case study of google company

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• Published: 19 December 2017

GOOGLE: a reflection of culture, leader, and management

• Sang Kim Tran 1 , 2  

International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility volume  2 , Article number:  10 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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This paper provides a viewpoint of the culture and subcultures at Google Inc., which is a famous global company, and has a huge engineering staff and many talented leaders. Through its history of development, it has had positive impacts on society; however; there have been management challenges. The Board of Directors (BoDs) developed and implemented a way to measure the abilities of their managers, which helped to identify problems. This paper will analyze the case study of Harvard Business Review, Oxygen Project, and clarify the management problem in Google’s organization. It will also compare Google with Zappos, a much smaller organization, and present how the BoDs of Zappos assesses its culture and subcultures. In this paper, we will recommend eight important points to building an organizational culture that is positive for stable growth of a company. We believe that much of what be learned could be useful to other business leaders, regardless of company scale.

Introduction

In a large society, each company is considered a miniature society (Mawere 2011 ). Similar to large societies with large cultures, small societies also need to build their own cultures. A culture is influenced by many factors and determines if it is a great culture. Corporate culture requires both the attention to the efficiency of production and business and to the relationship among people in the organization closely (Bhagat et al. 2012 ). Regardless if it is a large or a small organization, it must encounter issues of cooperation among individuals and groups. There are many factors leading to the success of business process re-engineering in higher education (BPR), the main four elements are culture, processes, structure, and technology. Culture is listed as number one (Ahmad et al. 2007 ). Hence, culture becomes the most important factor to the success of the development of a business. Organizational culture is the set of shared beliefs (Steiber and Alänge 2016 ), values, and norms that influence the way members think, feel, and behave. Culture is created by means of terminal and instrumental values, heroes, rites and rituals, and communication networks (Barman n.d. ). The primary methods of maintaining organizational culture are through the socialization process by which an individual learns the values, expected behaviors, and necessary social knowledge to assume their roles in the organization. In addition, (Gupta and Govindarajan 2000 ) and Fig.  1 in (Ismail Al-Alawi et al. 2007 ) illustrates that culture was established by six major factors, such as information systems, people, process, leadership, rewarding system, and organization structure. Therefore, there is a wide variety of combined and sophisticated cultures in the workplace, especially in big corporations like Google, Facebook, Proctor & Gamble, etc. Each organization tends to have a common goal, which is to create a culture that is different from other companies and to promote their teams to be creative in developing a distinctive culture (Stimpson and Farquharson 2014 ). Clearly, we can see that Google’s culture is different than others. What makes this company unique and different from others, as well as the dominant cultures and subcultures existing at this company? How do leadership behaviors impact the organizational culture? By operating a case study of a Harvard Business Review to analyze its organizational culture, subsequently, having compared it with Zappos’ culture, this paper will clarify the similarities and differences in managing organizational cultures between them and consider whether the solutions for the problems can be applied to other business models, and for tomorrow leaders or not?

Trends of using product by information searching

Company overview

This part shows how Google became famous in the world and its culture and subcultures made it a special case for others to take into consideration. Google is one of the few technology companies which continue to have one of the fastest growth rates in the world. It began by creating a search engine that combined PageRank system, developed by Larry Page (ranking the importance of websites based on external links), and Web search engine, created by Sergey Brin (accessing a website and recording its content), two co-founders of the company (Jarvis 2011 ; Downes 2007 ). Google’s achievements absolutely do not come from any luck. Google has made extra efforts in creating an index of a number of websites, which have been up to 25 billion websites. This also includes 17 million images and one billion messages to Usenet group (Downes 2007 ). Besides searching for websites, Google users are able to search for PDF files, PostScript, documents, as well as Microsoft, Lotus, PowerPoint and Shockwave files. Google processes nearly 50% of search queries all over the world. Moreover, it is the number one search option for web users and is one of the top five websites on the Internet, which have more than 380 million users and 28 billion visits every month, and more than 50% of access from countries outside the US (Desjardins 2017 ). Google’s technology is rather special: it can analyze millions of different variables of users and businesses who place advertisements. It then connects them with millions of potential advertisements and gives messages of advertisement, which is closest to objects in less than one second. Thus, Google has the higher rate of users clicking advertisements than its opponent Yahoo, from 50 to 100%, and it dominates over 70% market share of paid advertisements (Rosenberg 2016 ). Google’s self-stated mission: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful (Alves n.d. ).” Nowadays, it is believed that people in the world like “Google” with words “the useful-lively information storage”.

Predominant culture at Google

The dominant culture in the organization depends on the environment in which the company operates the organization’s objectives, the belief system of the employees, and the company’s management style. Therefore, there are many organizational cultures (Schein 2017 ). The Exhibit 3.1 at page 39 in (Schein 2009 ) provides what culture is about. For example, employee follows a standard procedure with a strict adherence to hierarchy and well-defined individual roles and responsibilities. Those in competitive environments, such as sales may forget strict hierarchies and follow a competitive culture where the focus is on maintaining strong relationships with external parties. In this instance, the strategy is to attain competitive advantages over the competition. The collaborative culture is yet another organizational way of life. This culture presents a decentralized workforce with integrated units working together to find solutions to problems or failure.

Why do many large companies buy its innovation? Because its dominant culture of 99% defect-free operational excellence squashes any attempts at innovation, just like a Sumo wrestler sitting on a small gymnast (Grossman-Kahn and Rosensweig 2012 ). They cannot accept failures. In fact, failure is a necessary part of innovation and Google took this change by Oxygen Project to measure the abilities of their multicultural managers. This means that Google itself possesses multiple different cultures (see Google’s clips). Like Zappos, Google had established a common, organizational culture for the whole offices that are distinctive from the others. The predominant culture aimed at Google is an open culture, where everybody and customer can freely contribute their ideas and opinions to create more comfortable and friendly working environment (Hsieh 2010a ).

The fig.  2 .1 in chapter two of (Schein 2009 ) and page 17 in part one of (Schein 2017 ) provide us three levels of culture which are Artifacts, Espoused values and Underlying assumptions helping us to understand the culture at Google. At page 84, in (Schein 2009 ), the “artifacts” are identified such as dress codes, level of formality in authority relationships, working hours, meeting (how often, how run, timing), how are decisions made, communication, social events, jargon, uniforms, identity symbols, rites and rituals, disagreements and conflicts, balance between work and family . It seems that Google is quite open in these artifacts by showing a respect for uniform and national culture of each staff individually and giving them the right to wear traditional clothes.

Ad Blocking Incidence

Working at Google, employees enjoy free food served throughout the day, a volleyball court, a swimming pool, a car wash, an oil change, a haircut, free health care, and many other benefits. The biggest benefit for the staff is to be picked up on the day of work. As assessed by many traffic experts, the system set up by Google is considered to be a great transport network. Tad Widby, a project manager and a traffic system researcher throughout the United States, said: “I have not seen any larger projects in the Bay Area as well as in urban areas across the country” (Helft 2007 ). Of course, it is impossible for Google to “cover up the sky”, so Yahoo also started implementing the bus project for employees in 2005. On peak days, Yahoo’s bus also took off. Pick up about 350 employees in San Francisco, as well as Berkeley, Oakland, etc. These buses run on biofuels and have Wi-Fi coverage. Yet, Danielle Bricker, the Yahoo bus coordinator of Yahoo, has also admitted that the program is “indirectly” inspired by Google’s initiative (Helft 2007 ). Along with that, eBay recently also piloted shuttle bus transfers at five points in San Francisco. Some other corporations are also emerging ideas for treatment of staff is equally unique. Facebook is an example, instead of facilitating employees far from the workplace; it helps people in the immediate neighborhood by offering an additional $10,000 for an employee to live close to the pillar within 10 miles, nearby the Palo Alto Department (Hall 2015 ).

When it comes to Google, people often ask what the formula for success is. The answer here is the employees of Google. They create their own unique workplace culture rules to create an effective work environment for their employees. And here are the most valuable things to learn from Google’s corporate culture (Scott 2008 ) that we should know:

Tolerate with mistakes and help staff correct

At Google, paying attention to how employees work and helping them correct mistakes is critical. Instead of pointing out the damage and blaming a person who caused the mistake, the company would be interested in what the cause of the problem was and how to fix it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Also as its culture, we understand that if we want to make breakthroughs in the workplace, we need to have experimentation, failure and repeat the test. Therefore, mistakes and failures are not terrible there. We have the right to be wrong and have the opportunity to overcome failure in the support of our superiors and colleagues. Good ideas are always encouraged at Google. However, before it is accepted and put into use, there is a clear procedure to confirm whether it is a real new idea and practical or not?

Exponential thought

Google developed in the direction of a holding company - a company that does not directly produce products or provide services but simply invest in capital by buying back capital. In the company, the criteria for setting the ten exponential function in lieu of focusing only on the change in the general increase. This approach helps Google improve its technology and deliver great products to consumers continuously.

Of course, every company wants to hire talented people to work for them. However, being talented is an art in which there must be voluntary work and enthusiasm for the work of the devotees. At page 555 in (Saffold 1988 ) illustrated that distinctive cultures dramatically influencing performance do exist. Likewise, Google, Apple, Netflix, and Dell are 40% more productive than the average company which attracts top-tier employees and high performers (Vozza 2017 ). Recognizing this impact, Google created a distinctive corporate culture when the company attracted people from prestigious colleges around the world (West 2016 ; Lazear and Gibbs 2014 ).

Build a stimulating work environment

When it comes to the elements that create creativity and innovation, we can easily recognize that the working environment is one of the most important things. Google has succeeded in building an image of a creative working. Google offices are individually designed, not duplicated in any type of office. In fact, working environment at Google is so comfortable so that employees will not think of it as a working room, with a full area of ​​work, relaxation, exercise, reading, watching movies. Is the orientation of Google’s corporate culture to stimulate creativity and to show interest in the lives of employees so that volunteers contribute freely (Battelle 2011 )?

Subculture is also a culture, but for a smaller group or community in a big organization (Crosset and Beal 1997 ). Google, known as the global company with many more offices, so there are many subcultures created among groups of people who work together, from subcultures among work groups to subcultures among ethnic groups and nations, multi-national groups, as well as multiple occupations, functions, geographies, echelons in the hierarchy and product lines. For example, six years ago, when it bought 100 Huffys for employees to use around the sprawling campus, has since exploded into its own subculture. Google now has a seven-person staff of bicycle mechanics that maintains a fleet of about 1300 brightly-colored Google bikes. The company also encourages employees to cycle to work by providing locker rooms, showers and places to securely park bikes during working hours. And, for those who want to combine meetings with bike-riding, Googlers can use one of several seven-person (Crowley 2013 ).

Leadership influences on the culture at Google

From the definition of leadership and its influence on culture; so what does leader directly influence the culture existed? According to Schein, “culture and leadership are two sides of the same coin and one cannot understand one without the other”, page three in (Schein 2009 ). If one of us has never read the article “Google and the Quest to create a better boss” in the New York Times, it is listed in a priority reading. It breaks the notion that managers have no change. The manager really makes a difference (Axinn 1988 ; Carver 2011 ). In fact, a leader has a massive impact on the culture of the company, and Google is not an exception. The leaders of Google concerned more about the demands and abilities of each individual, the study of the nature of human being, an appreciation their employees as their customers. At Google, the founders thought they could create a company that people would want to work at when creating a home-like environment. It is real that they focus on the workplace brings the comfort to staff creatively and freely (Lebowitz 2013 ).

In my opinion, a successful business cannot be attributed solely from a single star; that needs the brightness of all employees. It depends very much on the capacity and ability to attract talented people. It is the way in which the leader manages these talents, is the cornerstone of corporate culture. One thing that no one can deny is that a good leader must be a creator of a corporate culture so that the employees can maximize capabilities themselves (Driscoll and McKee 2007 ; Kotter 2008 ).

To brief, through the view of Google’s culture, BoDs tended and designed to encourage loyalty and creativity, based on an unusual organizational culture because culture is not only able to create an environment, but it also adapts to diverse and changes circumstances (Bulygo 2013 ).

