12 •
The Lion King
• October - December 2017
BUSINESS
Google:
Founded by Larry Page in
1996, Google is valued at US$714
bn. Google’s explosive growth from
search engine to innovation power-
house has attracted plenty of talent,
investors, and critics. Between 1996
and today, the company went from
a search engine running on University
of Stanford servers to generating more
than $66 billion annually.
Google is the most disruptive technol-
ogy vendor in the enterprise because
it has its hands in all areas of consum-
erization and cloud computing, from
mobile and communication to collab-
oration and storage. After launching
their search engine, Google moved
into the seemingly-unrelated business
of email and language translation.
And when they did, they did it better
than anyone else, creating email with
100 times the storage capacity of any
of their competitors, and providing
translating capabilities for the entire
web.
Android has emerged as a viable
alternative to Apple iOS, and the typi-
cally lower prices of Android devices
helped spur smartphone adoption
among a whole new set of business
users. But Google made waves long
before Android hit the market.
Gmail revolutionized email, the most
common form of business commu-
nication. Its threaded conversations,
seemingly unlimited storage, powerful
search and built-in instant messaging
make for a more user-friendly and
efficient interface -- so much so that
some business users now forward their
work email to Gmail. Similarly, Google
Voice lets users get around corporate
phone systems.
Google Docs, the free, online Microsoft
Word competitor, lets users create
and store documents outside the cor-
porate firewall, and its real-time col-
laboration features go above what
traditional productivity software can
do. And with the new Google Drive
service, users can store and edit any
type of document in the cloud.
This diversification helped Google
grow and expanded to include self-
driving cars, intelligent contact lens-
es, solar-fueled drones and project
As the saying goes, “Cash is King”,
Apple is the cash company, with an
all-time cash record of about $270bn,
Apple could almost buy just anything
including bailing out many countries.
Apple created a market for things
that people didn’t really think they
needed. They were not the first com-
pany to consider apps but it once
again reinvented a market when it
launched its App Store in 2008. There
are now about 2 million apps on the
App Store. Apple’s success as a dis-
rupter is because it continues to dis-
rupt by adapting.
sun-roof to mention a few. Over the
years, there’s been a consistency in
the vision: run like a start-up and make
an enormous impact on the way peo-
ple interact with each other. It’s a
unique mix of social entrepreneurship
coupled with impressive tech skills.
With this mindset, Alphabet surrounds
itself with long-term projects, such as
self-driving cars and a project where
the Internet is delivered by high-alti-
tude balloons. But the same mind-
blowing and colourful projects have
also spurred lots of questions from
analysts and investors and the ratio-
nale behind these initiatives is coming
under fire.
Apple:
Apple is currently the world’s
largest company by market value at
US$873 bn.
Apple was founded in 1976 but the
launch of Apple’s iPhone, 10 years
ago, is a classic example of technol-
ogy disrupting an industry. It ended
Nokia’s dominance of the mobile
phone market and created the first
smartphone worthy of the name.
Apple is harnessing this technology
and the iPhone’s launch was a key
point in the revolution. But long-term
success for companies is not about
one disruptive invention like the iPhone.
The companies that thrive in this new
revolution will be the ones who con-
stantly refine what they do. Apple
intentional developed the iPhone into
a luxury product. Apple demonstrates
this in no other way by taking 79% of
the industry profit through the sales of
just 14.5% of devices in the industry. It
is a huge luxury markup.
Apple is one of the world’s most valu-
able companies and has set records as
the world’s most profitable company.
It created the iPod before the iPhone
and, in doing so, reinvented the per-
sonal audio market. They would later
reinvent the way that people bought
music with iTunes. Many think Apple’s
success hinges on just the iPhone but
analysts have said the differentiating
factor in the Apple’s business model
lies in the 492 Apple Stores across 19
countries.
Facebook:
Founded in 2004 and a cur-
rent valuation of US$520bn. Facebook
business model depends not just on
connecting users, but also on inject-
ing ads into conversations and this the
company has done a remarkable job
of putting ads in people’s feeds, espe-
cially on phones.
Facebook’s combination of status
updates, information sharing and
instant messaging is changing the way
we communicate, and that’s trickling
down into the business world. The
rise of social enterprise collaboration
platforms is a direct response to this
popular social media platform.
Facebook is also disruptive because
it is another platform through which
sensitive corporate information can
escape into the wild (even inadver-
tently, thanks to its complex privacy
settings and the potential for social
engineering attacks).
Facebook has bought up smaller com-
panies shrewdly, too. Its Messenger
chat app signed its one billionth user in
July 2016, its Instagram photo-sharing
service has over 700 million users, and
WhatsApp dominates messaging in
developing markets.
Amazon
: Founded by Jeff Bezos in
1994 with a current valuation: US$544
bn, Amazon started in sales of books,
but these days Amazon will sell you
almost anything. Through a rising
spend on technology like Amazon
Web Services, which simplifies the task
