Abstract
Competition among business organizations has become very stiff in every industry. However, Google’s innovative culture has enabled it beat Yahoo in the search market even though it found the latter in the market. It came up with several unique features on its search engine and many innovative ideas which enabled topple Yahoo from the top slot. This paper discusses Google’s competitive strategy and proposes an alternative strategy which can help it better maintain its market leadership if adopted.
Google is the most dominant search engine across the globe and boasts of 65% of the world’s search market. The company has developed its own infrastructure that ensures that its customers experience efficient and fast search; and this allows the company to maintain its competitive edge over other search engines. An average Google search takes about 0.06-0.12 seconds (Howe, 2008).
Google’s competitive strategy
The company adopts a Pioneers Innovation Strategy which lies in its investment on infrastructure development. For example, it was the first company to develop a 10GB email account capacity (Stephen, 2008). It invests billions of dollars in developing advanced infrastructure of bandwidth, servers as well as hardware which supports its search engine. It also spends money in building its storage systems to support its high speed search on the web.
My opinion on Google’s competitive strategy
I am completely in agreement with Google’s high speed competitive strategy as it allows the company to provide value added services to consumers, and hence, achieve customer satisfaction (Keller & Kotler, 2009).
Why I agree with Google’s competitive strategy
The company’s innovative culture allows consumers to get what they want from the internet and across the globe at a fast speed. The cost of conducting query using Google search is low due to its high speed and this encourages its users to keep on using it. This allows the company to achieve consumer loyalty and increase its search market (Keller & Kotler, 2009).
Besides, Google provides tools and services like Google Maps, Google toolbar, Google News as well as Google Earth which improve users search capabilities. Its advanced and expanded storage system also allows the company to maintain large data sets.
This improves consumers’ access to information whenever they use Google search engine. Howe (2008) believes that Google’s large data coupled with its improved analytical tools have been the driving factors behind its success in the advertising world.
Google’s enhanced search capabilities also improve the efficiency of its advertising system to the advantage of publishers as well as advertisers. This strategy allows Google to build formidable wall for other search engine companies such as Yahoo, MSN Search among others.
Google also provides other services beyond search. It has expanded to mobile phones by employing Android operating system to deliver Google features as well as services in form of mobile phone applications (Stephen, 2008). Google also allows users to send free SMS from the internet to mobile phones and to make free calls using the internet. These strategies enable the company to reach out to internet users, and as a result create competitive edge.
Alternative strategy: Horizontal integration strategy
Other search companies in the market have studied Google’s competitive strategy and may soon improve the level of their technology to compete it in the search market. As such, it can not rely on technology alone to maintain its market leadership.
If I were to head the company’s marketing department I would have suggested a different strategy that would enable it operate sustainably, through partnerships. I believe that Google can better maintain its position in the market through partnership with other established search engine companies such as Yahoo.
Partnerships will enable it share its technology, resources and expertise with the partner company (Jekins & Thorburn, 2003) in developing and advancing its internet tools and services.
Currently, Google spends much money in developing and maintaining its infrastructure. Partnership will allow it to reduce its operation costs and benefit from economies of scale (Jekins & Thorburn, 2003). Google will also be able to provide links to its advertisement using its partner’s tools and websites.
Conclusion
Google’s advanced speed plus its unique services have been its tools for maintaining competitive edge in the search market. However, with the increasing competition in the market fueled by the merger between Yahoo and MSN Search, it has to adopt strategies which enable it reduce its cost on infrastructure development while expanding its services.
Reference List
Howe. C. (2008, July 8). Google: Big data as competitive advantage. Web.
Jekins, H., & Thorburn, D. (2003). Rethinking media change. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Keller, K. & Kotler, P. (2009). Marketing management, 13th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Stephen, A. (2008). Google’s competitive advantage: Plumbing. Web.