Company growth and its impact

“Rearrange information around the world, make them accessible everywhere and be useful.” This was one of the main purposes set by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they first launched Google on September 4th, 1998, as a private company (Schmidt and Rosenberg 2014 ). Since then, Google has expanded its reach, stepped into the mobile operating system, provided mapping services and cloud computing applications, launched its own hardware, and prepared it to enter the wearable device market. However, no matter how varied and rich these products are, they are all about the one thing, the root of Google: online searching.

1998–2001: Focus on search

In its early years, Google.com was simply one with extreme iconic images: a colorful Google logo, a long text box in the middle of the screen, a button to execute. One button for searching and the other button are “I’m feeling lucky” to lead users to a random Google site. By May 2000, Google added ten additional languages to Google.com , including French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish, etc. This is one of the milestones in Google’s journey into the world. Google.com is available in over 150 languages (Scott 2008 ; Lee 2017 ).

2001–2007: Interface card

A very important event with Google around this time was the sale of shares to the public (IPO). In October 2003, Microsoft heard news of the IPO, so it quickly approached Google to discuss a buyout or business deal. Nevertheless, that intention was not materialized. In 2004, it was also the time when Google held a market share of 84.7% globally through collaboration with major Internet companies, such as Yahoo, AOL, and CNN. By February 2004, Yahoo stopped working with Google and separately stood out for engine search. This has led Google to lose some market share, but it has shown the importance and distinctness of Google. Nowadays, the term “Google” has been used as a verb just by visiting Google.com and doing an online search (Smith 2010 ). Not stopping at the homepage search, Google’s interface tag began to be brought to Gmail and Calendar with the links at the top of the page. Google homepage itself continues to use this style.

In 2006, Google also made an important acquisition to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion (Burgess and Green 2013 ). However, the company decided to keep YouTube as a separate brand and not to include it in Google Video search. Thanks to the backing of an Internet industry giant, YouTube has grown to become the world’s largest online video sharing service (Cha et al. 2007 ).

2007–2012: Navigation bar, Google menu, Google now

Google began to deploy a new navigation bar located at the edge of the screen. It includes links to a place where to look for photos, videos, news, maps, as well as buttons to switch to Gmail, Calendar, and other services developed by the company. In the upper left corner, Google added a box displaying Google + notifications and user accounts’ image. Google Now not only appeared on Android and it’s also brought to Chrome on a computer as well as iOS. All have the same operating principle, and the interface card still appears as Android it is.

2013–2014: Simplified interface

Google has moved all of the icons that lead to its other applications and services to an App Drawer button in the upper right hand, at the corner of the screen. In addition, Google.com also supports better voice search through the Chrome browser. Google has experimented with other markets, such as radio and print publications, and in selling advertisements from its advertisers within offline newspapers and magazines. As of November 2014, Google operates over 70 offices over 40 countries (Jarvis 2011 ; Vise 2007 ).

2014–2017: Chrome development and facing challenges

In 2015, Google would turn HTTPS into the default. The better website is, the more users will trust search engine. In 2016, Google announced Android version 7, introduced a new VR platform called Daydream, and its new virtual assistant, Google Assistant.

Most of Google’s revenue comes from advertising (Rosenberg 2016 ). However, this “golden” business is entering a difficult period with many warning signs of its future. Google Search is the dominant strength of Google and bringing great revenue for the company. Nonetheless, when Amazon surpassed Google to become the world’s leading product in the search engine in last December, this advantage began to wobble. This is considered a fatal blow to Google when iOS devices account for 75% of their mobile advertising revenue (Rosenberg 2016 ).

By 2016, the number of people installing software to block ads on phones has increased 102% from 2015. Figure  1 illustrates that by the year’s end, about 16% of smart phone users around the world blocked their ads whilst surfing the web. These were also two groups having the most time on the Internet, high-earners and young people; however, these people have disliked ads (see Fig. 1 ).

Figure  2 shows the young people have the highest ad blocking rates. It is drawing a gloomy picture for the sustainable development of the online advertising industry in general and Google in particular. Therefore, in early 2017, Google has strategies to build an ad blocking tool, built into the Chrome browser. This tool allows users to access ads that have passed the “Coalition for Better Ads” filter so as to limit the sense of discomfort (see Fig. 2 ).

For the company impact, the history shows that speedy development of Google creates both economic and social impacts to followers in a new way of people connection (Savitz 2013 ). In this modern world, it seems that people cannot spend a day without searching any information in Google (Chen et al. 2014 ; Fast and Campbell 2004 ), a tool serves human information seeking needs. Even though when addressing this paper, it is also in need the information from Google search and uses it as a supporting tool. Nobody can deny the convenience of Google as a fast and easy way to search (Schalkwyk et al. 2010 ; Jones 2001 ; Langville and Meyer 2011 ).

Research question and methodology

In order to get the most comprehensive data and information for this case analysis, a number of methods are used, including:

Research data and collect information were mostly from the Harvard Study (Project Oxygen), which has been selected because it is related to the purpose of our study.

Data collection and analysis has been taken from Google Scholar and various websites related researches. We look at the history of appearance, development, and recognize the impacts of this company, as well as the challenges and the way the Board of Directors measures the abilities of their manager when the problem is found.

Analyzing: It was begun by considering expectations from the Harvard Study. Subsequently, considering the smaller organization (Zappos) in comparison of how its cultures and subcultures are accessed as well. Since then, the paper has clarified the management problem that Google and Zappos confront and deal with it so as to help other businesses apply this theoretical practice and achieve its goal beyond expectations.

In our paper, we mainly use the inductive method approach by compiling and describing the other authors’ theories of corporate culture, especially Google and Zappos in merging and comparing, analyzing them and making our own results.

From the aspects of the research, the questions are suggested as below:

What is the most instrumental element found from the Harvard study?

Is there any difference and similarity between a huge company and a smaller enterprise in perspective of culture and subculture?

What makes Google different from others, the dominant cultures as well as subcultures existing? How do leadership behaviors impact on the organizational culture?

How organizational culture impacts on business achievements?

The Harvard study

Project oxygen summary.

This project began in 2009 known as “the manager project” with the People and Innovation Lab (PiLab) team researching questions, which helped the employee of Google become a better manager. The case study was conducted by Garvin (2013) about a behavior measurement to Google’s manager, why managers matter and what the best manager s do. In early days of Google, there are not many managers. In a flat structure, most employees are engineers and technical experts. In fact, in 2002 a few hundred engineers reported to only four managers. But over time and out of necessity, the number of managers increased. Then, in 2009, people and team culture at Google noticed a disturbing trend. Exit interview data cited low satisfaction with their manager as a reason for leaving Google. Because Google has accessed so much online data, Google’s statisticians are asked to analyze and identify the top attributes of a good manager mentioned with an unsolved question: “Do managers matter?” It always concerns all stakeholders at Google and requires a data-based survey project called Project Oxygen to clarify employees’ concern, to measure key management behaviors and cultivate staff through communication and training (Bryant 2011 ; Garvin et al. 2013 ). Research −1 Exit Interviews, ratings, and semiannual reviews. The purpose is to identify high-scoring managers and low-scoring managers resulted in the former, less turnover on their teams, and its connection (manager quality and employee’s happiness). As for “what the best managers do”, Research-2 is to interview high and low scoring managers and to review their performance. The findings with 8 key behaviors illustrated by the most effective managers.

The Oxygen Project mirrors the managers’ decision-making criteria, respects their needs for rigorous analysis, and makes it a priority to measure impact. In the case study, the findings prove that managers really have mattered. Google, initially, must figure out what the best manager is by asking high and low scoring managers such questions about communication, vision, etc. Its project identifies eight behaviors (Bulygo 2013 ; Garvin et al. 2013 ) of a good manager that considered as quite simple that the best manager at Google should have. In a case of management problem and solution, as well as discussing four- key theoretical concepts, they will be analyzed, including formal organizational training system, how culture influences behavior, the role of “flow” and building capacity for innovation, and the role of a leader and its difference from the manager.

Formal organizational training system to create a different culture: Ethical culture

If the organizational culture represents “how we do things around here,” the ethical culture represents “how we do things around here in relation to ethics and ethical behavior in the organization” (Key 1999 ). Alison Taylor (The Five Levels of an Ethical Culture, 2017) reported five levels of an ethical culture, from an individual, interpersonal, group, intergroup to inter-organizational (Taylor 2017 ). In (Nelson and Treviño 2004 ), ethical culture should be thought of in terms of a multi-system framework included formal and informal systems, which must be aligned to support ethical judgment and action. Leadership is essential to driving the ethical culture from a formal and informal perspective (Schwartz 2013 ; Trevino and Nelson 2011 ). Formally, a leader provides the resources to implement structures and programs that support ethics. More informally, through their own behaviors, leadership is a role model whose actions speak louder than their words, conveying “how we do things around here.” Other formal systems include selection systems, policies and codes, orientation and training programs, performance management systems, authority structures, and formal decision processes. On the informal side are the organization’s role models and heroes, the norms of daily behavior, organizational rituals that support or do not support ethical conduct, the stories people tell about the organization and their implications for conduct, and the language people use, etc. Is it okay to talk about ethics? Or is ethical fading the norm?

The formal and informal training is very important. The ethical context in organizations helps the organizational culture have a tendency to the positive or negative viewpoints (Treviño et al. 1998 ). The leader should focus on providing an understanding of the nature and reasons for the organization’s values and rules, on providing an opportunity for question and challenge values for sincerity/practicality, and on teaching ethical decision-making skills related to encountered issues commonly. The more specific and customized training, the more effective it is likely to be. Google seemed to apply this theory when addressed the Oxygen Project.

How culture influences behavior

Whenever we approach a new organization, there is no doubt that we will try to get more about the culture of that place, the way of thinking, working, as well as behavior. And it is likely that the more diverse culture of a place is, the more difficult for outsiders to assess its culture becomes (Mosakowski 2004 ).

Realizing culture in (Schein 2009 ) including artifacts, espoused valued and shared underlying assumptions. It is easier for outsiders to see the artifacts (visual objects) that a group uses as the symbol for a group; however, it does not express more about the espoused values, as well as tacit assumptions. In (Schein et al. 2010 ), the author stated: “For a culture assessment to be valuable, it must get to the assumptions level. If the client system does not get to assumptions, it cannot explain the discrepancies almost always surface between the espoused values and the observed behavioral artifacts” (Schein et al. 2010 ). Hence, in order to be able to assess other cultures well, it is necessary for us to learn each other’s languages, as well as adapt to a common language. Moreover, we also need to look at the context of working, the solution for shared problems because these will facilitate to understand the culture better.

According to the OCP (Organizational Culture Profile) framework (Saremi and Nejad 2013 ), an organization is with possessing the innovation of culture, flexible and adaptable with fresh ideas, which is figured by flat hierarchy and title. For instance, Gore-Tex is an innovative product of W. L. Gore & Associates Inc., considered as the company has the most impact on its innovative culture (Boudreau and Lakhani 2009 ). Looking at the examples of Fast Company, Genentech Inc., and Google, they also encourage their employees to take challenges or risks by allowing them to take 20% of their time to comprehend the projects of their own (Saremi and Nejad 2013 ). In (Aldrich n.d. ), it is recorded that 25%–55% of employees are fully encouraged and giving a maximum value.

The famous quote by Peter Drucker , “Culture eats strategy for Breakfast” at page 67 has created a lot of interest in (Manning and Bodine 2012 ; Coffman and Sorensen 2013 ; Bock 2015 ). Despite we all know how important culture is, we have successively failed to address it (O'Reilly et al. 1991 ). The organizational research change process from the view of Schein ( 2009 ); it is a fact that whenever an organization has the intention of changing the culture, it really takes time. As we all acknowledge, to build an organizational culture, both leader and subordinate spend most of their time on learning, relearning, experiencing, as well as considering the most appropriate features. Sometimes, some changes are inevitable in terms of economic, political, technological, legal and moral threats, as well as internal discomfort (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy 2006 ; Schein 1983 ). As the case in (Schein 2009 ), when a CEO would like to make an innovation which is proved no effective response, given that he did not get to know well about the tacit implications at the place he has just come. It is illustrated that whatsoever change should need time and a process to happen (Blog 2015 ; Makhlouk and Shevchuk 2008 ). In conclusion, a new culture can be learned (Schein 1984 ), but with an appropriate route and the profits for all stakeholders should be concerned by the change manager (Sathe 1983 ).

