There is no denying that Google has taken the internet world by storm. Starting as a search engine, the company has now expanded into other products. According to Wikipedia, Google now ‘offers online productivity software including email, an office suite, and social networking. Desktop products include applications for web browsing, organizing and editing photos, and instant messaging. The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system and the browser-only Google Chrome OS for a specialized type of netbook known as a Chromebook. Google has moved increasingly into communications hardware: it partners with major electronics manufacturers in production of its high-end Nexus devices and acquired Motorola Mobility in May 2012. In 2012, a fiber-optic infrastructure was installed in Kansas City to facilitate a Google Fiber broadband service. The corporation has been estimated to run more than one million servers in data centers around the world and to process over one billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data each day. In December 2012, Alexa listed google.com as the most visited website in the world. Numerous Google sites in other languages figure in the top one hundred, as do several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube and Blogger.’

One just has to read the 10 guiding principles of Google’s philosophy to understand why the company has been so successful:

* Focus on the user and all else will follow.

* It’s best to do one thing really, really well.

* Fast is better than slow.

* Democracy on the web works.

* You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

* You can make money without doing evil.

* There’s always more information out there.

* The need for information crosses all borders.

* You can be serious without a suit.

* Great just isn’t good enough.

The principles are so amazingly pro-consumer that they force Google to keep disrupting itself rather than protecting itself. If it feels that a particular product is not up to competition or consumer expectations, it has no hesitation in withdrawing it. If anything seems unfair or not consumer friendly, Google won’t do it.

This relentless quest for excellence and keeping the consumer on the forefront has been the reasons for Google’s remarkable success. I wish all of us could force our companies to emulate Google. Not only will the companies benefit, so would the world at large.

Visual courtesy : https://www.flickr.com/photos/75905404@N00/