Fortifying Core competencies

The average life span of a company in today’s world is less than 10 years, and every 10 years half of companies in fortune 500 gets knocked out of list, if not knocked out of business. So what large tech firms like Google, Apple, MS and Facebook are doing to stay in foray for longer.

Just having a look at portfolios of these companies we can say that they are trying a whole array of approaches to stay in business. If we look at MS its trait is perseverance. It has been knocked out of internet age multiple times. Google knocked MS out of search business. Yahoo took its share of email business. But MS persists and will persist because it has money and no other option.

Similar is the case with Yahoo. Google took over search business market and has grown as a large player in email service provider market. Again game of persistence is in full force for Yahoo. We just have to wait if it comes out with some differentiated product or feature before it runs out of money or not. But talking about internet age, where Yahoo has faltered and what Google has done right? It’s the strategy of fortifying competencies.

Despite plethora of products that comes out of Google every year, the dominant strategy of Google is clear, it wants to stay number one search company and hence entry point for everyone using internet. Lets look at how Google is trying not only to capture the largest market share in a market where it dominates more than 50% share, but it is trying to grow market. Let’s see how its different products help in doing that.

Chrome OS: Chrome OS is essentially laptop equivalent of Android OS, which provides basic functionality of OS. It relies on the fact that users must migrate from their current stand alone desktops with all the processing power to a network, where data and most of processing resides in cloud. User have to rely on internet and hence the potential user base for Google increase and yes the default search engine on Chrome OS is Google

Chrome browser: Chrome is a browser provided by Google and is based upon open source Firefox engine. But its importance lies in the fact that it helps controlling Google the ecosystem on desktop where its search engine is used. Thus removing dependence from any other company controlling the browser space.

Android: Google practically has been late starter on mobile platform. Probably its focus has been on Chrome OS as the next big thing on devices used by internet savvy generation. But the next technology wave as spearheaded by Apple has been mobile and tablets instead of net books. Thus two years after launch of first IPhone Android OS was Google’s attempt to own the ecosystem on mobile devices to provide search results. Today with more than 60% of smartphones running on Android, Google’s strategy can be described as success.

But why so many products, and so much investment just to ensure that customer comes to Google search from all different platforms. The answer can be found in the fact that Google pays apply USD 1Bn each year to ensure that it is default search on IPad and IPhones. Why not just invest these dollars in owning an ecosystem rather than paying a rent.

Well Google’s this strategy of fortifying the walls aims at ensuring that the company stays in future 500 list for longer than 10 years and stays as the leader in search business.

PS: The opinion and analysis shared above is based upon the events that are in public domain. Please share your thoughts on the same.