Why Nick Carr is wrong about Google

In a column for Strategy+Business published by Booz Allen, Nick Carr argues

"That makes Google a poten­tially dangerous model for other businesses. Your company may find itself competing, directly or indirectly, with Google, but unless you make money by selling advertising attached to digital goods, you may not be able to learn much from its example, at least not at a strategic level. The economics of Google’s business may simply be too different. By following its lead, you may go broke."

If you believe, Innovation = Tweaking your products and branding it "new and improved" go ahead and ignore Google. If you subscribe to the Doblin framework of innovation - way beyond product innovation - you should still study Google. And if you feel the pressure to change in the face of dramatically changing global economics and consumer expectations, ignore Google to your peril. Whether it is in your turf or not.

Because while Google  has innovated  in many product categories (Search, Earth, Maps and more), it has been even more impactful because

a) it rethought business model...may be it is too dependent on advertising revenue, but till it came along every technology vendor made money from buyers, especially enterprise buyers. The channel did not contribute much, other beneficiaries did not contribute much. Every pricing analyst whatever their industry can learn from it.

b) redefined availability ...without wanting to be in the outsourcing world, it showed that high-availability (access Google search from anywhere in world to see what I mean in terms of 24x7 and speed of access) is not a pipe dream. Every service firm can learn from it.

c) it rethought delivery cost and times...whether it be use of its commoditized chips based architecture or its constrained R&D teams (small size, short project time frames). It is a role model for any manufacturing organization looking to significantly reshape delivery economics.

I could go on.

Google is far from perfect. But it has challenged many. many established assumptions and myths. That is innovative no matter what industry you are in.