Chap5 Google's SWOT Analysis

8/21/2019 Chap5 Google's SWOT Analysis

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Strengths and competiti ve assets

Googles text-matching techniques and PageRank technology provides highly relevant search resultsby searching billions of web pages to examine how many sites point to other sites

Googles search functionality allows users to search stock quotes, street maps, telephone numbers,flight information, perform web page translations, and track overnight parcels

Extensive list of services and tools

Liquid assets of more than $24billion as of December 31, 2009

63.7% market share in Internet searches from computers

60-plus percent market share in mobile search

Search based ads were translated in 51 different languages

About one-half of Googles traffic was generated from United States

23% annual increase in revenues from the United Kingdom and 47.2% annual increase revenues other

countries outside the United States between 2006 and 2009

Policy of separating paid ads from search results is admired by consumers

Cost-per-click (CPC) sales model is appealing to advertisers

Bidding process allowsadvertisers with high click-through rates to offer lower minimum bids

CPC bidding process that ensured advertisers paid only 1 cent more than the next highest bid,regardless of the actual amount of the bid

Wide network of AdSense partners has allowed revenue from Google Network web sites to increasefrom $628.6 million in 2003 to more than $7.1 billion in 2009

Google Checkout provided revenues from sales at participating e-retailer websites

Specialized marketing services for large advertisers

Googles acquisition of DoubleClick allowed it to provide advertisers with banner ads in addition tosearch ads

Googles Android operating system allowed it to shape how mobile phones and PDAs would accessInternet content

Androids U.S. smartphone platform market share had grown from 2.5% in September 2009 to 13.0%in May 2010

Google Apps provides businesses with a low-cost productivity software alternative to Microsoft

Office

Google TV search capabilities

Googles Chrome browser helped the company defend against attempts by Microsoft to limit Googlesability to deliver relevant search based ads to Internet users.


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Weaknesses and competitive defi ciencies

Only $761million of Googles 2009 revenues of approximately $23.7 billion were generated SearchAppliance licensing fees

Googles site was not as diversified as those of web portals such as Yahoo

Googles 31% share of local search-based ads in China was a distant second to Baidus 64% share ofsearch ads originating from China

Googles Street View data collection approaches were seen as privacy violations in some countries

Googles Chrome browser held only a 7% market share in June 2010

The companys involvement in government relations seemed to be in possible violation of itsfounding principles

Google generated no revenues from auctions

Market opportun ities

Development of relationships with content providers that would allow Google to provide links toproprietary information sources

Development of relationships with paid-access content providers such as Lexis-Nexis or The WallStreet Journal Online that would allow users to access information on a fee per visit basis

Development of semantic search capabilities

Further development cloud computing software applications that would extend Googles revenuesbeyond advertising

Development of Wi-Fi service that utilizes unused television frequencies

Increased presence in country markets experiencing rapid growth in Internet usage (e.g., China, India,

and other countries experiencing rapid economic growth)

External thr eats

Prominent Internet companies will make acquisitions or develop technology that allows them to avoiduse of Googles search engine

Microsofts Bing could be integrated into Microsoft Windows, Explorer, Outlook, and Office productsand would eliminate the need to visitwww.google.comor use a Google browser-based search tool

Integration of search functionality into cloud computing applications could eliminate the need for astand-alone search tool

Microsofts Azure cloud computing initiative may attract loyal Office users preferring cloud

applications

Entrepreneurial computer programmers may develop a semantic search engine superior to Googlestext matching techniques and Page Rank

Wireless device manufacturers may internally develop search capabilities for their products
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Strategy Options:

Viable semantic search engine

Integrate search based ads and banner ads into YouTube and develop an

advertising auctioning program that allows advertisers to bid for bothsearch-based ads and banner ads served by DoubleClick.

Collaborate with wireless phone providers to make its Android mobile

phone operating system available on a wider range of phones provided by a

larger number of wireless providers.

Google TV initiative


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Documents

Chap5 Google's SWOT Analysis