CORPORATE IDENTITY CRISIS History and Company Overview

Google Inc. is considered to be one of the most successful American multinational corporations. The company specializes in Internet search, with its search engine Google being the most widespread and popular in the world, and other related Internet products and services, such as cloud computing systems, software technologies, advertising and analytical services. In particular, the company's AdWords advertising engine is responsible for generating a bigger amount of the company's profits. It is worth mentioning that the company was launched as a typical start-up, without any significant financial aid. The founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were students of Stanford University and had no clue on company management. However, their expertise in software industry and excellent vision of the market enabled them to create one of the world's most powerful brands in the search engine industry. The company itself began in January 1996 as a research project. Brin and Page thoroughly analyzed main principles of work of search engine of that period and came up with an innovative idea on how to base the search on the connections and relationships between websites. As a result, a new technology called PageRank appeared, creating a basis for further developments, which were later implemented for the web search system called 'BackRub' which was later re-named to Google. The word 'google' itself stands for the number one followed by one hundred zeros and symbolically shows that the engine is capable of generating enormous amount of structured replies to any search request. The domain name for the new engine was registered in 1997, and the company was incorporated only in 1998. However, it is worth being mentioned that the real profits started to arrive much later, when the company was developed and respected enough to go through initial public offering procedure in 2004. It is also interesting to know that at the moment the founders own not more than 16 percent of the company's stake.

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Before that, there were some investors who supported financial well-being of the company. For instance, the first funding ($100,000) back in 1998 was provided by Andy Bechtolscheim from Sun Mycrosystems, and it actually arrived even before the company was incorporated. After a period of hesitations and attempts to sell the search engines, the founders, together with Eric Schmidt, took a decision to work together for Google for 20 years up till 2024. The initial public offering generated a tremendously huge capital mass for the company's development. In particular, the company offered more than 19 mln share through a unique online auction format using a system developed and supported by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, who also were the underwriters for the deal. This sale brought over $1.67 bn in sales and $23 bn in market capitalization. Despite a certain skeptics that the IPO would change the company's culture, the company managed to preserve its spirit and even introduced a special position of Chief Culture Officer who also serves as a Director of Human Resources. The purpose of this position is to create and develop the culture and work in accordance to the company's mission and key principles, namely: 1. Focus on the User; 2. It's better to do one thing really, really well; 3. Fast is better than slow; 4. Democracy on the web works; 5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer; 6. You can make money without doing evil; 7. There's always more information out there; 8. The need for information crosses all borders; 9. You can be serious without a suit; 10. Great is just isn't good enough.

CORPORATE IDENTITY CRISIS Products and Services

According to the company's co-founder Larry Page, a perfect search engine is something that 'understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want'. The company's search engine remains the most competitive on the market, not only showing excellent results in its core function, but also constantly introducing new entertaining features, such as well-known Google doodles. The first "Google doodle" appeared in 1998 and was aimed to show visitors that Google's employees responsible for running it are currently offline at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. Since then, more than 1000 different creative doodles appeared on the Google's homepage. In 2000 the company introduced a revolutionary service called AdWords, which became the first self-service program for creating online marketing campaigns. The list of advertising solutions offered by the company includes display, mobile and video advertisements, as well as simple text advertisements. The service is widely used by start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world. In 2004 the company launched its own e-mail service called Gmail. The company introduced a new approach to e-mails including speedy search, massive storage amount available and thread system for structuring messages. In 2005 the company acquired a satellite navigation system which enabled to launch such services as Google Maps and Google Earth and link them with the core search engine and other services. In 2006 Google Inc. initiated an acquisition of YouTube online video sharing system. The service has grown into a platform where 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute. The platform created an opportunity for amateur film makers to show and share their talents and stories.

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Successful promotion of search engine services enabled the company to think of launching its own browsing system called Google Chrome. After the role of mobile devices significantly increased, the company also introduced Android an open platform for mobile devices, which is currently working as an operational system for many modern smartphones and communicators. Finally, in June 2011 the company introduced Google+ project, aimed to link and integrate Google services and establish connections between users based on the model of a social network. All in all, at the moment company offers its client the following range of products and services: Web Search, Google Mobile, News, Translate, Blog Search, Alerts, Google Chrome, Image Search, Google Docs, Google Groups, Scholar, and Code. Apart from that, the company has developed a number of customized business offerings. The purpose of these offerings is to enable companies to promote its activities and products online and reach their target audience via web services. The company's solutions for business may be split into three main functional groups: 1. Advertising This service is based on the abovementioned web engine called AdWords and implies creating ads and choosing keywords related to one's business. This helps the advertisement to appear next to search results when people are searching on Google using the mentioned keywords. This mechanism helps to attract target audience to the company's website. Online purchase by clicking on the advertisement is available as well; 2. Google Applications The name of a wide range of applications developed by the company is to help its clients to structure their business activities with help of cloud storage, planning, and

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communication systems based on Google services. Also, these tools enable people to work remotely, with help of mobile devices. 3. Google Analytics. This analytical platform is tailored to suit needs of those clients who are eager to monitor attendance of their online retailers and corporate websites and provides advanced analysis of the company's target audience based on the web search results, thus enabling clients to adjust their marketing and promotional strategies. Such features can be very useful for businesses working in the field of media and entertaining services. Workplace and Physical Location The company that was launched in the garage and several dorm rooms now employs more than 30,000 people and is headquartered in Mountain View, California, also known as the Googleplex. All in all, the company currently has over 70 offices in more than 40 countries around the world. It is worth being mentioned that no two Google offices are the same, as the company tends to customize and adjust the interior and office structure to the hosting country and local environment. However, still much attention is paid to common identity features and atmosphere, so, at Google offices, it is likely to notice such elements as murals and decorations, Googlers sharing cubes, yurts, and 'huddles', video games, pool tables and pianos, cafes and microkitchens with healthy food, and big whiteboards for brainstorming. Google offices are known for their creative interior which is aimed to combine work with fun and enable employees to relax in between working sessions. This is an important element of corporate culture and a powerful incentive for the company's employees to stay loyal to the company. Apart from that, Google is known as a green and eco-friendly company and is known for launching its own "Google Green" initiative. For instance, the company has significantly

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reduced its impact on climate change since 2007, with its data centres consuming 50 percent less energy than the typical data center. Apart from that, the company's investments into renewable energy have reached $915 mln. causing more green attitude to Google's services which is good for the company's brand promotion. In particular, it is often mentioned that impact of a business using Gmail is up to 80 times smaller. All this enables the company to build its business on innovations and values, thus staying always popular among users and its own employees. Rapid diversification, acquisition and integration of various web services have enabled the company to become an integral part of today's society and promote its services as green, people-oriented and reliable.

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Google's headquaters in Mountain View, California

Google's solar fields

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Map of company's offices on Google Maps

CORPORATE IDENTITY CRISIS Works Cited www.google.com Google official website ^"Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2011". BrandZ. 2010.

http://www.millwardbrown.com/libraries/optimor_brandz_files/2011_brandz_top100 _chart.sflb.ashx. Retrieved July 11, 2011. Google Receives $25 Million in Equity Funding" (Press release). Palo Alto, Calif.: Google. June 7, 1999. Archived from the original on March 9, 2000. http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease1.html. Retrieved February 16, 2009.