Merger, Acquisition, And International Strategies Google, Inc.:

From a humble beginning in 1998 of responding to about 10,000 queries by offering search engine services, Google, Inc. has grown to a gigantic multinational corporation providing immense and widely used, actually over 30, services with a search engine capacity that responds to more than 200 million queries daily.

Using a combination of personal logging information and other information gathered from its spectrum of services and Google cookies, it is capable of building large dossiers of pertinent information of its individual users. In this essay I wish to examine Google's three most popular and innovative services namely: Ad Sense, Gmail and Google Search in order to show how the huge amount of data gathered from these three services are used to create incredibly big profiles of all its individual users. I will not, however, underestimate the important role its other services like Google Toolbar2 and Google Desktop1 play (Delichatsios & Sonuyi, 2005).

On August 15, Google (GOOG) entered into an agreement to merge with Motorola Mobility (MMI), another technology company based in Libertyville, Illinois, for a total of about $12.5 billion or $40 per share, a premium of 63% to the end of business trading price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The board of directors of the two companies unanimously agreed on the transaction despite the difficult negotiation phase. It took Google enormous effort to get unconditional regulatory approvals. Being a vertical merger where companies operating at different stages of product manufacture come together, it is focused that Motorola Mobility and Google will spearhead an innovative path in the manufacture and provision of mobile computing services. By joining the great device production of Motorola Mobility and the huge software capability of Google, consumers will be able to purchase better phones at reduced prices. For Motorola the conclusion of this merger is an exciting icing on the cake, so to speak, because in its final year the company booked $13.1 billion on its holdings as an independent entity (Varma, 2012).

Although skeptics in the technology market sneer at the merger of a giant like Google with a hardware company that has been operating on loses over the last few years, it is hope that Google will use its immense manufacturing capacity to produce large quantities of hardware. Sight should not be lost of the fact that Motorola itself was a major manufacturer of mobile devices. One of its flagship models, Motorola Razr managed to sell over 100 million units. With its 13.7% market share on the OEM share market data which is a slight decline from its previous year's share of 20%, Motorola diversified its manufacturing base to include production of phones on the Android platform which has been favorably received in the market judging from the existing reviews. This implies Motorola has a big fighting chance to scale up the ladder of the Smartphone niche. This too is good news for Google which now can strengthen its position amidst the intellectual property wars it is fighting. On its fast growing portfolio Google has managed to add 24,500 patents (Varma, 2012).

Wal-Mart:

An American multinational retail corporation running several warehouses and chains of huge discount stores, Wal-Mart was established in 1962 by Sam Walton in Rogers, Ark. Their key selling point is to make a difference in the shopping experience of their clients by helping them to save money and lead worthwhile lives. It was officially incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. In 1969 and in 1972 it started publicly trading on the New York stock exchange.

After a period of rapid growth, Wal-Mart managed to set up 276 stores in 11 states by the end of the 70s and by the 80s it had opened the first Sam's club catering for individuals and small businesses; and Wal-Mart Spencer which combines general merchandise and a supermarket. By the end of the 80s and early 90s Wal-Mart had risen from a national giant to a regional player becoming the number 1 retailer in the country. From 2000 onwards, the chain has been providing its customers with exceptional and quality shopping experience on mobile platforms, online and in brick and mortar stores. It has not forgotten to be a key player on save the earth initiatives by stressing the need to go green particularly on energy efficiency (Wei, Wang, Zhang and Ao, n.d.).

Because national, regional and international competitors can enjoy the same benefits of low offshore manufacturing costs, Wal-Mart is facing serious competition from its rivals. In this assignment we are going to look at Wal-Mart's operations in the North American market with glimpses...

Its arch rivals in North America include stores like Mexico's Commercial Mexicana, Targets, Kmart, and Canada's The Real Canadian Superstore (Wei, Wang, Zhang and Ao, n.d.).
The best candidate with whom to initiate a merger from the list above is Target because it is the second largest retailer after Wal-Mart. Just like Wal-Mart, Target is also capable of delivering a variety of low-priced but high quality goods to diverse customers. It is a good strategy for generating increasingly high level revenue as well as attracting hundreds of new customers daily. Comparatively, both enjoy high-end clients with Target's customer base consisting of those with incomes of over $50,000 annually to Wal-Mart's $35,000 (Thomas, 2010). Presently, Target is rapidly expanding its global reach, for instance, it just acquired a stake in 200 Canadian stores. But Target is not the only one inching on Wal-Mart's tuff because Costco, another aggressive retailer larger than Sam's club, is fiercely competing Sam's club. Last year it generated revenues of up to $97.06 billion compared to Sam's Club $53.8 billion. This means it is enjoying fast growth from a larger client base (Hoium, 2013).

Business level strategy of Google:

Google's strategy is based on a solid platform of broad differentiation of complementary products. Complimentary products are mainly important in promoting brand awareness by making use of the quality of other products. In the case of Google, its complimentary products are Picasa, an editing and image organizing program, the Docs & Spreadsheets productivity suite, and Google Maps and Earth software. These are the key products that Google uses to supplement its advertising business and expand the scope of its brand awareness. By keeping its name on almost all its products, Google manages to continually reinforce and strengthen its brand image. Google reasons that the possibility if its adverts being seen by millions lies in the frequency a person makes use of its products (Bhatia, Deep & Sachdeva, 2012).

Corporate level strategy:

Google's mission statement is to organize the world's information by making it universally accessible and useful, while its corporate level strategy is to be a leader in innovation far way ahead of the competition. That is why it hires highly intelligent people who can think beyond the norm or box. Being a powerful brand, without the input of such cadre of innovative workers it would quickly collapse. A lot of people who purchase Google products and services do so for the same reasons that others buy an Apple product; that is the company logo or name. That is why it is full of surprises and one never knows what is up their sleeves (Digication Inc., 2014).In summary, I can say that Google projects its success on dominating a market niche ignored by the competition by innovatively and dynamically building it using a direct targeted attack on its competitors. Amongst its numerous products for which it deploys the same strategic approach, these three are just but leading examples (?ukowska & Pindelski, 2011).

The company's insistence on innovation is a major factor that holds this strategy in place. Although it started with a search engine, it is now no surprise that it is adding onto its portfolio of products almost daily, and by 2010, it had nearly 550 products and services up from 20. One way in which Google beats it competitors is the ability to correctly analyze the results of data about the operations of its products, constant innovation, well versed computer architecture and a formidable business organizational structure. This makes it an apt successor to IBM or General Electric. By dedicating billions of dollars every year for innovation and creation of new products, its cadre of skilled employees is able to use their creativity to uncharacteristically come up with new product quickly (?ukowska & Pindelski, 2011).

Improvement:

In order to attract new customers and to add to its base of products Google should create additional new features such as email systems and chat room facilities.

By keeping track of user's search histories through their consent, and accepting email reminders about personal interests and needs on updates, it can increase its switching charges.

It should promote switching costs for its users by becoming a mass-market portal just like MSN and Yahoo.

It should improve on its listings of paid adverts and increase its reach of personalized or localized search capabilities.

It should introduce new services such as offering private data bases, print media, and multimedia and specific product searches.

In order…