Analysis Of Google's Business-Level Strategy

Google has come a long way from its simple beginnings as a grad school project to becoming a defining icon of the culture of the Internet age. Google has been a leading force on the internet for web browsing. Google has not only managed to hold its own, but to also take first place in the overall per share data and growth categories and take second place in overall profitability. Google has developed a business-level strategy that works and also stays true to the culture of the organization (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2013).

Google started as a grad school project for Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They were both attending Stanford University. Google was incorporated in 1998. The founders made an epic decision in hiring Eric Schmidt as

These qualities, complemented with the culture of Google. Google made a few acquisitions and were now on their way to stardom. Eric and the founders developed a business-level strategy for success. The purpose of a business-level strategy is to create differences between the firm’s position and those of its competitors. To position itself differently from competitors, a firm must decide whether it intends to perform activities differently or to perform different activities. The firm’s business-level strategy is a deliberate choice about how it will perform the value chain’s primary and support activities to create unique value (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2013). Google’s strategic leadership structure was key in the adaptation of the business-level strategy and core competencies. Larry Page, co-founder of Google, holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, and a master’s degree in computer science. His father was a computer science professor at Michigan State University, it’s safe to say he was protégé in the making. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, doubled majored in

Google’s top competitors are Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp, and Apple. Google’s competitive environment is extremely complicated, involving different industries and markets, each with its own set of competitors and challenges. Googles main areas of focus are Search, Advertising, Apps, and Mobile (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2013). To look at this competition in more debt, let’s look at the term value chain analysis. "Value chain analysis" is a systematic method to study key competences and activities of the organization that determine competitive advantage. Value chain analysis enables companies to identify those areas of business that create value, namely those that do not create value. To know these aspects is essential in a competitive environment: to be a source of competitive advantage, the company must perform an activity better than competitors or to perform an activity that creates value which competitors cannot perform. Regardless of whether is limited to internal activities of an organization or includes links to other companies, value chain analysis is used as a strategic management tool that allows understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the systems that are studied, and identify new ways of conducting activities in order to generate value added (Popescu & Dascălu, 2011). Google was able to deliver products to the world effectively and efficiently while keeping profitability and value