Although the severely cold wind greeted the shivering iLeaders, wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, early morning on December 8th Tuesday, there was a palpable excitement in the air. Google, the holy grail of entrepreneurship, had beckoned.

As the bus entered Tsinghua Science Park, we suddenly saw the logo, that every internet user bows down to, staring at us from the top of a ten storied building. We were here…

At the reception, the first thing we were told is that nobody is allowed to take photographs. I wonder if this also qualifies as yet another innovation, this time, to maintain the aura of enigma that Google has sustained over the past decade. (It is a different matter we managed to take a lot of photographs) We were hosted by Mr. Jia Sheng, Product Manager at Google China, and our dialogue session with him proved to be as beneficial as we had imagined and more. Further, we got the first hand opportunity to experience the legendary working environment within Google, which made it the 4th best company to work for in the world, according to Forbes magazine. As quoted by Mr. Jia Sheng, “Upon shifting into the office, all employees were given 1000 RMB (approx. 200 SGD) to decorate their office space, and there was a competition for the best looking desk, the winner getting another round of money to buy exotic decorations.” In my own opinion, there was such a personal touch to every desk, almost like a second home for all the employees. It was unbelievable. Needless to say, “Googlers” enjoyed several luxurious facilities including a gymnasium, a beautifully decorated recreational area, with several pool tables and foose-ball tables and colorful couches that were literally hypnotizing us to come and sink into their comfort.

Before I move onto the dialogue session with Mr. Jia Sheng, I think I should cover a little bit of detail about Google China. China is the one of the only three countries in the world, where Google does not enjoy a market dominance. In fact, local competitors, Baidu lead the market. Secondly, the issue of internet content censorship, popularly known as the Great FireWall of China has been a hindrance to Google. Another barrier is also the illegitimate music download offerings from local competitors, and even Google has found the journey in the Land of the Silk Route far from silky and smooth.

Zooming back to our travails in Google, while we were still in awe of the office, Mr. Jia Sheng brought us back to the core purpose of our overseas study mission, to gain a valuable insight into the world of entrepreneurship in China. While the market is gigantic and booming, there are significant challenges, highlighted and showcased prominently in the failure of mighty brands like MSN, eBay, AOL and Yahoo!. In Mr. Sheng’s viewpoint, the major faux pas for all failing companies was a misplaced expectation of short-term profit, as well as failure to empower locally relevant products.  He quoted, “Google expects to improve and become profitable by the end of 2009. However, we shall become the best by 7006!!!”

The presentation was very revealing about the difference between the internet users in China and the USA. The most interesting find was that Chinese users of Google spend about 30-60 seconds to browse through the Google search results page while American users spend a maximum of 10 seconds, which translate to effectively clicking in the first few search results on the top left of the search results page only. One rationale behind this is that Chinese users hate to type given the complexity compared to the English language.

Instead of parroting back everything Mr. Sheng told us, I prefer to share my own reflections about his insights regarding Google and I hope they will prove to be accurate picture of the knowledge he shared with us and also highlight the key takeaways from Google’s corporate values and strategies.

As you would have already guessed, the first question lobbed to Mr. Sheng was, “How is Baidu doing better than you guys?” Apart from providing a very insightful answer, I was hugely impressed by the respect he had for Baidu. In his words, “Baidu is a great company and we have a lot to learn from them.” That was phenomenal, and I have never heard of a company taking such a stand on competitors. He reasoned Baidu’s advantage on four different grounds. Firstly, Baidu is a more holistic product, integrating web search with an online encyclopedia and a SNS, creating a virtual cycle to keep users within Baidu. Secondly, Baidu features a lot of unsolicited content, including illegal music and integrating ads with search results whereas Google famous for its “Do no evil” corporate value, strictly features unadulterated and legal content. Thirdly, Google has always relied on high product quality to generate market penetration, instead of marketing. Baidu, on the other hand employs extensive and clever marketing. A few examples would be the inclusion of the Baidu logo on the back of text books used by secondary school students and co-marketing with brands like KFC. Lastly, and definitely not the least, Baidu is a Chinese company and shares a good relationship with the government. There is a perception in China that Chinese companies know China better, and they are preferred any day, to globally recognized brands, no matter how huge or good they are. If you think that is an exaggeration, just look around. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are banned in China, and people prefer the cloned versions modified and suited to the Chinese environment. Wikipedia is nowhere in the Chinese online encyclopedia market share,  which is dominated by Hudong and Baidu’s offering. Mr. Sheng had three very simple points to explain this phenomenon, “1. Inheriting from global phenomenon, 2. Injecting local characteristics and 3. It is changing China.” Further, Baidu obeys the government more faithfully than the most loyal children might obey their parents. Google on the other hand believes in providing unadulterated content, with only the minimum legally required filtering.

Another notable landmark in the history of Google China was the launch of a legal music download service, Google Music, in August 2008  to rival Baidu’s potentially illicit offering. Of course, such a free offering of copyrighted music complicates the market for the media industry, and the repercussions of such extreme defensive strategies can be debated. However, the move immediately meant significant re-channeling of internet traffic into Google.

Innovation has been synonymous with Google right from its inception. The management of innovation with the 80-20 rule for work has been the famous guideline introduced by Google. However, Mr. Sheng’s experience shed even more visibility on the true value of the strategy. He recounted that during the devastating earthquake in China in 2008, Google was the first to launch a new service with information regarding lost victims with tracking on a map. This service was launched within 20 hours of the earthquake. Those in the IT field will realize the miraculous achievement of finishing such a huge project with quality assessment within such a short period of time. This remarkable achievement stands out as a product of true innovative strategy, highly effective team work and envious dedication to the company as well as the society.

Even though the stream of questions refused to cease, the constraint of time meant that the session had to conclude, although wrenched against our wish. One of the last striking questions was regarding the competitive advantage of Google China. Mr. Sheng’s surprising reply was the global branding and recognition of Google. Despite the favoring of local brands, Google was an enticing option for advertisers to reach out to the global market, and Google exploited this avenue. Further, Google’s core values of honesty and objectivity are highly regarded and admired far and wide. Finally, like mentioned earlier, Google is equal to innovation and innovation is equal to Google, which serves as a brand ambassador for Google and ensures that Google is one of the top companies in the world and remains elusive and a class apart.

With the conclusion of the dialogue session, Mr. Sheng was swarmed by the iLeaders army, with everybody wanting to exchange name cards, depleting Mr. Sheng’s stack of cards faster than a hungry group of children would devour a stack of Lays. As we returned to the bus, I was satisfied and content after a scrumptious and luscious  meal of innovation with Google, garnished with generous dollops of motivation and inspiration,  I reflected on how fortunate I am to get such an opportunity to interact with the best in China, and I am filled with gratitude for everybody who has made this possible.  Meanwhile, for the iLeaders, the day had only just begun. A very interesting company, Youthology was lined up next, followed by another company and then, an interactive dinner session with entrepreneurs. With joy in my heart and a bounce in my step, this is Richik signing off..

P.S. My sincere apology to the guys because I really didn’t have a picture of all of you in Google.. I shall get one and add it in as soon as possible..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Google, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.