Assignment 7(MIS2)

oogle is a highly successful Internet business. Recently they have broadened their scope with a multitude of new tools. Research Google’s business model and answer the following questions below. You may add additional information not included in these questions.

Questions :
Explain Google’s business model.
1. Who are their competitors?
2. How have they used information technology to their advantage?
3. How competitive are they in the market?
4. What new services do they offer?
5. What makes them so unique?

The challenge, and how Google AdWords fits in

Acquiring business and recognition in a highly competitive market was the key initial challenge that PurelyGadgets faced. Initially PurelyGadgets toyed with the idea of taking a hands-off approach to their advertising, by hiring a company who would take care of it for them. This approach wasn’t successful however, as Lim explains. “We believed that we could do this better [than an outside company] because we know our products and services.” Instead, PurelyGadgets turned to Google AdWords to assist them in creating an online presence. “I actually learned about online advertising from Google,” admits Lim. “We find Google very easy to use. The main reason is that we can control the budget so easily. We were a very new start-up company then and we were very concerned with costs and Google let us see…results within twenty-four hours.”
Advancing with AdWords

Having begun trading from home in 2004, as a company of four to five employees, PurelyGadgets now employs over 40 people in their London based offices. “We grew about 700% over the past two years,” declares Lim. “Without using Google we would not grow this fast.”

Expanding further on this point, Lim says “Google initially put us on a par with other big brands…I think Google is a trusted brand…the demographic feels more confident buying from us…because they see us from Google…If you’re looking at increasing market share, branding…and also customer acquisition… Google is a much better choice because it has a much bigger audience.”
Google tools

Given the competitiveness of the market in which PurelyGadgets operates it is necessary for them to be both extremely dynamic and make full use of all AdWords features available to them. This is something which they do to excellent effect, as Lim explains. “We eliminate a lot of unqualified leads with negative keywords…Although it’s a very simple functionality, I find negative keywords extremely useful.”

“We use Google Analytics which is fabulous,” he further comments. “AdWords Editor is very good as well…we change our prices every day…only Google allow us to have that sort of flexibility.”
Future Plans

Not content with entering into new territories from a retail perspective, PurelyGadgets intend to do so geographically as well. At present due to a lack of viable payment platforms, PurelyGadgets restrict their activities to the UK market. However, Lim is enthusiastic and optimistic about the imminent launch of the Google payment platform, Google Checkout. “I think that once the Google Checkout has been launched [we will] have a payment platform all across the world. I think that will open up our market totally’.

Speaking of future plans to continue growing with Google AdWords, Lim states “It feels like you do have somebody working for you in Google…I can’t find anything better.”




Google's Unique Advantage:

The fact can't be denied. Google have achieved a massive success and almost every developer wants to work for. Google is best known for search and for ads associated with search, that was obvious. This is in essence Google’s one true product. It is the one feature Google developed for the outside world. When Google developed search it was no different from a small company. It is what Google has done since then that makes Google different. Google doesn’t answer to any external power. They don’t have anyone they have to deliver a product to. There is no contract with a deadline. Due to not having any external dependencies, Google can continuously iterate over a product until it reaches a state of near perfection. It can stay in internal testing as long as Google wants and no one is going to care. See Gmail, Google Maps, etc. This then allows Google to use the perfect form of the agile process. Continuous iterations and testing and development, continues improvement. Then as Google sees fit, release the products. As they get better and better, more people use them and more money from ads come in. And that's undeniably beautiful! Another thing is that Google hit on the formula for ads before anyone else. They now have such a commanding lead in that arena that to compete with them you need deep pockets of money of your own. That makes it difficult to launch a company and follow Google’s lead of avoiding external dependencies and having the near perfect product development process. Google does have external contracts, especially for serving up ads on other sites. But notice that Google’s contracts are different from most companies’ contracts. Google isn’t developing a product for these companies. All they are doing is giving them an existing product that Google has already completed and released. Development on that product might still be happening, but it happens within Google, not within the realms of the contract. Google is still free to develop how ever they want (Mark Mzyk | March 17, 2008). And i agree to this point that Google has its unique advantage.



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GOOGLE APPS
Reference:
https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/adwords/select/success/purelygadgets.htmlhttp://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/03/17/googles-unique-advantage/
http://www.atlassian.com/software/crowd/images/features/google_apps_diagram.png