Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Overview
Google Israel: The Google Israels Company Operations Google Israels Technology Google Israels Sales Google Israels Strategy The S Curve Google Israels Benchmarking
The Company
The Company
Google Israel
Highlight, History & Main Processes
One of leading R&D centers for leading internet search engine in the world Handles many of the major functions that make Google a successful company. Engineers develop and launch key products globally while sales team finds solutions for clients advertising needs. Technology expertise enabled it to launch a number of new products and develop new processes pertaining to Search -- Google Autocomplete, Live Results, Google Instant Analytics -- Google Insights for Search, Google Trends, Website Optimizer, Google Chart Tools, In-Page Analytics, Google Analytics Applications -- got the wrong bob, Gmail Priority Inbox
The Company
Market Overview
Tech R&D centers in Israel
Numerous technology giants including Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, AT&T, and Hewlett-Packard also have offices or research centers in Israel.
The Company
Main Products BCG Model
KPI -- Efficiency
Technology
Overview
Highly diversified portfolio R&D Products and solutions are to developers and consumers: Easy to use Provide lots of documentation Provide lots of examples Have various levels of complexity Massive scalability and storage solutions Creative algorithms in order to make one of the worlds largest networks work more effectively Helps drive the great experience users get from Google products Networking systems Google Israels R&D teams are also working extensively on networking systems, advertising systems, and complex transaction systems in consumer applications. They are leading many projects as well as working with teams globally. Research Focused on algorithms, machine learning, game theory, computer vision and data mining, but Google Israel also employs techniques from other branches of computer science. Special Projects R&D Googlers are encouraged to spend 20% of their time on their own ideas.
Technology
Special Projects (Continued)
Some other Google Israel project ideas worth mentioning include:
Periodic Table The legend tells that a similar gadget at the states received 3 millions users Math Equation gadgets enter data and gets shapes diameter, area, quadratic equation etc. Time Zone gadget Currency exchange gadget Pregnancy calculator/followup/countdown gadget Movie show time gadget for seret.co.il TV listings Any major sports result gadget Flight take off and landing gadget Music hit list
Technology
History/Trends
R&D Centers in Tel Aviv/Haifa home to software engineers who want to develop the next-generation technologies and push the limits. April 2009 Google Autocomplete was created which allows users to receive suggested searches as they type within the search box on Google October 2009 Got the Wrong Bob -- Turn on "Got the wrong Bob?" and Gmail will check if you meant to include Bob Smith rather than Bob Jones based on the groups of people you email most often. Building global products and innovating on a large scale January 2011 Live Results, Google Instant Developing and launching key products globally August 2010 Gmail Priority Inbox
Technology
Future Trends
Always looking for the next great innovation
Incubator to be launched in 2012 in Israel
To make something you never thought could be better and easier to use
Google Maps with Israel Street View Advanced Computer Vision Technologies
Tech expertise and recent acquisitions provide it a right base for future growth
Technology
Interfaced Technology that may affect Tech/Products/Processes
Open Source technology products and APIs
Google Maps API, Google Data API, Google Ajax API, Google Gadget API and over 35 more APIs
Gadgets
Cross-browser compatible, utilize open-source XML databases to power Flash GUIs and JavaScript API, working with remote content: RSS feeds, text/HTML Google Instant, ex. required new technologies including new caching systems, the ability to adaptively control the rate at which we show results pages and an optimization of page-rendering JavaScript to help web browsers keep up with the rest of the system
Technology
Interfaced Technology that may affect Tech/Products/Processes (Continued)
Multi-language support Increase success in other countries Video Annotations Now used in YouTube clips Partnership with Yad Vashem Make Holocaust archive accessible and searchable to a global audience Teaching open source and web technologies at universities Supports and encourages good web technologies for developers worldwide: Open source projects taught include: Hosting open source projects on Google Code Google Summer of Code Google Gears (browser offline capabilities) Googlers contributing to OSS: Linux, subversion, GCC
Tech Failures
Adwords Lawsuit
Tel Aviv Court ruled that Google had effectively allowed a doctors competitors to hijack his reputation for their benefit
Yad Vashem
Online photo archive
Lack of Integration
Too many products feel like disparate standalone entities Ex. Contact and Profiles are not even from the same data source.
Operations
Core Proficiencies
Google Search Teams in Haifa/Tel-Aviv advancing the Search experience for users worldwide Devote more engineering time to search than to any other product Research and Development Develop innovative technologies that have global impact Highly talented leadership team and work force Focus on hiring highest quality individuals Culture emphasizes teamwork, flexibility, transparency, and innovation. Organic structure Aggressive and non-discriminatory hiring policy favors ability over experience
Operations
Outsourcing Technologies that are not their core proficiency
Quiksee
Israeli startup that allows users to create location-based interactive media content.
LabPixies
A leading developer of personalized web gadgets "widgets" including iGoogle, Android and the iPhone.
