Google Analysis

Introduction

Google is a company that has existed for 14 years now. Considering that it is the largest, most successful company in the world, it is vital to note and learn from the strategies Google applied in order to achieve this.

According to about.com (2009) since 2008, Google has been acquiring an average of one company per month. Overall, they've acquired around 100 companies, including Pyra Labs, Ignite Logic, Android, Upstartle, and Jotspot. Some of their biggest acquisitions have been Current Communications Group in 2005, YouTube in 2006, and dMarc Broadcasting in 2006.

About.com (2009) also noted that many current Google services started as companies that Google bought. For example, Dodge ball became Google Latitude, and GrandCentral became Google Voice.

The following major drivers under the Google umbrella are; Android, Gmail, Google Docs, Google +, Google Maps, Blogger, Hardware, Google Search and Display Network and Google Analytics.

In order to fully understand Google’s success, each of these major drivers will be broken down in order to analyse and identify the various strategies employed by Google as a whole on the company’s road to success.

This report will define Google’s strategy in relation to these major drivers by analysing the internal and external environments of the various major drivers as well as how these companies have been affected by the drivers for change. Furthermore, other contributing factors will be discussed throughout in order to provide a clear and concise explanation of Google’s success.

Google +

Google + internal environment

According to Global web index, Google + is now the second largest social media platform, second to Facebook (see figure 1). Google + has outpaced twitter with 25 million users in just one month (the fastest growing website in history) recently although twitter has experienced more ‘active use’ in the past month (Tassi, 2011).

Figure 1 depicts the Social Platform Active Usage for the Month of June 2011

An article by Ledico (2013) states that factors largely contributing to the above success, is Google’s successful attempts to register all users of the engine as Google + members. Google is also relentless in ‘hounding users to register as Google + users. From a marketing perspective, Google+ doesn’t appear to be limiting the content as much as Facebook does. For those without highly active Facebook pages, it might be easier to break into the Google+ feed.

Although the future looks bright for Google + and Google as a whole, one major weakness can be noted by the company. Tassi (2011) explains that Google did not put the correct procedures into place in order to engage with Google + users.