It is true that people’s behavior managed by their types of culture (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002 ). All tacit assumptions of insiders are not easy for outsiders to grasp the meaning completely (Schein 2009 ). It is not also an exception at any organization. Google is an example of the multicultural organization coming from various regions of the world, and the national or regional cultures making this multicultural organization with an official culture for the whole company.

In this case, the organizational culture of Google has an influence on the behaviors of manager and employee. In addition, as for such a company specializes in information technology, all engineers prefer to work on everything with data-evidence to get them involved in the meaningful survey about manager (Davenport et al. 2010 ). Eventually, Google discovered 8 good behaviors of manager, which effect to the role of “flow” also (Bulygo 2013 ; Garvin et al. 2013 ).

The role of the “flow” and building capacity for innovation

More and more people are using the term of “patient flow”. This overview describes patient flow and links to theories about flow. Patient flow underpins many improvement tools and techniques. The term “flow” describes the progressive movement of products, information, and people through a sequence of the process. In simple terms, flow is about uninterrupted movement (Nave 2002 ), like driving steadily along the motorway without interruptions or being stuck in a traffic jam. In healthcare, flow is the movement of patients, information or equipment between departments, office groups or organizations as a part of a patient’s care pathway (Bessant and Maher 2009 ). In fact, flow plays a vital role in getting stakeholders involved in working creatively and innovatively (Adams 2005 ; Amabile 1997 ; Forest et al. 2011 ). An effective ethical leader must create flow in work before transfer it to employees for changing the best of their effort to maintain, keep and develop “flow” in an engineering job, which job be easier to get stress. Definitely, Google gets it done very well.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the knowledge from my Master course, a credit of managing culture which helps me to write this paper. The author also gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments and suggestions of the reviewers and Associate Professor Khuong- Ho Van, who provided general technical help that all have improved the article.

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Tran, S.K. GOOGLE: a reflection of culture, leader, and management. Int J Corporate Soc Responsibility 2 , 10 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-017-0021-0

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Received : 16 May 2017

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-017-0021-0

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Google’s corporate values and business strategy help to promote innovation within its workforce, thus the company’s rapid growth.

Through innovations such as Google toolbar browser, keyword-targeted advertising, and expansion of search capabilities to include 28 languages, the company earned a annual revenue of $86 million for the 2001 fiscal year.

This figure was very high compared to their annual revenue of $220,000 two years earlier.

The company’s Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Eric Schmidt was definitely doing his job effectively. He managed to build a corporate culture for Google, which has made it a striking, favorable, fitting, and exquisite place to work.

It promotes cultural and talent diversity in its workforce. It also nurtures a spirit of togetherness among workers.

The inclusive nature of the work environment at Google motivates employees towards achieving organizational goals, as they develop a certain level of attachment to activities and processes within the company.

Google has developed its business model along this culture, thus the reason it stands out from its competitors. The focus of their business model is to improve access to information by providing quality, reliable and effective means of doing so.

This is a management tool used by organizations to make decisions through assessment of organizational structure and corporate culture. It entails identifying internal strengths and weaknesses of an organization, as well as external opportunities and threats.

The cardinal focus of applying SWOT analysis in an organization is to build on strengths, do away with weaknesses, take hold of available opportunities, and respond to possible threats.

Google has several internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats from the external environment.

A strength that has enhanced Google’s fast growth is an effective market strategy. The market strategy applied by Google entails innovation, a large portfolio of products, broad market coverage, and effective marketing.

Google has created a global customer base covering various types of customers of varied age, social and economic class, as well as political and religious affiliations.

The second strength is good human resource planning and management strategies. Google has demonstrated strong ability to create a cohesive and inclusive work environment that helps maintain high employee morale.

They have effective employee motivation and retention strategies that include good remuneration packages and workplace benefits.

The third strength is effective change management strategies. Innovation creates need for regular change implementation at Google, and it has effectively managed to introduce without compromising its corporate culture.

Other notable strengths of Google include effective leadership and management strategies, financial stability, customer goodwill, and a strong corporate culture.

The first weakness is poor recruitment strategies. The human resource department at Google receives numerous applications from potential employees from various parts of the world.

Google ignores these applications because its owners prefer to hire graduates from Stanford University, their alma mater.

This strategy locks out very qualified and competent individuals who could bring a new dimension into Google’s way of conducting business.

The second weakness is poor implementation of employee retention strategies. Although the company has developed strategies for reducing employee turnover, poor implementation has forced some top managers to leave and join their competitors.

When employees leave and join a competitor, the competitor most likely counters their efforts in the market.

The third weakness is unreliable partnerships. Google formed numerous partnerships with many companies in a bid to increase its market share. Some of these partnerships failed to fulfill their desired potential, leading to poor management of some portfolios.

Opportunities

The outside environment offers Google numerous opportunities that can be exploited to improve stability in the market.

The first opportunity is to integrate its services with computer software in order to attract more users. This means that Google can form partnerships with computer software developers like Microsoft to have their products integrated during production.

Google plans to launch an operating system called chrome that will enable it compete effectively with companies such as Microsoft.

Although it will be challenging to convince people to try out a new operating system for their personal computers, Google can look up to its operating system for smart phones that has been a huge success. This will motivate them to go ahead with the launch.

The operating system is cost effective, reliable and its usability suits needs of many internet users. This is an opportunity Google can exploit and stamp its control of the internet service market.

Other opportunities include expansion of global market presence, integration of research and development skill in its activities, as well as development of new business partnerships for growth of its brand.

The first threat is Google’s inability to provide enough motivation to part time employees who work on various projects. Many of these employees do not receive allowances and this might derail their human resource development strategies.

The second threat is court battles instigated by its major competitors. Yahoo, Amazon, and Microsoft among other companies have filed a case to stop Google from digitizing and getting exclusive rights for the concept of online advertising.

The third threat faced by Google is the dynamic nature of competition in the industry. There is need for increased innovation to ensure that the company does not lose its market leadership to emerging competitors.

Google needs to apply certain approaches to ensure that it makes the best out of its strengths, do away with weaknesses, seize available opportunities, and eliminate all threats from the external environment.

The first recommendation is need for Google to further reflect on its mission statement and develop it. It is important for Google to know that all their competitors are seeking to provide the best services on the market. Thus, it needs to rethink how it can maintain its market leadership.

The second recommendation is that Google needs to reorient its organizational structure and culture to promote development of its brand. Google needs to develop effective strategies for change management, which is an effective tool for organizational success.

Thirdly, Google needs to revise its recruitment strategy to include graduates from other institutions who can provide an extra dimension to its organizational development.

Google currently applies a strategy that its founders started, of picking their employees from Stanford University, as they believe its graduates have the essential competencies.

Maintaining market leadership is a function of human resource management that involves applying effective recruitment strategies.

Employee recruitment entails developing an attractive remuneration and benefits package for all workers. This helps to reduce employee turnover because they will be satisfied and motivated to work.

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IvyPanda. (2019, July 5). Google Case Study: SWOT Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/google-case-study-analysis/

"Google Case Study: SWOT Analysis." IvyPanda , 5 July 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/google-case-study-analysis/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Google Case Study: SWOT Analysis'. 5 July.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Google Case Study: SWOT Analysis." July 5, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/google-case-study-analysis/.

1. IvyPanda . "Google Case Study: SWOT Analysis." July 5, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/google-case-study-analysis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Google Case Study: SWOT Analysis." July 5, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/google-case-study-analysis/.

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Google case study

Google revenue model case study

Google case study : A summary of Google business strategy and background on Google technology for readers of my Digital Marketing and E-commerce books. End of case contains technical references on Google's approach to crawling, indexing and ranking results at the end of this case study page.

This Google strategy case study is updated for each new edition of my Digital marketing or E-business book.

Google mission

Google’s mission is encapsulated in the SEC filing statement:

“ to organize the world’s information …. and make it universally accessible and useful ”.

Google explains that it believes that the most effective, and ultimately the most profitable, way to accomplish our mission is to put the needs of our users first. Offering a high-quality user experience has led to strong word-of-mouth promotion and strong traffic growth.

Read further details on the culture and ethics of Google in their Ten Things Manifesto . Notable tenets of the Google philosophy are:

• Focus on the user and all else will follow.
• It's best to do one thing really, really well.
• You can make money without doing evil (the founders are well known and chastised for making this statement).

Putting users first is reflected in three key commitments illustrated in the Google SEC filings: “1. We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful search results possible, independent of financial incentives. Our search results will be objective and we will not accept payment for inclusion or ranking in them.

• We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful advertising. Advertisements should not be an annoying interruption. If any element on a search result page is influenced by payment to us, we will make it clear to our users.
• We will never stop working to improve our user experience, our search technology and other important areas of information organization”.

In the Google Annual SEC filings (the best source of information on Google's strategy and value proposition), the company explains “ How We Provide Value to Our Users ”: “We serve our users by developing products that quickly and easily find, create, organize, and share information. We place a premium on products that matter to many people and have the potential to improve their lives”.

Some of the key benefits which are stressed are: Comprehensiveness and Relevance; Objectivity; Global Access; Ease of Use; Pertinent, Useful Commercial Information; Multiple Access Platforms and Improving the Web.

Google Revenue - summary of the 2011 split

Word Stream has taken the published figure and contributed this breakdown.

Source: WordStream

Google Services - 2010 update

The range of established Google services is well known. Many of these achieve through acquisition - see this 2010 summary of Google acquisitions

Google’s commitment to innovation is indicated by these more recent additions to their services which show that their ambitions extend far beyond search and information management through developing operating systems and hardware across multiple platforms to fulfill their mission “ to organize the world’s information …. and make it universally accessible and useful ”.

• Google TV (Google TV (announced 2010) as part of a partnership agreement with Sony and other hardware vendors
• Nexus One Phone using the Google Android mobile operating system launched in January 2010
• Google Mobile advertising (although Google has offered text ads for some time, the 2009 acquisition of AdMob enables improvements in sophistication of this approach)
• Google Chrome OS (a lightweight operating sysytem announced in 2009 and targeted initially at Netbooks)
• Google Chrome (a browser announced as a beta in 2008 and a full product for Windows in 2009)
• Google Apps Announced in 1997 when Google Apps Premier Edition became available for $50 per user account per year, and includes phone support, additional storage, and a new set of administration and business integration capabilities.

Google strategy presentations

The latest announcements of Google strategy are available from Google podium

You can get the latest company announcement through the Google SEC filings

This is a useful 2008 summary of Google's strategy from a French consulting company:

Previous Case study updates

• Google Founders letter - Published May 2009 - this note from the founders of Google outlines future strategy and priorities in key Google services.
• Number of Google advertisers - currently 1.3 to 1.5 million indicating plenty of potential for growth. See analysis on Number of Google advertisers

Update - trends in usage of Google services

TechCruch has a useful summary of US trends in usage of Google services . This catalogues the continued growth of Google in the US in its core services, but shows Google Video, Scholar and Google Product Search falling substantially.

Click on the top left link on the Widget below to see Tech Crunches take on Google's product strategy:

• Proposition - See Guidelines from Google on the principles used to determine their customer experience of Google and applications like Gmail and Google Docs

Google case study - reports

The best available case study is from the most recent Google Annual Report SEC filing which gives all the Google financial and its success and risk factors. Choose the annual report.

SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is a government agency for which companies like Google have to submit an open evaluation of their business models and marketplace conditions.

One of the best inside indications on the issues that Google faces as a business is this Search Engine Strategies interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt .

This covers many of the challenges that Google faces:

• User data Privacy
• Ad revenue models
• New ad formats (Video and Click Per Call)
• Personalisation of search

Google revenue model

In 2009 Google generated approximately 97% of its revenues (99% in 2008 and 2009). from its advertisers with the remainder from its enterprise search products where companies can install search technology through products such as the Google Appliance and Google Mini.

