Business Environment & Society Presentation

1. Business I Environment I Society

2. Issue
# 6
PESTLE Analysis of Google (Alphabet Inc.)

3. Google Inc., which is now known as Alphabet Inc., is actually a
holding company that trades under two different ticker symbols:
NASDAQ: GOOGL and GOOG. Alphabet is similar in structure to
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B).
Like Berkshire Hathaway, it has a large number of subsidiaries that
operate in a wide variety of businesses. Another thing Alphabet has
in common with Berkshire Hathaway is that it offers two classes of
stock: Class A, known as GOOGL, and Class B, which trades as
GOOG.

4. The core of Alphabet’s business is the Google search engine, which
is still the world’s most popular search tool. The head of Google’s
search engine, Amit Singhai, claims that Google does 100 billion
searches a month. The next biggest competitor, Microsoft’s Bing,
only performed 35 billion searches, or about one third of Google’s.
Google’s business efforts are incredibly profitable; it reported
having around $69.8 billion in the bank on June 6, 2015.
Google makes its money by charging for advertising that appears
with its searches. It is also increasingly involved in ecommerce,
including sales of products such as insurance and financial services.
Alphabet also owns a wide variety of companies involved in
research and development. These include some high-profile
projects such as self-driving cars and robotics.

5. Google’s management team radically reorganized the company in
July 2015 by creating the Alphabet holding company. Naturally,
such a move could make Google very vulnerable to changing
political, economic, social, legal, technological and environmental,
or PESTLE, conditions.
Therefore, it is a good time to see how PESTLE could affect this
tech giant.

6. Political Factors That Could Affect Alphabet’s Future
There is widespread criticism that Google is a monopoly. This has
led to antitrust action, particularly in Europe. There have been calls
for Google to be broken up or for it to change the way it conducts
searches.
There has also been some criticism that Google has too much
control over the flow of information. Social scientists Robert
Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson have even made the claim that
Google’s search results could influence the outcome of elections.
This could lead to calls for nationalization or stricter government
oversight of Google.

7. Political Factors That Could Affect Alphabet’s Future
Google is one of many U.S. companies that stashes cash in foreign
bank accounts to avoid high American corporate income taxes.
There is growing political pressure in the United States to force
these companies to bring that money into the country. If this
occurs, it could cut Google’s cash flow. This could also force Google
to make costly foreign acquisitions just to avoid taxes.
Additionally, Google has not been able to enter some potentially
lucrative markets, such as China, because of political reasons. This
could limit the company’s future growth.

8. Economic Factors That Could Affect Google
Alphabet has accumulated a huge amount of cash, which makes it
very vulnerable to inflation. A sudden drop in the value of a
currency could reduce the company’s value.
The large amount of money Google keeps overseas makes it very
vulnerable to exchange rates and the currency market. If the dollar
is strong, Google could lose a lot of money if it is forced to bring a
lot of cash back into the United States. The company could also
lose money if the dollar is weak because it could be forced to
exchange a stronger currency for a weak dollar.
A sudden drop in Alphabet’s high stock price could hurt the
company by reducing its market capitalization.

9. Social Factors That Could Affect Google
1. A decline in the use of traditional laptop and desktop
computers, which historically have been the most popular
means of accessing Google. Tech Crunch reported that more
searches were done from mobile devices than computers for
the first time during the summer of 2015.
2. Growing use of social media solutions such as Facebook and
WhatsApp for activities traditionally done on the Internet. This
includes search, streaming video, shopping and money transfer.

10. Social Factors That Could Affect Google
3. Google has not been able to translate its success in traditional
search to other segments of the market, including the vital
shopping search. Amazon is now the top search tool for online
shoppers, Forester research reported. Around 30% of all online
shoppers start their search at Amazon. That makes it hard for
Google to cash in on such transactions.
4. A decline in traditional media such as television is forcing
content providers such as TV networks and movie studios to
develop their own content delivery platforms that compete
directly with YouTube. Some companies such as Amazon are
now offering video content that cannot be accessed via
YouTube.

11. Social Factors That Could Affect Google
5. Popular suspicion and distrust of Google. Many people view
Google as sinister and too powerful. Some web users now
deliberately seek out alternatives such as Duck Duck Go simply
to avoid contact with Google.

12. Technological Factors That Are Changing Google’s Business
1. Growing use of mobile devices to access the Internet. Some of
these devices, including Apple products, have proprietary
search engines that compete with Google.
2. Some competitors; notably Amazon and Microsoft, have
devised search algorithms that are as popular and effective as
Google’s. Amazon has been able to dominate shopping
research with its solution. There is a strong possibility that a
competitor could devise a better search solution than Google’s
at some point.

13. Technological Factors That Are Changing Google’s Business
3. Growing sophistication of social media solutions and instant
messaging. Solutions like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger
can now be used to send news, audio messages and even
streaming video. Programs like Venmo and WeChat can be used
to make financial transactions. This provides an alternative to
Google’s products that is not computer based.
4. The growing sophistication of apps. It is easier than ever for
designers to come up with alternatives to Google’s products.
5. Many companies are now designing proprietary apps to allow
customers to bypass search engines. Examples of this include
shopping apps.

14. Legal Factors That Could Affect Alphabet’s Business
1. Google is increasingly entering heavily regulated fields such as
finance, insurance, telecommunications and automobiles. This
could place severe restrictions on its operations.
2. Liabilities and legal costs could increase as Google enters fields
like insurance and experiments with delivery services.

15. Legal Factors That Could Affect Alphabet’s Business
3. Successful antitrust action in Europe could give rise to similar
efforts elsewhere, particularly in the United States. This could
lead to expensive litigation and efforts to change Google’s
business model.
4. Established players in industries like insurance could use
litigation in an effort to keep Google out. This could increase
legal costs and lead to court rulings that could limit Alphabet’s
expansion.
5. Alphabet owns large numbers of patents. This invites litigation
because of disputes over ownership.

16. Environmental Factors That Could Affect Alphabet’s Future
Google’s business model is heavily dependent on data centers and
other Internet infrastructure that use large amounts of electricity.
Efforts to control global warming by encouraging the use of costlier
green energy sources to produce electricity could raise Alphabet’s
operating costs. At some point Google might not be able to offer
free services as it has in the past.
It remains to be seen whether Alphabet’s new business model will
insulate it from these factors. If it can successfully protect the
company, Google could be more profitable than ever.

17. Thank You !