors influencing the business.
Social Factors
Social factors are related with the society at large and they can highly influence the
business of the company. Changing demographic pattern and new social trends can have
favorable or unfavorable impact over the business like Google using traditional images over
search engines that gives them cultural connect with the company. The increased use of social
media platforms has proved to be very beneficial for the competitors such as Facebook. It has
developed as big competitor in the ads. With the increased use of the mobile devices it is
bringing both negative and positive implications for the business (Feldman, 2020). Trust issues
had impact over the business as the large number of people and businesses store their
confidential information saved on cloud Google platforms
Technological Factors
It is technology giant that is serving market from years adopting every change
successfully that could impact its business. It is serving the innovative sector where companies
are required to continuously innovate and invent for remaining competitive and surviving in the
market like as inventing advanced features in search engines or new software for speedy surfing.
Company is developing different technological products for its customer giving them new
experience and maintaining the market share.
Legal Factors

Like any other organization is also required to comply with the rules and regulations of
the statutory authorities. Google is serving in large number of countries are required to comply
with the laws and legislations of every country in which it is operating. It causes serious issues
over Google to comply with the rules and regulations of countries. These concerns are mainly
related with the security of intellectual property rights and the privacy of the users. Policies
related to the data and privacy is framed before the data is collected of users (Puranam and
Vanneste, 2016). Company is also planning to enter into new sector of providing financial
services that requires further compliance with laws and legislations causing additional trouble for
the company.
Environmental factors
Sustainability is an essential factor the Google like other business giants. Investments in
sustainability are essential for reducing the operational cost for the Google and will also be
improving the image and brand recognition of the enterprise. Company has developed products
and services that have helped the businesses in proceeding successfully. CSR practices are
required to be followed by most of the organizations that are doing business. Companies not
taking active participation in the CSR practices are losing public confidence that will be
impacting the business and profit levels.
Describing how the organization is currently framing these issues in its strategy and operations
Ethical issue: Google needs to be engaged in following and maintaining the ethical code of
conduct. They need to make sure that while performing the corporate social responsibility
Google is being engaged in maintaining the culture, belief, value and attitude of communities
and groups. They need to make sure that it is not been hampered as it can reduce the trust aspect
of consumers and also the growth of company will be affected by it. They also need to ensure
that ethical code of conduct is been followed so that Google’s brand reputation is been increased.
Ethical consideration also needs to be taken while keeping in mind globalization.
Specific CSR initiatives of Google

 Google's CSR efforts include charity programs through Google.org, which has already
provided more than $100 million in grants and investments.
 CSR initiatives could be seen in partnership with the NGOs and $50 m budgetary
allocation for supporting the non profits.
 It has made $21 million in the employee donations to around 9000 organizations of world
(Shive and Forster, 2020).
 Google.org aims to address climate change, global public health, and global poverty.
Google is operating successfully in the market by overcoming all the challenges of the
external business environment successfully. These issues are successfully dealt by company
through its strategic and operational management.
Google maintains the level of profits by dealing with these challenges effectively.
Company gives the market with new products and increase the advancement of the products and
its features which creates the popularity in the customer base. This helps company in maintaining
its profits margins by increasing their sales. It complies with all the rules and regulations of
different countries in which it operates. Compliance of political and legal factors enables the
company to reduce its costs and to maintain the profit levels. Company is successfully managing
these issues by framing the policies for meeting all these issues in positive manner.
Strategic management refers to the process of framing strategies that help the
organization in achieving its goals and objectives. Strategies are framed such as the negative and
positive impact of the increased use of internet (Advantage, 2020). Strategies are framed that
increases the use of Google by expanding the business over new horizons. Increased use will
allow the company to level of profits along with the competition. Google with effective
management of the strategies and its operations is achieving the required level of growth and
success.
It has been analyzed that Google is facing issues related to various external factors such
as political, environmental, and technological and many others. The company has been involved
in framings strategies by considering the issues. Google is been working towards reducing
environmental issues by implementing the techniques related to reduction of carbon emission.