Latest business performance results - Google Q4 2009 performance

The extract below is taken from the press release update I receive via the Google Investors relation blog - you will be able to get the latest there.

• the continued importance of revenues from ads on third party ads (31%) using the AdSense programme (like ads on my site)
• the surprising volume of revenue from US (c50%) given that Google is a global company
• low cost base - mainly from operating datacentres, payroll and employee stock options

Google Q4 Financial Highlights

• Revenues - Google reported revenues of $6.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing a 17% increase over fourth quarter 2008 revenues of $5.70 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.
• Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.42 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. This represents a 16% increase over fourth quarter 2008 revenues of $3.81 billion.
• Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.04 billion, or 31% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. This represents a 21% increase from fourth quarter 2008 network revenues of $1.69 billion.
• International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $3.52 billion, representing 53% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 53% in the third quarter of 2009 and 50% in the fourth quarter of 2008. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2009 through the fourth quarter of 2009, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009 would have been $112 million lower. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2008 through the fourth quarter of 2009, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009 would have been $196 million lower.
• Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $772 million, representing 12% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2008. In the fourth quarter of 2009, we recognized a benefit of $8 million to revenues through our foreign exchange risk management program, compared to $129 million in the fourth quarter of 2008.
• Paid Clicks - Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 13% over the fourth quarter of 2008 and increased approximately 9% over the third quarter of 2009.
• Cost-Per-Click - Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2008 and increased approximately 2% over the third quarter of 2009.
• TAC - Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to TAC of $1.48 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 27% in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.47 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $250 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

• Other Cost of Revenues - Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, amortization of intangible assets, content acquisition costs as well as credit card processing charges, decreased to $688 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to $707 million, or 12% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2008.
• Operating Expenses - Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $1.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, or 27% of revenues, compared to $1.65 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, or 29% of revenues.

Google technical architecture

Google has been relatively open about how it works and its architecture. These are some of the key documents explaining the Google architecture.

• Original paper by Sergey and Brin . Covers approach to crawling, indexing and ranking. See analysis of latest Google patents .
• Introduction to query and ranking process . This is an introduction for webmasters.
• Google technical architecture overview . This has further details on the process of performing a search and looks at the hardware architecture also.
• Google Server details - pictures of the servers Google uses to power its system.

Here is a little more detail on the process shown in the figure at the top of the page. In 2010 Google introduced these How Google Works Videos which are recommended reading/watching.

1. Crawling

The purpose of the crawl is to identify relevant pages for indexing and assess whether they have changed. Crawling is performed by robots aka spiders or bots which visit web pages and retrieve a reference URL of the page for later analysis and indexing.

Although the terms “bot” and “spider” give the impression of something physical is visiting a site, the reality is that the bots are simply software processes running on a search engine’s server which request pages, follow the links contained on that page and so create a series of page references with associated URLs. This is a recursive process, so each link followed will find additional links which then need to be crawled. Google uses many computers running many distributed processes for crawling.

Each robot leaves a signature in the web server log file of the site it visits with a unique user agent string such as “Googlebot/2.1”. SEOs can use this signature to assess whether or how frequently a page is being crawled by different robots. The SEO Ranking Success Box ‘Evaluate robot crawling’ gives examples of the main user agent strings and discusses this in more detail. It also shows how you can use Google Webmaster Tools to see the number of pages Googlebot is crawling each day.

2. Indexing.

An index is created to enable the search engine to rapidly find the most relevant pages containing the query typed by the searcher. Rather than searching each page for a query phrase, a search engine “inverts” the index to produce a lookup table (in information retrieval terminology a “posting list”) of the documents containing particular words. For example for the search ‘online marketing’ the search engine might find the word online in documents 12, 23, 48, 57 and 94 and the word marketing in documents 12, 23, 48 and 57 as follows:

Table Volume of searches for single keywords in a single month

Online 12 23 57 94 marketing 23 48 57 Both words 23 57

The query of the index for a phrase uses the intersection between different postings lists for different words. The index is distributed across many servers to make lookup more efficient. Google estimates that for each search that someone types in, over 500 servers may work together to find the best documents.

In early search engines, the index information would be limited to a simple lookup table of words against dcuments, but today, many other aspects characterising a page will be stored in the index files for example a document’s its title, meta description, PageRank, trust or authority, spam rating, etc will be referenced. For the words in the document additional attributes will be stored such as semantic markup (H1, H2, etc), occurrence in anchor text, position in document, etc.

3. Ranking or scoring.

The indexing process has produced a lookup of all the pages that contain particular words in a query, but they are not sorted in terms of relevance. Ranking of the document to assess the most relevant set of documents to return in the SERPs occurs in real time for the search query entered. First, relevant documents will be retrieved from a runtime version of the index at a particular data centre, then a rank for each document will be computed based on many ranking factors. A relatively recent description of the technology approach

Evaluation of relevance is based on the many positive indications of relevance contained in this report of which the most important are:

• PageRank – the number of links from other pages.
• Authority and trust of the pages which refer to a page
• The number of times the words, phrases and synonyms occur on the pgage
• The occurrence of the phrase within the document meta data including its title and meta tags.

There are also negative indications of quality which may indicate attempts at SPAM such as including hidden text on a page, repeating a keyphrase within the document or title, lack of real content.

4. Query request and results serving.

The familiar search engine interface accepts the searchers query. The users location is assessed through their IP address and the query is then passed to a relevant data centre for processing. The process described in the section on ranking occurs in real-time to return a sorted list of relevant documents and these are then displayed on the Search Results Page. Increasingly, results from other index servers return other types of information from vertical search engines. Google refers to this approach as Google Universal Search.

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here . Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice . In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary . Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question .

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Home » Management Case Studies » Case Study: Google’s Recruitment and Selection Process

Case Study: Google’s Recruitment and Selection Process

Google Inc., the world’s largest and most popular search engine company, is also one of the most sought after companies in the world. Due to the popularity of the company caused by its highly attractive compensation and benefits packages for its employees, millions of job applications are constantly received by Google on an annual basis. While other companies envy Google for attracting and acquiring such highly-talented and highly-skilled individuals from all over the world, the company finds it as a serious cause of dilemma.

When Google Inc. topped the ranks for the most popular companies in the world , it could no longer contain the number of applications it receives from thousands of job hunters from all over the globe. And since the company aims to hire only the best employees that fit the organizational culture and standards of Google , the company started thinking of ways to better improve its recruitment and selection process for its would-be employees.

The Google Inc management also decided to focus on the distinct behavioral characteristics and personality that separates Google employees from any other employees in other known companies. It shifted its focus from academic qualifications and technical experiences to the applicant’s personality , creativity , leadership capacities , innovative and non-conventional ways of thinking and the applicant’s overall exposure to the world. The academic qualifications and the intensive job experience just came in as second priorities of the company in choosing the best candidates for any open positions.

The Google Recruitment Process

One of the most notable statements of Eric Schmidt , the CEO of Google Inc. is that “Google invests in people.” The main reason why people from different cultures, have been dreaming of being recruited and hired by Google is that the company offers possibly the most outstanding job compensation packages any normal employee could ever enjoy.

In order to attract the best employees, Google draws them by the promise of wealth and luxury, providing their employees with almost everything an employee could possibly need, from absurdly high compensations to extravagant and luxurious benefits like gourmet food, carwash, gym, snacks, exercise classes, dry cleaning services, car services, haircuts, oil changes, massages, checkups and many more, all for free.

Another applicant who also have had experiences in the recruitment process of Google claims that his Google experience was one of the most nerve-wracking adventures of his life. The interviewers were looking for extremely bright individuals and so the recruitment method was filled with IQ tests, brain teasers, algorithms, data structures, and a lot of mathematics involved in it.

The Google Selection Process

Google is no doubt the world’s best recruitment leader. Google is known for various unique approaches that it has utilized in order to attract the cream of the crop or the best of the bests. One way is through employment branding. Google has so successfully utilized their brand in order to attract the most talented and highly-competent individuals in the world. Because of their claim of providing the best employee-employer experience supported by the many perks, benefits and high salaries that Google employees get to enjoy, Google became the most desired companies for men and women in the world.

One notable recruitment technique that Google utilized in 2006 was the targeted and unobtrusive approach to sending recruitment messages. Google crafted a simple technique to recruit the best students in certain schools and universities to work for them. They allowed people from these schools to access the search portal of Google wherein the students’ IP address would be identified to see from what organization the person belongs into. The technique was successfully executed using a minimalist and unobtrusive style of recruitment wherein below the search box, the Google system would know whether the targeted student is graduating or not and whether or not they intend to work for Google after graduation. The approach was definitely a successful micro-targeted approach. It was also in the same year when Google opened up to the idea of an Employee Referral Program. In putting up this program, Google made sure that it would deliver them a world-class employee whose personality, qualifications and work ethics reflect the Google standards.

A year passed by and Google’s attempts for recruitment innovations continued to improve. In 2007, Google developed a simple and effective assessment tool to screen its millions of applicants all over the world via an algorithm assessment tool. The algorithm technique effectively separated the top and the best performers from thousands of candidates vying for a position. Moreover, the assessment tool was made sure to successfully predict the best possible candidates from the least and the average and has managed to resolve the issue on the usual assessment tools being used by most companies, relying mainly on the academic qualifications and intensive industry and job experience.

The secret to be selected as a Google employee is that one has to think a lot like an “engineer”. Apparently, Google expects their employees to be highly quantitative and highly analytical as well as highly capable of dealing with too many data all at the same time. During the interviews, an applicant must also be able to demonstrate his skill or capacity by writing codes, intelligently analyzing case studies and brain teasers and solving algorithmic problems on the spot. Also, Google is searching for applicants who are highly practical and are capable of making something out of nothing that people can make use of.

The Google Interview Process

Since Google is known to be the ultimate recruitment and selection machine, its interview processes are also the most grueling experiences an applicant could ever have. Usually, the interviews begin using the telephone. Once the phone interviews conducted have been successful, the applicant would be scheduled by the recruitment officer and be invited for a series of five to ten interviews in one day with ten different people. For some people who have successfully undergone this process, they described it as the most excruciating employment experience of their lives as a lot of mental gymnastics were necessary to prove your skills.

Moreover, other applicants can rate and share comments on another applicant which Google can track and use as another basis for hiring or not hiring an applicant. Overall, the process was a lengthy, tedious and nerve-wracking experience which can possibly traumatize anyone whose dream is to work for one of the most prestigious companies in the world. Nevertheless, the perks and benefits are limitless and are more than enough to compensate for such a tough employment experience.

Related posts:

• Best Practices in Recruitment and Selection
• How to Improve Your Recruitment Process
• Integrity Testing in Employee Selection Process
• How Blockchain Transforms the Recruitment Process?
• Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) – Definition, Benefits and Risks
• Recruitment Process
• Case Study: Restructuring Process of Volkswagen
• Type of Tests Taken in the Selection Process
• Types of Interview Conducted in the Selection Process
• Selection Process in Human Resource Management

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Google — Case Study: The Succes Of Google Company

Case Study: The Succes of Google Company

• Categories: Business Success Company Google

About this sample

Words: 3488 |

18 min read

Published: Dec 3, 2020

Words: 3488 | Pages: 8 | 18 min read

Table of contents

The history of google, the reasons of success, early recognition and efficiency, the business model, continuous innovation, changes and future.

• Early recognition and efficiency
• The business model
• Continuous innovation
• Governance structure and company culture.
• Function for grouping
• Product for grouping
• Unique in hiring
• Celebrates failures
• Provides employees with a fun working environment
• Has its core values and mission statement.

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Current: Preparing teenagers for financial responsibility

About Current

Current is a financial technology company that offers a debit card and app made for teenagers. The app and card give teens hands-on learning with modern financial tools, and connects them with the people, brands, and experiences they value.

Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

Current uses google kubernetes engine on google cloud to improve time to market for app development by 400% while eliminating downtime for users of its debit card app., google cloud results.

