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Google CEO Shares His Secrets to SuccessFortune magazine recently spoke to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, to discuss why Google continues to achieve impressive financial results in a slow economy. I began reading the article expecting to learn some groundbreaking business philosophies, but found Schmidt’s insights to be rather obvious.Don’t Lose Sight of What’s Working Schmidt expresses the importance of keeping priority on your core products and services while developing new ones to grow and diversify your business. He refers to this as the ‘threat of distraction.’ In Google’s case, 90% of focus remains on their core services such as SEM and allows 10% to new product development. While this ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ philosophy seems fairly intuitive, many large corporations have fallen prey to the allure of new initiatives. Remember New Coke? McDonald’s Arch Delux? Levi’s Type 1 jeans? Nintendo’s Virtual Boy? Many of these companies have yet to regain the market status they held prior to these failed product launches. Rise to The Challenge Schmidt argues that most growing corporations either don’t recognize or address growth-related issues. Schmidt believes it’s important to recognize challenges and do what it takes to overcome them. He feels the biggest threat is internal vs. market based, specifically highlighting the threat of bad leadership. The list of organizations that saw leadership-related failure is long. Some high-profile examples include Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom. Provide an Integrated Experience Schmidt discusses how Google is consciously working to keep all Google-related products and services within the Google brand vs. having a divisionalized business structure. This includes focusing on ensuring that Google products and services are integrated to provide a cohesive experience for their customers. In my experience, Google is doing a fairly successful job of this. As an online marketing firm, Overdrive has leveraged Google’s SEM, Online Media, and Analytics products (to name a few) and has realized the management, data correlation and optimization benefits of their integration. I encourage you all to click here to read Schmidt’s full interview with Fortune Magazine. You’ll also find a link to a Fortune video discussion that provides another take on the growth-related threats Google is facing. |
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