This has assisted in lay better impression and increasing the goodwill in front of public.
Currently Goggle has also launched strategies related to changes in climate. Companies CSR
efforts are influencing firm in making strategic decisions. This has assisted firm in achieving
their goals and objectives (Chkir and et.al., 2020). Google also have their top priority
stakeholders and issues are been solved by taking in consideration of all the stakeholders. It has
also been analyzed that in order to overcome the technological issues and making use of advance
technology, firm has been engaged in providing adequate training to workers. This has assisted
them in improvising on company’s capabilities.
These strategic planning has supported Google in achieving their goals and objectives. It
has also helped them in improvising their operational efficiency and managerial performance.
The quality services have helped the company in achieving the competitive advantage for the
company. Competencies has helped the organization to achieve considerable growth and in
becoming one of the most recognized companies of the world that is known for the search
engine. It has also been analyzed that Google is also been engaged in making use of various laws
and policies in order to enhance their brand value.
Presenting how the organization is managing tensions between corporate responsibility and
maximizing the shareholder values
Every organization in the present time is required to comply with the corporate social
responsibility. A business has to along with undertaking the corporate responsibilities have to
maximize the wealth of the shareholders wealth.
CSR activities are creating shareholder value for increasing the future cash flows and
reducing the risks associated with the cash flows. CSR activities directly improve the financial
performance of the enterprise by reducing the costs and increasing the revenues.
Google for minimizing the tensions between the tensions between the tensions of
corporate responsibility and maximizing the wealth of shareholders. Company has adopted to
comply with the CSR practices that increasing the brand recognition. Companies adopting these
strategies are gaining increased market confidence and that creates positive image of the firm in
the society. This increases the sales of products and services that help in increasing the profit

levels of the enterprise (Porto, Passos and Figueiredo, 2017). Strong market performance of the
company adds value to business increasing the wealth of the business. Google by performing
well in the market and increasing the profitability is maximizing the wealth of the shareholders
by increasing the present worth of business.
It has been analyzed that Google is been involved in managing all the tension arising
between performing corporate social responsibility and the stakeholders. They have been
involved in making sure that all employees working with them are provided with equal
opportunities so that better relationship and bond can be made. This has assisted Google in
achieving their goals and objectives. It has also helped them in increasing their market share as
well as profitability. Google has also been involved in developing more women leaders. They
have become the first company who is engaged in providing wider platform to women and
females (Sánchez‐Torné, Morán‐Álvarez and Pérez‐López, 2020). This has assisted firm in
making better bond with the employees and it has also supported them in enhancing their brand
value as well as reputation. Google's CSR efforts include charity programs through Google.org,
which has already provided more than $100 million in grants and investments. The company is
also been aiming at reducing the carbon emission. All these tasks which have been performed by
firm has assisted them in managing the relationship and reducing the tension between
stakeholders. This has assisted Google in building a better relationship with their stakeholders.
CONCLUSION
Google has achieved the growth and success by having effective governance procedures
in the organization and implementation of corporate strategies for adequately facing all the
challenges of the dynamic business environment. It follows in its business by giving the
maximum security and ensuring the safety of its users.
In the above research it is identified that the Google is a very big brand today that is
serving mainly in the software industry. It has also entered into other sectors for providing its
services and extending its business. The analysis of the internal and external factors provides that
it could excel in the market considering the political and social factors of the business. It has
established strong trust in the people. It is putting increased efforts for the CSR practices
establishing strong social image in the society. They have also been able to increase the trust

level of employees and other stakeholders which is really necessary for growth of firm. Google
has also aimed to reduce the global poverty. They are been involved in providing employment
opportunities to all talented and skilled workers. They are also working towards doing charitable
activities to lay good impression on public.

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How Google Maintain its competitive advantage. 2018. [Online]. Available through: <
https://smartadvantage.com/blog/how-google-maintains-its-competitive-advantage/>.