• Improves time to market for app development by 400%
• Eliminates downtime for customers
• Enables deployment of new services in hours versus days
• Reduces total cloud hosting costs by 60%

80% reduction in error resolution time

When it comes to developing good financial habits, it pays to start early. Talking to teens about money and monitoring how they spend it helps set them up for a more financially sound future and can have long-term implications for the rest of their lives.

Instead of handing teens cash, many parents are using Current , a Visa chip debit card and smartphone app that helps teens learn how to budget money. Teens can set savings goals, check their balances, earn money by completing chores, and even give to charity. Parents can set an automated allowance, create and approve chores, and easily track their children’s spending with real-time alerts.

To grow, Current must keep its app secure, reliable, and high performing. As a startup, the company started by developing and hosting its app on a simple infrastructure, managing virtual machines with manual processes. As its user base surpassed 25,000 daily active customers, Current began to notice performance bottlenecks, particularly with the Neo4j graph database it uses to store and expose relationships among users, family members, and their debit cards and connected banks. Running the database on a shared application server made it difficult to measure the cost of the required CPU time and memory footprint. Current also lacked a robust way to log and profile the database.

Current considered using a hosted Neo4j solution, but worried that it would limit its ability to deploy in different availability zones as the company grew. Current was also concerned that a hosted solution would drastically increase costs.

“Since moving to Google Cloud, we’ve been able to sustainably grow our user base 7x to more than 175,000 users, and we haven’t experienced any downtime for our services. We’ve also received a lot of collaboration and support from Google, which we weren’t getting from other cloud providers.”

After a short stint with another cloud provider, Current decided to build its own graph database cluster on Google Cloud . The highly available implementation—including a monitoring agent and backup agent—came in at half the cost of a hosted solution or alternative cloud provider according to Trevor Marshall, Chief Technology Officer at Current. Once the engineering team saw the power and reliability of Google Cloud, Current began exploring deeper integration with Google Cloud services.

“Since moving to Google Cloud, we’ve been able to sustainably grow our user base 7x to more than 175,000 users, and we haven’t experienced any downtime for our services,” says Trevor. “We’ve also received a lot of collaboration and support from Google, which we weren’t getting from other cloud providers.”

Accelerating time-to-market

Current now hosts most of its applications in Docker containers, including its business-critical GraphQL API, using Google Kubernetes Engine to automate cluster deployment and management of containerized applications while keeping applications available. Container images are stored on Google Container Registry for fast, scalable retrieval. Integrated logging with Google Stackdriver makes it easy to identify issues, and Current can scale up or down as needed to keep performance high and costs low, with zero downtime for users.

“Moving to Google Cloud reduced our error resolution times by 80% and improved our time to market for app development by 400%. We can iterate quickly, find issues, and redeploy. There’s no reason whatsoever to run Kubernetes outside of Google Cloud, because Google does such a good job.”

With a fully managed environment for containerized applications, Current can deploy new services in hours instead of days while keeping its staffing footprint small. When the company does add team members, they can focus on app development instead of managing and troubleshooting infrastructure.

“Moving to Google Cloud reduced our error resolution times by 80% and improved our time to market for app development by 400%,” says Trevor. “We can iterate quickly, find issues, and redeploy. There’s no reason whatsoever to run Kubernetes outside of Google Cloud, because Google does such a good job.”

Current has released a variety of compelling new features since moving to Google Cloud, including a referral program to recruit more customers and an improved notification feed to inspire more conversations about finances between parents and teens. It also restructured its app to highlight users’ favorite features, including a dedicated allowance section and improved chore management. The new app also communicates with Current’s Kubernetes Engine hosted GraphQL API. Current’s use of GraphQL greatly improves performance by minimizing the data that is sent between the app and the backend, and enables Current’s front-end engineers to share code, increasing developer efficiency.

Improving data and network security

As a financial technology company, Current is always focused on providing the highest levels of security for its customers. Google Cloud facilitates the use of encryption to help protect customer data at rest and in transit to help ensure that customer data is safe when outside the physical boundaries not controlled by Google or on behalf of Google.

For publicly accessible applications, Current configures an ingress resource on Kubernetes clusters to make context-aware load balancing decisions. This ingress also provides a reverse proxy function between users and Current's private network. This helps ensure that no external entity can reach Current’s Google Compute Engine instance fleet directly. Google Cloud also provides Current with the means to forward traffic outside of its private without exposing instances to the public Internet. This gives Current the means to utilize other managed services such MongoDB Atlas, while maintaining a trusted platform.

“Security is one of the biggest benefits of Google Cloud and Kubernetes Engine,” says Trevor. “It was easy for us to configure our environment so that we avoid exposing any public IP addresses for our clusters. When we deploy a new service, we have a recipe that observes security best practices.”

“Google Cloud has allowed us to be highly available, scalable, and cost-efficient, helping us grow from an ambitious startup into a financial technology innovator. We’ve built trust with the families we serve because we’ve been able to offer a great experience.”

Powering a digital workforce

When Current was founded in 2015, the company standardized on Google Workspace for communication and collaboration, using tools such as Gmail and Google Docs , Sheets , and Slides to keep productivity high. Google Workspace administration is so easy that Trevor still handles it all, in addition to leading the company’s tech strategy as CTO.

“Our business depends on Google Workspace,” he says. “It’s simple to use, yet feature-rich and very cost effective. Adding new employees takes a couple of minutes, and they can get to work right away. I can’t imagine using anything else.”

Shaping financial futures

By making it easy for teens and parents to manage and talk about money, Current is preparing a new generation to navigate one of the most challenging aspects of adulthood: financial responsibility. The company’s user base is growing by 20% every month with no signs of slowing, and its Android app just began trending on Google Play. Current is also learning to better manage its own finances. “By avoiding the cost of a hosted Neo4j solution and optimizing resource utilization with Kubernetes Engine, we reduced total cloud hosting costs by 60%," adds Trevor.

“Google Cloud has allowed us to be highly available, scalable, and cost-efficient, helping us grow from an ambitious startup into a financial technology innovator,” says Trevor. “We’ve built trust with the families we serve because we’ve been able to offer a great experience.”

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Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance (and Much More)

• Laszlo Bock

A new longitudinal survey seeks to quantify worker satisfaction, teamwork, and more.

More than 65 years ago in Massachusetts, doctors began a longitudinal study that would transform our understanding of heart disease. The Framingham Heart Study , which started with more than 5,000 people and continues to this day, has become a data source for not just heart disease, but also for insights about weight loss (adjusting your social network helps people lose weight), genetics (inheritance patterns), and even happiness (living within a mile of a happy friend has a 25% chance of making you happier).

• LB Laszlo Bock is the CEO and co-founder of Humu, an HR software company using people science to help people do their best work. He is the former SVP of People Operations at Google and the author of Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead . He donates 100% of his book income to charity.  

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Revolut revolutionizes the financial services industry to make money management easy and accessible for all

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Rovaniemi: Collaboration in the Finnish Arctic with Google Workspace

Royal Government of Bhutan: Enabling sustainable development and social well-being with Google Workspace

SADA Systems: Building a successful business on Google Cloud

SADA: Driving real transformation for thousands of global companies with Google Workspace

SCL Health: Modernizing patient and provider experiences with advanced productivity and collaboration tools

SDIS 41: Providing Loir-et-Cher's volunteer firefighters with equal access to collaborative tools

SGAG: Creating engaging content to put a smile on Singaporean faces

Safetec: Helping customers thrive, grow, and save with Google Workspace

Salesforce: Driving business and positive change through collaboration

Samudera Indonesia: Consolidating email and enhancing collaboration with Google Workspace

Sanmina: Making collaboration a competitive advantage

Savoir Faire Ensemble: Building the fabric of COVID-19 protection with Google Workspace

Schnucks: Improving operational efficiency with seamless collaboration

Scienaptic: Safeguarding data assets with Google Workspace to drive the future of global credit

Seeff Properties: Building better communications with Google Workspace

Shaw Industries

Sheboygan County: Embracing new tools for county responsiveness

Simplifying Healthcare Communication: The Power of Gmail

Singapore Press Holdings: Going paperless and generating efficiencies with Google Workspace and Google Cloud

Snap: Prevent, identify, and respond to threats in Gmail and Google Workspace

Sompo Insurance (Hong Kong): Expanding into retail insurance business

Sony Pictures Imageworks: Making cinematic magic through modern collaboration

Southern Cross Care (SA, NT & VIC) Inc: Transforming the aged care experience with Google Cloud and Google Workspace

Southern cross care champions of change, southern cross care: solving for providing consistent care to patients.

SproutLoud: Transforming channel marketing with cloud IT

St. luke’s medical center: delivering quality healthcare with secure online collaboration to keep patients and staff safe.

State of Arizona: Enhancing productivity and security with cloud collaboration

State of Guanajuato: Improving fiscal audit efficiency with Google Workspace automation

Supr Daily: Empowering teams to streamline processes and improve morning grocery deliveries with AppSheet

TCG: Streamlining loan approval processes with team collaboration on Google Workspace to help more SMEs receive funding

Telus and google cloud partner to create a more sustainable future.

Team Olivia: Creating cost-efficient collaboration with Google Workspace

Teréga: Designing a productivity platform for better collaboration and mobility

Testing and launching applications faster using Appsheet

The F.C. Tucker Company: Revolutionizing real estate sales in Indiana

The FA: Transforming the world’s oldest football association

The Government of Tamaulipas: Example of innovation with Google Workspace and AppSheet

The knot worldwide starts testing duet ai in google workspace.

The Printers Mysore: Bringing 70 years of journalism tradition to the digital age with Google Workspace

The Roche Group

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company: Planting a cloud-based future

The case for change: a business-value framework for technology choices, the new era of work with gemini for google workspace with etsy, fox sports, and thoughtworks.

Thirdware: Unifying 25 years of knowledge to give technology services a competitive advantage

Thoughtworks: Delivering Software Solutions from the Cloud to Clients

Tiger analytics champions of change.

Toho Gas: Creating a safe mobile work environment and gaining foothold to a broader DX business expansion

Tradebridge: Connecting three businesses with one cloud culture

TransContainer: Saving time and money to build a better workforce with Google Workspace

Transforming to a collaborative enterprise with Google Workspace

Transworld Group Singapore: Improving communication between customers and employees to speed up container shipping

Travis Perkins PLC transforms the workspace and embraces a digital future

Treebo Hotels: Transforming India's budget hotel experience with a pioneering digital platform

Trimble, FinQuery: Level up your productivity at work with Gemini for Google Workspace

Trondheim Kommune: Working smarter, easier, and together in the cloud

TrueCar: Making work a smooth drive

Twinkl: Getting top marks for global growth with Google Workspace and Hire by Google

U.s. army chooses google workspace to deliver cutting-edge collaboration, u.s. navy: building bridges (and ships).

Uber, Verizon, Golden State Warriors, Randstad: Level-up your Sales, Marketing & Customer Service with Gemini for Google Workspace

Uber: Enhancing productivity by using AppSheet to automate key administrative processes

Ukrgasbank: how ukraine’s fourth largest bank relies on google workspace during unprecedented times, uniformed services university plans for a digital medical workforce with generative ai.

Unify: Uniting top online brands on one collaboration platform

Unlocking productivity and collaboration with Google Workspace

Uplers solutions pvt. ltd. champions of change, vtech gives its global development teams a new way to collaborate.

Veolia Australia and New Zealand: Improving employee collaboration, mobility and security more effectively with technology

Verizon: Google’s productivity expert on getting to your personal “uptime”

Vichy Catalan Corporation rejuvenates its workforce with more than mineral water

Vidio: Innovating the future of video streaming for Indonesia with Google Workspace

Viessmann: Promoting global collaboration to build tomorrow’s sustainable energy solutions

Virgin Active: Building a culture of collaboration with Google Workspace

Vodafone idea limited champions of change.

Vonage: Driving productivity and sales through digital transformation

Wayfair: Furnishing personalized online buying experiences through cloud collaboration

Wayfair: google workspace | how it’s done, webfx: redefining productivity in the new era of gen ai.

