Question

In Marketing, Competitive Advantage is basically what you do better as a company than any other company in your field What in your opinion is Google’ Competitive Advantage? write paragraphs

Answer 1

Competitive advantages help companies protect and/or enlarge their profits even in the presence of competition. These advantages can be in areas like brand, economies of scale, regulatory protection, and intellectual property, among others.

Google LLC, specializes in products and services related to the internet and in areas including search engines, online advertising, cloud computing, enterprise services, hardware, and software. However, the 2 main revenue-generating areas for Google are online advertising (targeted and contextual) and web search. Below are the important competitive advantages of Google in these areas of profits.

Economies of Scale

The scale advantage may apply to both supply and demand side. For instance, a large hotel chain may have a large purchasing power which may result in a lower cost of supplies. A service may also have more users or exponential demand. In the latter scenario, a network effect is also seen when the addition of a large number of users results in the improvement of service or product. The Google search engine and business have witnessed the network effect, and the company has the demand-side economies of scale advantage here. While the Google search engine keeps on improving for the users, the business and other websites also improve to match the aspirations of users and to remain better ranks on Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). The scale advantages also impact Google’s advertising services and networks. The search engine targets users based on their profiles and interests and bring to them ads that they will find relevant. Hence the learning capacity of Google (which increases due to the increasing number of users, among other factors) also helps it service the users better. The competitive advantage is quite a strength for Google, as it alone has a 75% share for the search engine market. In the USA, Google’s marketing reaches 92% of all Americans using the internet.

The Google Brand

While Google's brand value is good, its competitive advantage for the firm is only to a given and limited extent. Users do use the word “Google” for internet search nowadays, which may reflect on the popularity of the brand. However, they would switch to a new company and search engine that may offer faster results that are also reliable and tuned to their preferences.

Other factors like regulatory protection may go against Google. A company may have a competitive advantage due to regulations that will protect it from competitor attacks. However, Google has a phenomenal market position, strength and reach in areas including web search and mobile operating system (Android). It is being watched by regulatory agencies for anti-competitive practices in many different parts of the globe, including Europe and the USA.

Google also invests huge monies in the research and development areas and holds many patents and intellectual properties. However, these advantages may not keep the competitors at bay all the time, as they may come up with new patents, products, and technologies of their own. Google does hire the best and most talented, but the capability is due to the scale advantages that it has acquired over some time.