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Strategic Management

Strategic Management - 1
Prepared by: ID Number 0747405

Moscow, May 2008


CONTENTS 3
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 4
2. Industry Overview: 5
3. Google’s Strategic Capabilities: 11
4. Future Opportunities: 18
5. Implementation plans: 22
6. Bibliography/References: 21
7. APPENDIX 22

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Google’s approach—to create a situation where ideas and material not on the Web cease to exist—may actually have the effect the company wants.
--Chris Nolan, Eweek, August 18, 2005

Google is probably not going to do anything that doesn’t have a profit return on it.
--Steven J. Bell, library director, Philadelphia University, 2005

The search engine industry, widely found as helpful, user friendly, impartial, democratically-oriented (bringing all types of information, including entire books, to the web), and doing its best to wash the entire web to find the most relevant information for users, has an outstanding public image. Users tend to see search engines as empowering, trust that search engines are acting in their best interests, and are grateful to have access. Moreover, because there seem to be so many search engines to choose from (e.g., Google, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL, Dogpile, etc.) users also feel empowered in knowing that, in the “democracy” of free enterprise capitalism, they can abandon ship for another, much more relevant search engine if results aren’t satisfactory.
There is indeed some truth to users’ faith in search engines: they are formidable navigation tools. And yet, the search engine industry’s responsiveness to and prioritization of users is built up more by persuasive public relations than by reality. The philanthropic façade of search companies, promoted by such acts as Google’s and Yahoo!’s book digitization efforts, works successfully to hide an increasingly profitable information and advertising industry. Search engine companies, of which there are really only three, have morphed into...