Weiss + Appetito: Matching mobility with peace of mind

Xero: Delivering communications and collaboration at scale with Google Workspace including Google Meet hardware

York: Behind every good outcome

ZALORA: Supporting sustainable, secure business expansion with Google Workspace

Zerodha: improving the retail investment experience with seamless collaboration on google workspace, acommerce champions of change.

eir: Supporting staff to keep more than 2 million customers connected, from home

flaconi: Giving collaboration a makeover with an innovative, customer-first solution on Google Workspace

Ifood: google workspace | how it’s done.

iOPEX Technologies: Driving digital transformation for large enterprises with enhanced security and increased team productivity

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Nurture.farm champions of change, how teams of all sizes connect, create and collaborate.

1. Google Workspace Customer Story: HMH

2. Google Workspace Customer Story: Celestica

3. Google Workspace Customer Story: MullenLowe Group

Customer stories

See how people in your industry are using Google Maps Platform to engage customers and grow their businesses.

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Hacking the Case Interview

If you are interviewing for a business strategy or operations role at Google, there is a high chance that you will be given at least one case interview or case study interview. Roles at Google that have case interviews as part of the interview process include:

• Strategy & Operations
• Product Management
• Business Partnerships
• Business Analyst

In order to land these jobs at Google, you will need to pass every single one of your case interviews. While Google case interviews may seem ambiguous and intimidating at first, know that they can be conquered with the right preparation and practice.

If you are unfamiliar with how to solve or prepare for Google case interviews, we have you covered. In this comprehensive Google case interview guide, we’ll cover:

• What is a Google case interview
• Why Google uses case interviews
• The 6 steps to ace any Google case interview
• Google case interview examples and answers
• Google case interview tips
• Recommended Google case interview resources

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land tech and consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

What is a Google Case Interview?

Google case interviews, also known as Google case study interviews, are 30- to 45-minute exercises in which you are placed in a hypothetical business situation and are asked to find a solution or make a recommendation.

To do this, you’ll create an overall framework that shows what approach you would take to solve the case. Then, you’ll collaborate with the interviewer, answering a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions that will give you the information and data needed to develop an answer. At the end of the case, you’ll deliver your recommendation.

Case interviews have traditionally been used by consulting firms to assess a candidate’s potential to become a successful consultant, but many companies with ex-consultants now use them to assess an interview candidate’s capabilities. Since Google hires so many former consultants in its business roles, you’ll likely encounter at least one case interview in your interview process.

The business problems that you’ll be given in a Google case interview will likely be real challenges that Google faces today:  

• How can Google increase its revenues from enterprise businesses?
• How can Google reduce costs among its customer service call centers while maintaining customer satisfaction?
• Google has seen a steep decline in the number of Google searches in Japan. What is causing this decline and what should Google do to address this?
• How can Google improve customer retention among small and medium-sized businesses?

Depending on what team at Google you are interviewing for, you’ll likely be given a business problem that is relevant to that specific team.

Although there is a wide range of business problems you could possibly be given in your Google case interview, the fundamental case interview strategies to solve each problem is the same. If you learn the right strategies and get enough practice, you’ll be able to solve any Google case interview.

Why does Google Use Case Interviews?

Google uses case interviews because your performance in a case interview is a measure of how well you would do on the job. Google case interviews assess a variety of different capabilities and qualities needed to successfully complete job duties and responsibilities.

Google’s case interviews assess five major qualities:

• Logical, structured thinking : Can you structure complex problems in a clear, simple way?
• Analytical problem solving : Can you read, interpret, and analyze data well?
• Business acumen : Do you have sound business judgment and intuition?
• Communication skills : Can you communicate clearly, concisely, and articulately?
• Personality and cultural fit : Are you coachable and easy to work with?

Since all of these qualities can be assessed in just a 30- to 45-minute case, Google case interviews are an effective way to assess a candidate’s capabilities.

The 6 Steps to Solve Any Google Case Interview

In general, there are six steps to solve any Google case interview or case study interview.

1. Understand the case

Your Google case interview will begin with the interviewer giving you the case background information. While the interviewer is speaking, make sure that you are taking meticulous notes on the most important pieces of information. Focus on understanding the context of the situation and the objective of the case.

Don’t be afraid to ask clarifying questions if you do not understand something. You may want to summarize the case background information back to the interviewer to confirm your understanding of the case.

The most important part of this step is to verify the objective of the case. Not answering the right business question is the quickest way to fail a case interview.

2. Structure the problem

The next step is to develop a framework to help you solve the case. A framework is a tool that helps you structure and break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable components. Another way to think about frameworks is brainstorming different ideas and organizing them into different categories.

For a complete guide on how to create tailored and unique frameworks for each case, check out our article on case interview frameworks .

Before you start developing your framework, it is completely acceptable to ask the interviewer for a few minutes so that you can collect your thoughts and think about the problem.

Once you have identified the major issues or areas that you need to explore, walk the interviewer through your framework. They may ask a few questions or provide some feedback.

3. Kick off the case

Once you have finished presenting your framework, you’ll start diving into different areas of your framework to begin solving the case. How this process will start depends on whether the case interview is candidate-led or interviewer-led.

If the case interview is a candidate-led case, you’ll be expected to propose what area of your framework to start investigating. So, propose an area and provide a reason for why you want to start with that area. There is generally no right or wrong area of your framework to pick first.

If the case interview is interviewer-led, the interviewer will tell you what area of the framework to start in or directly give you a question to answer.

4. Solve quantitative problems

Google case interviews typically have some quantitative aspect to them. For example, you may be asked to calculate a certain profitability or financial metric. You could also be asked to estimate the size of a particular market or to estimate a particular figure.

The key to solving quantitative problems is to lay out a structure or approach upfront with the interviewer before doing any math calculations. If you lay out and present your structure to solve the quantitative problem and the interviewer approves of it, the rest of the problem is just simple execution of math.

5. Answer qualitative questions

Google case interviews will also typically have qualitative aspects to them. You may be asked to brainstorm a list of potential ideas. You could also be asked to provide your opinion on a business issue or situation.

The key to answering qualitative questions is to structure your answer. When brainstorming a list of ideas, develop a structure to help you neatly categorize all of your ideas. When giving your opinion on a business issue or situation, provide a summary of your stance or position and then enumerate the reasons that support it.

6. Deliver a recommendation

In the last step of the Google case interview, you’ll present your recommendation and provide the major reasons that support it. You do not need to recap everything that you have done in the case, so focus on only summarizing the facts that are most important.

It is also good practice to include potential next steps that you would take if you had more time or data. These can be areas of your framework that you did not have time to explore or lingering questions that you do not have great answers for.

Google Case Interview Examples and Answers

Example #1:  What differences would you take into account when selling a product to a client in India versus a client in Argentina?

Sample solution: To answer this, create a framework that shows the most important characteristics or qualities of each country that you would want to look into. For example, one potential framework may look into the customer needs and preferences, the competitive landscape, market trends, and Google’s capabilities across the two countries.

Example #2:  If you were a Google Search competitor entering a new market and had a small market share, how would you convince advertisers to advertise with you?

Sample solution: To answer this question, you should be familiar with Google Search. You can create a framework that outlines the product’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can identify gaps in customer needs. 

At a high level, the strengths of Google Search is that it has the widest reach since it is the most used search engine. It also has high targeting specificity since it has lots of data on long-tail keywords. However, the main drawback is how competitive and expensive it can be for advertisers to use. Customer service can also be slow for smaller customers given the number of customers Google services. Finally, the product can be complicated for advertisers to set up initially.  Therefore, when entering a new market as a Google Search competitor, it may make sense to target customers with smaller budgets and sell them on low-prices, fast customer service, and ease of set up.

Example #3:  What are three areas that Google should invest in?

Sample solution: To answer this question, it may be helpful to clarify what Google’s primary objective is. Are they looking to increase profits, revenues, or number of users? The ideas that you brainstorm may vary depending on their actual goals.  Next, develop a framework to organize your ideas. You may want to think about areas of investments as short-term investments, medium-term investments, and long-term investments.

Example #4:  If you were the CEO of AdSense, what would be your strategy to improve the product?

Sample solution: As always, create a framework to help you organize your ideas in a clear and easy to follow way. To improve AdSense, you can think about improving the product for advertisers, improving the product for search users, and improving the product for Google’s profitability. Using a framework like this one will help you consider all of the different ways that AdSense can be improved.

Example #5:  How much money do you think YouTube makes daily from ads?

Sample solution: This is an estimation question. Before doing any math calculations, make sure to lay out a structure or approach for how you would estimate this figure. 

You may want to start by estimating the number of people in the world, the percentage that use YouTube, the percentage that use YouTube on any given day, the average amount of time spent on YouTube in a day, the number of ads seen for that period of time, and then estimating the amount YouTube earns per ad that is shown. Multiplying all of these figures will give you your answer.

Example #6:  How would you set the price for the YouTube masthead? The YouTube masthead is a digital billboard placed on YouTube’s homepage for 24 hours, reaching about 60 million people.

Sample solution: In general, there are three ways to price a product: pricing by the cost to produce the product, pricing by the economic value the product provides customers, and pricing by the price of competitors’ similar products.

Since the cost of putting up a digital billboard is minimal, the first pricing strategy is not helpful. Looking at the second pricing strategy, you can price the digital billboard based on how much it would have cost the potential customer to get 60 million ad impressions. Looking at the third pricing strategy, you can look into how much other types of advertising that reach a similar number of people costs. For example, you could look into how much Super Bowl ads cost.

Example #7:  How would you market the Google Ads product to a potential client?

Sample solution: To develop an effective marketing strategy, you may want to look into the client’s needs, competitor offerings, and Google Ads’ features or benefits. Exploring these three areas will help you identify the features or benefits of Google Ads that are superior to competitor products that the client values.

Example #8:  How would you estimate the market size of Google display ads on websites?

Sample solution: This is another estimation question. As always, outline a structure before you begin doing any math calculations. 

You may want to start by estimating the global population, estimating the percentage that have internet, estimate the average number of sites visited per day, estimate the percentage of websites that have ads, estimate the percentage of these websites that use Google display ads, estimate the revenue Google generates per ad. If you multiply the product of these figures by 365 days in a year, you’ll get an estimate of the market size of Google display ads.

Example #9:  How would you determine the number of staff members needed in the customer support team next year?

Sample solution: One potential approach for solving this question could look like the following. 

Start with Google’s annual revenues and estimate the average revenue generated per customer to determine the number of customers Google services. For each customer, estimate the frequency in which they call customer support and the average length of a support call. Assuming that a staff member works eight hours per day, you can estimate the number of staff members you’d need to meet the volume of support calls.

You may need to grow this number by Google’s historical growth rate to account for expected revenue growth next year.

Example #10:  If you were setting up a new ecommerce business, what are the things you would look at?

Sample solution: This is a market entry case. Potential areas you should consider looking into in your framework include: the attractiveness of the market, the competitive landscape, the company’s capabilities, and the expected profitability.

Example #11 : How should YouTube deal with spam?

Sample solution: There are many different ways to deal with spam. To ensure that you brainstorm ideas in a clear and comprehensive way, develop a framework to categorize all of the different ways of dealing with spam. You may want to think about this as: preventing spam from being posted, detecting spam, and removing spam.

Example #12 : Let’s say that Google is considering acquiring iRobot, a company that builds consumer robots, such as the Roomba. What would you consider when deciding whether to make this acquisition?

Sample solution: This is an acquisition case. To determine whether or not this is an attractive acquisition, you may want to look into: the attractiveness of the consumer robots market, the attractiveness of iRobot as a company, the potential synergies from the acquisition, and the financial implications of the acquisition.

Example #13 : Estimate the time it takes a Google Street View car to collect footage in a city.

Sample solution: To answer this question, first clarify which city the interviewer is talking about. Then, outline your approach for how you would do this calculation. 

You might want to start by estimating the length and width of the city area. Then, estimate how wide a street is and the average distance between streets. If you think of a city as a grid that consists of vertical and horizontal lines, you can use these estimates to calculate the total street length in the city.