Google Gadgets
May be outsourced to independent contractors and contracting groups, professional developers who write gadgets for a living, teenagers and hobbyists writing gadgets because theyre fun
Networking systems, advertising systems, and complex transaction systems in consumer applications
Could be outsourced so R&D teams can devote more attention to developing Search capabilities
Operations
Partnerships
Mergers and acquisitions with other related businesses Allows Google to quickly adopt new technologies and process rather than trying to develop them internally Academic research centers and universities Collaborate on the development of technological commerce technologies Red Bend software (Israel) Mobile software management Other incubator-like initiatives worldwide Red Hat (Israel) UpWest Labs (Silicon Valley) Genesis Partners -- The Junction (Israel)
Operations
Customer Expectations; Current & Future Trends
Continue to introduce products that customers will use, are interesting and cool Continue to be innovative
Innovator of the Business Model to deliver great new products basically for free, enticing and luring million of users worldwide, with the result of building the Brand in an outstanding, quite unbelievable way - and did it extremely fast.
Continue to deliver products that make customers lives more efficient Platform is ready and easy for developers to learn
Operations
IT Main Processes/Modules
Infrastructure Solutions unique to Google
MapReduce System
Converted search indexing systems to MapReduce system in 2003, and currently processes over 20 petabytes of raw web data per day
BigTable
Database built on GFS
Operations
Challenges
Many acquisitions of companies at different stages of their development
Integration into culture
Change Implementation
Sales
Customer Analysis/Forecast Sources User-powered Services
Googles content offerings consist of what its users supply (ex. YouTube) Google Network members
Expanding its presence in Israel, which would enable it to strengthen its leadership position
Forecast sources
Goal: To maximize eyeballs to Googles search engine and ad machines
Growing online ad spending would have a positive impact on the financial performance of the company
Forecast Sources
Seasonality and Deviation Experiment
Forecast Sources
Customer Analysis
The S Curve
New technologies, approaches, and business models New technologies, emerge to approaches, and business be the "the next new models that could be the "the thing trigger a next newS thing" triggers a new curve new Sthat will the will overtake curve overtake that old one. the old one (YouTube, Google
The S Curve
Technology Limits
Government regulations which could limit Googles technology Has run into conflict with regulatory agencies in the past Willing to influence government to set regulations beneficial to Google Creating lobbying effort and attempting to influence govt Privacy and complexity Byproducts of the engineering-centric culture Can't always predict how users will react to products and services
Ex. Google Buzz tested internally and everyone liked it, so they just had no idea it would cause the fear it did.
Enterprise growth limits Stakeholders fail to cooperate for the greater good
Benchmarking
Internal
Where are we now vs. where do we want to be?
Google Instant, Autocomplete
Who is doing what?/who is capable of doing what?/Do we need any extra personnel?
People/Culture
Management/HR Practices
Hire and retain excellent employees, measured by employee turn-over, job vacancies, customer satisfaction
Benchmarking
Competitive
Non-core Niche product/service Track the number of competitors entering and/or leaving the niche. Gmail, Maps Is the cost of entry into the market high or low? Google+ social media service Biggest attempt to rival Facebook which has over 800 million users Market leader or follower or challenger, and what is your relative market position and why? Are you able to support that position if under 'attack'? Chrome, Android; Yahoo, Bing, etc. Telecom Number of new customers per year Android Number of lost customers per year
Benchmarking
Functional
80/20 rule
R&D Googlers encouraged to spend 20% of their time on own ideas. Concept was adopted from 3Ms Organizational Innovation concept among other similar ones.
Developed in order to stay ahead of competition by continuing to be innovative.
Benchmarking
Generic
Google Plus Art
Creates visual appeal Makes search fun!
35
References
http://www.google.co.il/jobs/ http://www.fastcompany.com/1699742/google-israel-yossi-matias http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000697285&fid=1725 http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/11/15/israeli-start-ups-now-have-google-to-incubate-ideas/ http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/149797#.TzJtZcVSSuo https://sites.google.com/site/haifardcenteropenhouse/about-the-r-d-center (includes video) http://www.israel21c.org/technology/google-to-incubate-israeli-startups http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4147682,00.html http://www.t3technion.com/2011/11/google-search-for-innovation-result.html http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147805#.TzJtbsVSSuo http://searchengineland.com/my-friendly-meet-up-with-google-israel-16723 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152100#.TzJtecVSSuo http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000696872 http://www.broadstuff.com/archives/2108-Google-from-a-digital-strategists-point-of-view.html http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2008/01/google-mapreduce-stats.html http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147064#.TzJtdMVSSuo http://research.google.com/archive/google_trends_predictability.pdf http://www.pcworld.com/article/146101/top_10_google_flubs_flops_and_failures.html http://ishitech.co.il/0406ar4.htm http://www.physorg.com/news11268.html http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148356#.TzJtacVSSuo http://www.chiefmartec.com/2008/04/a-new-s-curve-f.html