It has been a while that Google has become an Internet giant. It is dominating the search engine market, but is also the leader of several other markets. What is sure, is that the exceptional growth it experienced this past decade change its status from a promising start up to a dominant company. Such a fast growth is difficult to manage, as dealing with a small company does not imply neither the same structure nor the same discipline.Google’s know how and market is mature now. And therefore they are starting to face the same problem global companies are experiencing: fewer and slower innovation, problems in making quick decisions…
The Business Insider gives us a good example of how it impacted some of their decisions. Google aimed to buy an actor in the Internet music distribution market. Nevertheless, due to its unappropriate structure, trying to work as a start up, but in a large company frame, it has not been able to make a decision.
Google places a lot of value on agility. Instead of having a strong dictatorial leader like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates sign off on every product decision, the company is organized in a collection of interdependent teams. This is supposed to let Google respond quickly to market conditions.
This example shows you how Google is not innovating anymore, but would rather by some existing company/projects, in order to grow. It is also adopting some methods which they were not accustomed to. For example, they have rationalized their customer relationship management for Adword clients to make it more profitable.
Somehow, Google is experiencing the same thing Microsoft has the past few years. They have not been able to innovate with their core products, the operating systems and the Microsoft office softwares. They also have struggled to enter new market.
Google is facing a very important era of its history. It needs to succeed in turning into a global companies, and to structure its business in such a way they will be able to make more consistent decisions.
What do you think about it?