Afterwards, estimate the average speed of a Google Street View car, taking into traffic and stoplights. Dividing the total street length by the average speed of a Google Street View car will get you an estimate of how long it would take to collect footage.

Example #14 : How would you define the strategy for YouTube over the next 5 years?

Sample solution: This question is very similar to Example #3. Before answering, it may be helpful to clarify what YouTube’s primary objective is. Are they looking to increase profits, increase number of users, or increase user engagement? You may want to think about strategy as short-term strategy and long-term strategy.

Example #15 : Let’s say that Google is considering getting into the ride share business. What should they consider when making the decision on whether or not to enter?

Sample solution: This is a market entry case and the approach is similar to Example #10. Potential areas you should consider looking into in your framework include: the attractiveness of the ride share market, the competitive landscape, the company’s capabilities, and the expected profitability.

Google Case Interview Tips

Below are eight of our best tips to help you perform your best during your Google case interviews.

1. Familiarize yourself with Google’s business model

If you don’t understand Google’s business model, it will be challenging for you to do well in their case interviews. Therefore, you should know that Google makes the majority of its revenue by selling advertising and you should be familiar with the products and services that Google offers for the specific team you are interviewing for.

2. Read recent news articles on Google

Often, the cases you’ll see in a Google case interview are real business issues that the company faces. Reading up on the latest news on Google will give you a sense of what Google’s biggest challenges are and what major business decisions they face today. There may be a good chance that you’ll be given a case that is similar to something that you have read in the news.

3. Verify the objective of the case 

Answering the wrong business problem will waste a lot of time during your Google case interview. Therefore, the most critical step of the case interview is to verify the objective of the case with the interviewer. Make sure that you understand what the primary business issue is and what overall question you are expected to answer at the end of the case.

4. Ask clarifying questions

Do not be afraid to ask questions. You will not be penalized for asking questions that are important and relevant to the case. 

Great questions to ask include asking for the definition of an unfamiliar term, asking questions that clarify the objective of the issue, and asking questions to strengthen your understanding of the business situation.

5. Do not use memorized frameworks

Interviewers can tell when you are using memorized frameworks from popular case interview prep books. Google values creativity and intellect. Therefore, make every effort to create a custom, tailored framework for each case that you get.

6. Always connect your answers to the case objective

Throughout the case, make sure you are connecting each of your answers back to the overall business problem or question. What implications does your answer have on the overall business problem?

Many candidates make the mistake of answering case questions correctly, but they don’t take the initiative to tie their answer back to the case objective.

7. Communicate clearly and concisely

In a Google case interview, it can be tempting to answer the interviewer’s question and then continue talking about related topics or ideas. However, you have a limited amount of time to solve a Google case, so it is best to keep your answers concise and to the point.

Answer the interviewer’s question, summarize how it impacts the case objective, and then move onto the next important issue or question.

8. Be enthusiastic

Google wants to hire candidates that love their job and will work hard. Displaying enthusiasm shows that you are passionate about working at Google. Having a high level of enthusiasm and energy also makes the interview more enjoyable for the interviewer. They’ll be more likely to have a positive impression of you.

Recommended Google Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to land a Google job offer:

For help landing interviews

• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple interviews

For help passing case interviews

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with a former Bain interviewer.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.

For help passing behavioral & fit interviews

• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer.

Land Multiple Tech and Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. 30,000+ happy customers.

Are Google’s monopoly cases 5 years too late or 2 years too early?

From the Podcast

Google suffered a major defeat when U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta found that the tech giant had acted illegally to maintain its monopoly in online search. Mehta has yet to decide on the consequences — which Google will undoubtedly fight — but many have speculated how the decision could alter the way Google does business, change the structure of the internet or shake up opportunities for startups.

On Wednesday’s episode of Equity , Rebecca Bellan sat down with Neil Chilson, a lawyer, computer scientist and head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute, to help us understand what’s at stake for Google in its online search case, what to expect in Google’s upcoming ad tech antitrust trial and how generative AI will change the game for Google in particular and antitrust in general.

Google’s upcoming ad tech case

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin on September 9 for yet another case that will explore Google’s anti-competitive tendencies. This time, the courts will decide whether Google created an advertising technology monopoly that squashes competition and forces publishers and advertisers to use Google’s ad tech products, as the Department of Justice alleged in its initial complaint in January 2023. 

“The DOJ is arguing for a narrow market in their complaint that focuses on a very specific ad tech stack,” Chilson said. That stack is display ads, which populate on the side of a web page, and in which Google holds a dominant position. 

The DOJ is arguing that Google controls key parts of the ad tech ecosystem, like tools for advertisers to buy display ads or for publishers to sell ad space, which allows the company to allegedly manipulate ad pricing, disadvantage competitors and favor its own services. 

Chilson said he expects Google to argue that advertisers have a lot of options for display ads. 

“So whether that’s on TV or you go to The New York Times or you go to Facebook, and that these are all competitors because advertisers are choosing between them when they try to decide how to display advertisements,” Chilson said.

Chilson noted that the DOJ will likely bring up Google’s acquisition history, in which it purchased DoubleClick in 2008 that then became the backbone of its ad business. Google also bought AdMeld in 2011 to gain more control over the ad market’s supply side. But Google will probably refute those purchases by pointing out that the Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ approved those deals at the time.

Becoming versus maintaining a monopoly

The main difference between the two cases is around how Google got to its monopoly status and how it maintained its monopoly status . 

“[Mehta] went to great lengths [in the online search case] to say that Google had achieved … its market power through consumers finding them very popular and wanting to use them,” Chilson remarked on the online search case .

“The Google search case is more about Google maintaining its monopoly at the top through what the court decided were anti-competitive contracts that it was entering, for example, with Apple to have the default position on the iPhone as the search engine,” Chilson continued. “[The ad tech case] is more about how did Google get to this market share through its conduct on the way up, whereas the search case is more about how did Google stay at the top by using these exclusive contracts?”

How does that play into potential outcomes?

Many have speculated that Google might be forced to break up its businesses , share data with competitors or open up its APIs as a result of its online search monopoly ruling. Chilson isn’t so sure.

He pointed out that Mehta threw out some of the complaints early on that would have suggested breaking up Google’s businesses as the right remedy for its exclusive contracts. “It’s hard to see how breaking up Google is the right remedy here,” Chilson said. “The obvious remedy is to say that Google can’t do those kinds of contracts anymore.”

Which is to say, that might set a precedent for barring such conduct once a company has a monopoly. 

Whereas in the upcoming ad tech case, the allegations are that Google achieved its monopoly through anti-competitive conduct, which would support an argument for a breakup.

“Although you run into a bunch of concerns around rule of law if you’re trying to unwind 16-year-old mergers,” Chilson said. “People might start to be like, ‘Well, if I might get sued in 16 years if I’m successful in this merger, maybe I’ll think twice about doing something that makes business sense.’”

Five years too late or two years too early?

Generative AI is changing the nature of how people search for information. And ironically, Google was the one to invent some of the modern technology, like transformer architecture, that is powering large language models. But it was other, much smaller companies like OpenAI that jumped in and forced Google to start doing something that looks very different than their traditional search. 

When Bellan asked Chilson whether Google’s monopoly cases came five years too late, he argued that they might have come two years too early. “The problem here is that Google is facing competition, and we might be bringing this case just as Google’s business model is under pretty serious threat, so in two years, we might look back and be like, Why were we suing Google for being anti-competitive? They’re being crushed.”

Online search isn’t the only thing that’s changing with generative AI. Display ads, and digital advertising in general, will also shift. 

Google uses clicks via its link-based search to determine which advertiser has to pay for an ad and who gets paid. But that doesn’t quite work with a model like Perplexity’s , which envisions publishers getting a cut of ad revenue if their content is surfaced in response to a query. 

“For example, if you search for car insurance on Google, that ad buy is really, really precise, because you know somebody’s looking for insurance, and that if you can get that click, it could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over the consumer’s lifetime,” Chilson said. “And so those are very, very, very useful ads. It’s hard to see how that fits exactly with the AI placed ad.”

Chilson noted that Perplexity’s model might even come up in Google’s case, as it represents a new entrant into the display ad marketplace in which the DOJ is suing Google. 

In 10 years, Chilson argued, the AI-fueled online ecosystem might change so much that the antitrust conversation will look very different. 

“I think we can expect to see it becoming increasingly efficient to have small firms … that can punch way above their weight if they have AI on their side,” he said, noting this could cause a distribution change where many small, nimble firms will use AI to do a lot of the bureaucratic work that big organizations use people for today.

If you want to dive deeper into the early wave of major legal cases regarding tech giants, their in-market heft and behavior, Rebecca Bellan joined Alex Wilhelm back in November to talk through it all. You can catch that episode here .

Equity will be back on Friday with our weekly news roundup, so stay tuned!

Equity Hosts

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Competition Law Enforcement: Key Case Studies

Competition law enforcement has been instrumental in promoting fair market practices, with landmark cases serving as pivotal precedents for shaping the legal and regulatory landscape. Notable examples include Microsoft's antitrust saga, in which the company was accused of abusing its monopoly power by bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system. The Google Shopping case is another prominent example, where the European Commission fined Google €2.42 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules by favoring its own shopping service over rivals. These cases, along with cartel conduct, abuse of dominance, and merger reviews in various regions, have contributed substantially to the development of competition law enforcement. Further examination of these cases and others reveals the complexities and nuances of competition law enforcement in action.

Table of Contents

Microsoft's Antitrust Saga

As the digital landscape was rapidly evolving in the 1990s, Microsoft's dominance in the software industry began to raise eyebrows among regulators and competitors alike. The company's market share and aggressive business practices sparked concerns about potential abuse of its monopoly leverage. Regulatory oversight bodies, such as the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), initiated investigations into Microsoft's conduct, focusing on its bundling of software products and alleged exclusionary behavior.

The DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in 1998, accusing the company of violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The case centered on Microsoft's practice of bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system, thereby stifling competition from rival browser providers. The court ultimately ruled that Microsoft had engaged in anticompetitive behavior, ordering the company to split into two separate entities. While the breakup was later overturned on appeal, the case marked a significant milestone in the enforcement of competition law, highlighting the need for robust regulatory oversight to prevent the misuse of monopoly leverage.

The Google Shopping Case

The Google Shopping Case is a landmark competition law enforcement action that highlights the European Commission's scrutiny of digital platforms. In 2017, the Commission levied a record-breaking fine of €2.42 billion against Google for breaching EU antitrust rules, specifically for illegally promoting its own shopping service over those of competitors. This case centers on allegations of self-preferencing practices that distorted the online shopping market, ultimately hindering consumer choice and innovation.

Antitrust Allegations Raised

Regulatory scrutiny has been a recurring theme in Google's operational landscape, and the Google Shopping case is a seminal example of this phenomenon. The European Commission's antitrust allegations against Google underscore the importance of regulatory oversight in ensuring a level playing field in the digital marketplace. The Commission's investigation, launched in 2010, centered on allegations that Google had abused its dominant position in the search engine market by favoring its own comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, over rival services.

Industry scrutiny has been intense, with competitors and consumer groups arguing that Google's practices stifled innovation and hindered competition. The Commission's probe revealed that Google had systematically demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results, while promoting its own service. This alleged conduct, the Commission argued, had a significant impact on the market, reducing traffic to rival services and depriving them of the opportunity to compete on equal terms. The Google Shopping case highlights the need for effective regulatory oversight to prevent dominant firms from abusing their market power and undermining competition.

Illegal Self-Promotion Practices

Google's self-promotion practices in the Google Shopping case have been a focal point of the European Commission's antitrust allegations. The Commission accused Google of favoring its own comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, over those of its competitors. This self-preferencing led to the demotion of rival services in search results, ultimately stifling competition. In addition, Google's practices were found to be misleading, as they included fake reviews and ratings that artificially boosted its own shopping service. Additionally, Google's advertising practices were deemed misleading, as they failed to clearly distinguish between organic search results and paid advertisements. These practices not only harmed competitors but also misled consumers, who were unable to make informed purchasing decisions. The Commission's investigation revealed that Google's self-promotion tactics had a significant impact on the market, leading to a substantial reduction in traffic to rival services. This case highlights the importance of ensuring that dominant companies do not abuse their market position through illegal self-promotion practices.

