Free «Competitive Advantage through People in Google Inc» Essay Sample

A case of the Google Company

Introduction

Google incorporative, a multinational and public corporation basically deals with cloud computing, advertising and internet search. The greatest profits by the company are generated through advertising through its adwords program. The company was formed by Stanford university PhD candidates Sergey Brin and Larry page. Google started as private company on September fourth 1998 and became a public company initially in august 19^th 2004. Google has its headquarters at California, Mountain View. The company runs approximately one million data servers all over the globe at the same time and processes about one billion search requests and almost twenty four pet bytes of data generated by users every single day.

Google Company offers online software for production such as: social networking tools like Orkut, the most recent Google buzz and the Gmail email service. Other applications include Google chrome a web browser, Google talk instant messaging and the picassa photo editing and organization software. Most international sites owned by Google are in the top one hundred most visited websites in the world. Due to the dominance of the company in the world market, it has been followed by too much criticisms touching on issues of copyright, censorship and privacy.

Due to the company’s prominence in the world market caused by offering services to the public, employees are compensated competitively. Before 2004, Page and Brin earned one hundred and fifty thousand dollars salary while Schmidt was earning two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. (Reynolds, 2007: 76)

Several top executives between 2007 and 2008 left Google Company on April 4^th 2011. Larry Page became the CEO while Eric Schmidt became the executive chairman in charge of Google Company. In order to motivate workers, Google has a policy of ‘’innovation time off’’’. This policy applies to google engineers who are encouraged to spent twenty percent of their working hours in doing projects of their liking. This was also beneficial to the company because it led to the creation of services like Google news, Gmail, Adsense and Orkut. Google vice president of search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer illustrated that about half of the new products launched were derived from the ideas of the employees during the innovation time off. Google was ranked first on march 2011 as the ideal employers. They hired very many university students to work for the google company who had brilliant ideas and were fresh from school.

The people or the employees are the root of success in any business endeavor. This ranges from employees to the consumers or customers who use the websites and those who benefit from the advertisement. Google has therefore become a leading company with the greatest help coming from people. Being a global company that focuses on technology and innovation, it needs people for the running and marketing of the products. Loads and loads of information on different topics are available in the web pages in the form of music, videos and books. Different people from all over the world log into these sites to get information that is not biased on any one at any time of day or night.

Google has a speedy search engine that helps users get results of what information they were searching very fast. Different individuals can vote or give a positive endorsement to a page in a certain link. Once many people like a page, they will stick to it and not search for the information in other links or sites. This will enable the most liked link to have a better rank than those sites that have fewer votes. A person can also recommend a friend on the same link and this will form a chain hence helping in the marketing of Google, through the customers.

When Google Company was first formed, in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, it had an investment of one hundred thousand dollars. When the company went public in 2004, about seven thousand people were employed to work in different positions in the company. This led to an enormous growth rate that made most people claim that it was the fastest internet company in terms of growth rate in the world. The net profit of the company in 2008 hiked to four billion dollars with a revenue of above twenty one billion dollars. The increase in the number of people in the company led to this high income since there was a mixture of different expertise and skilled and when this combined it produced this high profit. (Kotler, 2008: 107)

Sergey and Larry were very bright computer science back in the olden school days. They met up and decided how they would come up with their own company although they used to argue a lot. This point also illustrates how people are important in the running of business. When two great minds come together, the result is always blossoming. This is what has led to the great Google Company. The employees also work together as a team toward the company’s innovative business culture. This shows how team work is crucial in a company or firm. People have to work hand in hand and avoid selfish deeds since this will only lead to the down fall of the business.

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This is a competitive advantage that has helped Google stay on top for a very long time up to date. To reduce boredom and work monotony, Google Company has given its workers a whole day once a week to work on their personal projects that interest them. Bright ideas have evolved from this move since they come up with ideas that are not forced on them and these ideas go as far as improving the production quality and quantity of the company. Many companies would not support this idea since they would think that it would slow down production of the company and this would look like idleness in the business premises. This however, is another plus on the marketing strategy of Google Company. (George, 2009: 125)

Some days have also been set aside for the employees to play a sport at lunch hours, with Sergey and Larry getting so much fun from roller hockey in the early days. The sport is a way of reducing the boredom that may arise due to the employees being confined in the office for a whole day and this helps them relax and refresh their minds. The sport is also a way of the workers and the administration to create a close relationship and avoid the walls that may be created caused by fear of employers by the workers. This improves production in the sense that there will be free flow of information as the workers will be able to express their ideas freely without fear which will also increase production. In contrast, other companies’ employers stay locked up in their offices and maintain grim faces which only lead to cultivation of fear among the employees which will definitely affect production negatively. (Cenzer, 2006: 89)

Another competitive advantage that Google has over other companies is that is has  received good advice from knowledgeable people such as Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, which is a leading law firm at silicon valley and other VC’s. Sergey Brin and Larry Page received assistance and advice from VC Partner of Wein Perkins and John Doerr that has helped them in the running of the business. Information is very crucial to a person who wants to prosper in business plans and strategies. This is because a person ought to keep themselves updated on the new techniques in the business field in terms of sales and other fields that affect the business such as the current laws to be applied in dealing with situations that arise in the company that need legal intervention. This also helps reduce fraud cases that may arise more so when dealing with the internet services such as cyber crimes. These will reduce unnecessary losses that could be prevented through equipping oneself with updated and true information.

The main goal of Google has for a long time been to satisfy the needs of the consumer or customer. The customer always comes first and the strategies the company comes up with are consumer friendly so that the consumers’ needs are always catered for. The consumer is a marketer since a person will recommend Google to their friends who will continue enjoying services offered by the company. This is usually done through the company’s focus on applications, search and adverts. The advertisements are made through Adsense, a marketing tool that helps increase the company’s sales that helps them gain competitive advantage over the other companies. (Duthel, 2008: 102)      

Conclusion

This essay has shown how Google Company has been able to stay afloat other companies in terms of their excellent strategies that put the people first in their business processes. The above methods also show how the other companies can follow suit and use their man power to help them improve production since without people it is very hard for business to blossom. Focus should be made on how to make consumers comfortable as discussed above; are the key marketers of a business.