Google
this week moved their servers from mainland China to Hong Kong. It signals
their best possible response to the dilemma of balancing their mantra of "do
no evil" against a Chinese government intent on censoring and limiting the way
the search company tries to organize the world's information.
Caught up in mud-slinging between the US and Chinese governments and a Chinese
cyber attack on some of its senior engineers, Google is also facing some
serious strategic issues.
Against the backdrop of their significant success these latest issues may seem
trivial. They are however as a result of their successful strategy to date and
indicate some of the challenges that only arise when an organization gets to
the size of Google.
Over the next years they are going to need to completely re-think the
strategic approach on which founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the
company.
'The bigger they are the harder they fall' is a reminder to Google that it
cannot step as nimbly and unobtrusively as it did in its early years where it
boldly took on a number of markets which it quickly dominated. Now every move
has bigger consequences.
One such play is the Apple / Microsoft / Google showdown. Apple is thinking of
replacing it's default search on its iPhone with Microsoft's Bing while
Google's Android is competing head on with the iPhone. What sounded like a
great idea, launch a phone, is now looking like a long hard battle for market
share against a formidable foe in Apple. On another front, Google is squaring
off against the European community where there are growing problems on the
antitrust front with either lawsuits or threatened lawsuits by Italy, France
and Germany.
Building relationships with governments and co-existing with some seriously
ambitious competitors and partners is going to become more and more important
to their strategic thinking.
At 12 years old, Google heads into its teenage years facing many of the
confusing dilemmas teenagers discover, often to their horror. Suddenly not
everyone loves them and each decision seems to have ever more far reaching
consequences. Without a clear view of the future the complexity can be
bewildering.
With everyone wanting to take a bite out of them, often in markets that they
have themselves created, the balance between creating new success and holding
on to success is likely to even out. Their strategy will need to address this.
All the while "do no evil" is starting to sound a little quaint.