Record-Breaking Fine Imposed

In a landmark decision, the European Commission imposed a record-breaking fine of €2.42 billion on Google for breaching EU antitrust rules, marking one of the largest penalties ever levied on a single company. This decision followed a lengthy investigation into Google's alleged abuse of dominance in the online shopping market, where it was found to have unfairly promoted its own comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, over rival services.

The fine calculation was based on the gravity and duration of the infringement, as well as Google's revenue from its comparison shopping service. The European Commission considered the fine necessary to deter future anti-competitive behavior and restore fair competition in the online shopping market. This decision demonstrates the European Commission's commitment to regulatory scrutiny, ensuring that dominant companies do not abuse their market position to stifle competition. The Google Shopping case serves as a precedent for future antitrust enforcement, emphasizing the importance of fair competition in the digital economy.

Cartel Conduct in Europe

In the European competition law enforcement landscape, cartel conduct remains a significant concern, with the European Commission imposing substantial fines on companies found to have engaged in anti-competitive behavior. Notable price fixing cases have led to hefty penalties, highlighting the importance of effective leniency programs in detecting and deterring such conduct. The European Commission's approach to cartel enforcement has been shaped by its experience with high-profile cases, informing its strategies for identifying and punishing cartel activities.

European Cartel Fines

How effectively have European antitrust authorities been fining cartel participants, and what trends can be discerned from the sanctions imposed? The European Commission has been instrumental in cracking down on cartel conduct, imposing significant fines on companies found to be engaging in anti-competitive behavior. In recent years, the Commission has levied record-breaking fines, with some exceeding €1 billion.

In terms of fine calculation methods, the Commission typically considers factors such as the gravity and duration of the infringement, as well as the company's turnover. Additionally, the Commission may also take into account any mitigating or aggravating circumstances, such as cooperation with the investigation or obstruction of justice. Cartel investigations have revealed that companies often engage in sophisticated schemes to conceal their anti-competitive activities, underscoring the need for robust enforcement measures.

The Commission's approach to fining cartel participants has been shaped by its desire to deter similar conduct in the future. By imposing significant financial penalties, the Commission aims to create a strong incentive for companies to comply with competition law. In this respect, the trend towards increasingly severe fines is likely to continue, serving as a powerful deterrent to would-be cartel participants.

Price Fixing Cases

The European Commission's vigorous enforcement of competition law has led to the uncovering of numerous price fixing cases, underscoring the prevalence of cartel conduct in various industries across Europe. These cases involve anti-competitive agreements among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, or allocate markets, ultimately harming consumers and distorting competition.

These cases demonstrate the Commission's commitment to detecting and prosecuting cartel conduct, including bid rigging and market allocation schemes. By cracking down on such anti-competitive practices, the Commission aims to promote fair competition and protect consumers' interests. The Commission's enforcement actions serve as a deterrent to companies considering engaging in cartel conduct, promoting a level playing field across European markets.

Leniency Programs

A cornerstone of the European Commission's efforts to combat cartel conduct is its leniency program, which offers incentives to companies that self-report and cooperate with investigations. This program has been instrumental in detecting and prosecuting cartel cases, as it encourages companies to come forward and disclose their involvement in anti-competitive activities.

The leniency program provides significant benefits to companies that cooperate, including full immunity from fines for the first company to report a cartel and reduced fines for subsequent cooperators. The program's amnesty effectiveness is evident in the high number of cartel cases uncovered through self-reporting. In fact, the majority of cartel cases pursued by the European Commission have been initiated through leniency applications.

The leniency benefits are conditional upon the company's continuous cooperation throughout the investigation. Companies must provide detailed information about the cartel, including its scope, duration, and participants, as well as any evidence in their possession. The program's success can be attributed to its ability to create a strong incentive for companies to self-report and cooperate, thereby facilitating the detection and prosecution of cartel conduct.

Abuse of Dominance in Asia

Across Asia, competition authorities have been grappling with the complex issue of abuse of dominance, wherein a single entity or a group of entities exploit their market power to stifle competition and harm consumers. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in markets with high concentration levels, where a single firm or a few firms wield significant market power.

In recent years, regulatory frameworks in Asia have evolved to address this issue. For instance, the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) has been actively enforcing Section 47 of the Competition Act, which prohibits abuse of dominance. Similarly, the Japanese Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) has been cracking down on abuse of superior bargaining position, which is a variant of abuse of dominance. In China, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has been enforcing the Anti-Monopoly Law, which prohibits abuse of dominance. These regulatory frameworks have been instrumental in curbing abuses of market power and promoting competition in Asian markets.

Anti-Competitive Mergers Blocked

Scores of proposed mergers and acquisitions in Asia have been thwarted by competition authorities in recent years, citing concerns that these deals would substantially lessen competition in the relevant markets. These deal vetoes demonstrate the importance of merger reviews in maintaining a competitive landscape.

In several instances, the mergers were blocked due to concerns about the creation of dominant players, which would have led to reduced competition and innovation. For example, in the telecommunications sector, a proposed merger between two major players was vetoed due to fears that it would result in a dominant entity controlling a significant market share. Similarly, in the e-commerce space, a deal was rejected as it would have led to the creation of a dominant player with significant market power.

These decisions highlight the role of competition authorities in ensuring that mergers and acquisitions do not harm competition. By conducting thorough merger reviews, these authorities can identify potential competitive concerns and take steps to address them, ultimately promoting a competitive and innovative business environment.

Landmark Cases in Emerging Markets

In the domain of competition law enforcement, emerging markets have witnessed several landmark cases that have shaped the regulatory landscape and sent a strong message to businesses operating in these jurisdictions. These cases have addressed complex issues, such as market dynamics and regulatory hurdles, and have had a significant impact on the business environment.

One notable example is the case of Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) vs. Petrobras, which addressed allegations of anticompetitive practices in the fuel market. The case led to significant changes in the market dynamics of the Brazilian fuel sector, with CADE imposing substantial fines and requiring Petrobras to divest assets.

Another example is the case of India's Competition Commission of India (CCI) vs. Google, which involved allegations of abuse of dominance in the search engine market. The CCI's decision sent a strong message to digital platforms operating in India, emphasizing the significance of compliance with competition regulations.

These landmark cases demonstrate the commitment of emerging market regulators to enforcing competition laws and promoting fair market practices. They also serve as crucial precedents, shaping the regulatory landscape and influencing market dynamics in these jurisdictions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the consequences of non-compliance with competition law.

Non-compliance with competition law can result in severe consequences, including substantial fines imposed by regulatory authorities, as well as reputation damage that can lead to long-term financial losses and erosion of stakeholder trust.

How Do Authorities Detect Cartel Conduct in Various Industries?

Authorities detect cartel conduct through a combination of cartel markers, such as unusual pricing patterns, and industry profiling, which involves analyzing market structures and firm behaviors to identify potential collusive activities.

Can Individuals Be Held Liable for Antitrust Violations?

In antitrust law, individuals can be held liable for violations, emphasizing personal accountability. Criminal prosecutions are employed to deter and punish culpable individuals, as seen in cases where executives are fined or imprisoned for cartel participation or other anticompetitive conduct.

What Role Do Economics Play in Competition Law Enforcement?

In competition law enforcement, economics plays a crucial role through economic analysis, which informs merger reviews and antitrust investigations, providing a framework to assess market dynamics, competitive effects, and potential harm to consumers.

Are Competition Authorities Effective in Promoting Consumer Welfare?

Competition authorities' effectiveness in promoting consumer welfare is contingent upon their ability to mitigate market power abuse and resist regulatory capture, ensuring that enforcement decisions prioritize consumer interests over corporate influence.

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The Morning

Google’s fate.

We explain the next steps in the Google monopoly case.

By Cecilia Kang

Google, a judge ruled earlier this month, is a monopolist. Now comes the hard part: How can its search be fixed to restore competition? Next week, the judge will hold his first hearing to consider the answer.

This one could be messy. There’s a long menu of options that Amit Mehta of the Federal District Court in D.C. could choose from. He could restrict Google’s deals with companies like Apple. He could form separate companies for products like Google’s Chrome browser and its Android operating system. Or he could come up with a completely new idea. And however he tries to curb Google’s power could set a precedent for the rest of the tech industry, as the antitrust suit against Microsoft did two decades ago .

The timing is tricky, too. Search is changing as corporations unveil artificial intelligence to answer more queries. In the end, Google says it will appeal anyway, which will set off another round of hearings.

In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain the options that the judge has for punishing Google, and the potential benefits and drawbacks of each.

What harmed competition?

The government isn’t likely to show up with concrete proposals at the first hearing on remedies, as this process is called, next Friday. It’s too early for that. Instead, the proceeding is a chance for Mehta to describe what he’s looking for.

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https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/08/20/gcse-results-day-2024-number-grading-system/

GCSE results day 2024: Everything you need to know including the number grading system

Thousands of students across the country will soon be finding out their GCSE results and thinking about the next steps in their education.   

Here we explain everything you need to know about the big day, from when results day is, to the current 9-1 grading scale, to what your options are if your results aren’t what you’re expecting.  

When is GCSE results day 2024?  

GCSE results day will be taking place on Thursday the 22 August.     

The results will be made available to schools on Wednesday and available to pick up from your school by 8am on Thursday morning.  

Schools will issue their own instructions on how and when to collect your results.   

When did we change to a number grading scale?  

The shift to the numerical grading system was introduced in England in 2017 firstly in English language, English literature, and maths.  

By 2020 all subjects were shifted to number grades. This means anyone with GCSE results from 2017-2020 will have a combination of both letters and numbers.  

The numerical grading system was to signal more challenging GCSEs and to better differentiate between students’ abilities - particularly at higher grades between the A *-C grades. There only used to be 4 grades between A* and C, now with the numerical grading scale there are 6.  

What do the number grades mean?  

The grades are ranked from 1, the lowest, to 9, the highest.  

The grades don’t exactly translate, but the two grading scales meet at three points as illustrated below.  

The bottom of grade 7 is aligned with the bottom of grade A, while the bottom of grade 4 is aligned to the bottom of grade C.    

Meanwhile, the bottom of grade 1 is aligned to the bottom of grade G.  

What to do if your results weren’t what you were expecting?  

If your results weren’t what you were expecting, firstly don’t panic. You have options.  

First things first, speak to your school or college – they could be flexible on entry requirements if you’ve just missed your grades.   

They’ll also be able to give you the best tailored advice on whether re-sitting while studying for your next qualifications is a possibility.   

If you’re really unhappy with your results you can enter to resit all GCSE subjects in summer 2025. You can also take autumn exams in GCSE English language and maths.  

Speak to your sixth form or college to decide when it’s the best time for you to resit a GCSE exam.  

Look for other courses with different grade requirements     

Entry requirements vary depending on the college and course. Ask your school for advice, and call your college or another one in your area to see if there’s a space on a course you’re interested in.    

Consider an apprenticeship    

Apprenticeships combine a practical training job with study too. They’re open to you if you’re 16 or over, living in England, and not in full time education.  

As an apprentice you’ll be a paid employee, have the opportunity to work alongside experienced staff, gain job-specific skills, and get time set aside for training and study related to your role.   

You can find out more about how to apply here .  

Talk to a National Careers Service (NCS) adviser    

The National Career Service is a free resource that can help you with your career planning. Give them a call to discuss potential routes into higher education, further education, or the workplace.   

Whatever your results, if you want to find out more about all your education and training options, as well as get practical advice about your exam results, visit the  National Careers Service page  and Skills for Careers to explore your study and work choices.   

You may also be interested in:

• Results day 2024: What's next after picking up your A level, T level and VTQ results?
• When is results day 2024? GCSEs, A levels, T Levels and VTQs

Tags: GCSE grade equivalent , gcse number grades , GCSE results , gcse results day 2024 , gsce grades old and new , new gcse grades

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