War: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google Case Study Solution
The case illustrates the digital space acquired by the world’s largest giants, Google in online advertising, Amazon in online retailing, Apple in digitally equipped gadgets and Facebook in Social media and advertising.Over the period of time, these four giants have expanded their areas of operations and shifted to a more digital model, using the digital pathway with internet as a BUS.Since after the Dot-com burst, many businesses and in fact the consumer base started incorporating digital means to retail, communicate and connect with each other. The growing market attractiveness has made thee Four giants intervene or collide with each others operational areas, creating intense commotion, leading more innovation in the market, creating user experiences while enhancing the market shares.
Keywords: Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Digital Landscape, Customer behavior
Define the contested boundaries among Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
The business models of these four players Amazon,Apple, Google and Facebook are different from each other and have distinct value proposition, yet they have challenged boundaries among each other which makes the competition intense and severe.
Google started the site to offer free content to the users, however over the period of time, it started capitalizing the free content through Google awards, and ranked the data and websites of the business based on the famous keywords and thus monetized the model through business advertisements.On the other hand, Facebook started as a social media platform and moved towards among the money through advertising the products and services of other business on its user base through identifying the interest, thus offering the service of bulk online marketing. Google than introduced its Google+ and Gmail account to create the social networking platform, though it didn’t received the particular acceptance as of Facebook, Google used the consumer data to offer the businesses the streamlined customer segment that best fits their offerings.
War Amazon Apple Facebook and Google Harvard Case Solution & Analysis
Amazon on the other hand the biggest retailor of the products and consumer goods covering almost 90% of US. It introduced its Kindle and offered the digital contents to its users, where as Apple entered the same market buy introducing the IPad which offered far moderate content and user flexibility to the customers. Furthermore Google and Apple competed or conflicted with each other’s boundaries through their operating systems,Google introduced its Android operating system, which at initial remained free, and however, in the later years it started monetizing the model and thus challenged the Apple IOS market share. Also, Google and apple competed with each other through “Ok Google” and Apple Siri, thus made the market intense and elevated the user experience.
Social Networks: Google+ vs Facebook
Advertising Sales: Facebook Vs Google
Operating Software’s: Google (Android) Vs Apple (IOS)
Digital Content: Amazon Kindle Vs Apple IPad
Retailing: Amazon Vs ITunes Vs Facebook
For each contested boundary that you have identified, how is the contest likely to play out? How many contests give rise to winner-take-all markets? How many to always-a-share markets? How will the complex ecosystems, in which online businesses are built on top of other online businesses, and third-party sellers that rely on platforms, evolve?
Since all the four players are moving towards digitalization, embracing technological advancements and inculcating the change of customer behavior and market trends into the business strategies, these four players are expected to play out by developing the competitive advantage based on technological advancements and more marker penetration.In doing so, Google and Facebook have the room to penetrate in the advertising market. Since the market is on the verge of adapting online advertising, there is more for Facebook and Google to search and gather on customer profile so to streamline the offerings.
Similarly Facebook has the room to gather more customer data and segregate the customers on the basis of interest and likes, thus developing more defined and distinct customer data, offering the clients a precise and unique data base for the exact targeting purposes.
In addition, Apple and Google will pay out by elevating the operating software’s which the customer have already adopted, thus creating sustainable market share.
Winners-Take-All Market
Amazon has set the example of winners-takes-All market, as it invested heavily into its ecommerce model, at the time, when no other player took ecommerce’s as the main platform to sell their products. In addition, it vigorously expanded the product-line and continued to pursue the strategy,even reaming unprofitable in the initial years. However today, Amazon stands with the highest market share in US, as compared to Wal-Mart, Sear and Others.
Always A share Market
The Android and Google operating systems along with kindle, and IPad are the markets that are going to propose continues value in the market. Since the number of users in digital landscape are increasing and demanding more experiencing in the digital world, these platforms will continue to make the share in the market.
The online businesses will evolve by tapping the changing needs of customers and market trends, Since with the passing time, smart phone users are increasing globally, mitigating the need for web browsing, the businesses online businesses’needs to identify the market gap and taping the customers “touch points” through the right platform, will allow the business to sustain the position.
Identify a firm that you know something about, for example a media company, a retailer, or manufacturing firm, with some involvement in the online economy. Which, if any, of the big four firms does it currently rely on? Might that reliance change? How might that firm hedge the risks it will face if there is a transition to one of the others?
There are many firms that are part of the online economy, for example EBay and Alibaba.These both businesses models offers the platform to the consumer and the supplier to interact with each other using the particular plat form. For example EBay posts the items of the suppliers and when the order arrives, it sends the supplier the order list and the supplier delivers to the customer. The business model and market penetration of EBay, mostly depends on Google advertisement.In doing so, Google adds the cookie with the consumer that attacks the buying behavior of the customer and as soon as the consumer lands on pages somewhat similar with EB products, it pop ups the ad of EBay, thus generating more traffic to the site.
However, if the reliance on Google, shifts, EBay would face great reduction in the customer traffic and will have to look for other channels like Facebook adverting to rank its websites in order to generate and attract traffic. But since Google has remained the biggest search engine and users tends to search more on Google, the transition might hurt the customer traffic and sales of EBay, making suppliers look for other attractive channels that attracts bulk of customers.
What skills will be under-supplied in the future of the digital economy that you envisage?
Since the world is adapting to the digital platform at a faster rate with technology advancement taking place at every minute, there are chances that the business might face the scarcity of digitally skilled labor,because the rate at which the technological and digital advancements are taking place, are much faster than the adaption of people (consumers), hence creating scarcity of digitally skilled labors. Also, there are eminent chances that the business will lack with the digitally equipped extensive platforms that inculcates and incorporates the technology and digital techniques fully with the business strategy as well as with the market. (Ivey, 2012)............
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