The Release of Google Home & The Impact On Stock Values Journal of Student Research Proceedings of the Flint Student Research Conference Faculty Sponsor: Sandun Perera, Ph.D. School of Management The University of Michigan-Flint Joylynn Clement and Bo Xia School of Management, The University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, Michigan 48502.
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The Release of Google Home & The Impact On Stock Values · 2 SWOT Analysis Figure 1: SWOT Analysis Table Google is the most popular search engine on the web. There are many search
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The Release of Google Home & The Impact On Stock Values
Journal of Student Research
Proceedings of the Flint Student Research Conference
Faculty Sponsor:
Sandun Perera, Ph.D.
School of Management
The University of Michigan-Flint
Joylynn Clement and Bo Xia
School of Management, The University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, Michigan 48502.
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Abstract
The purpose of our research is to study the release of Google Home speaker and analyze how it has
affected the company’s stock price. Our research includes a company analysis of Google, highlighting areas
such as the company’s restructuring, a SWOT analysis, their organizational strategy and their operational
strategy. These areas of research provide a deeper understanding of the company; however, our main focus
is to analyze Google’s stock values. We specifically look at values before and after the release of the
speaker. We use the values to create several forecasts using various methods. Errors between our forecasted
values and the actual values were then tested by running multiple error calculations to measure each of the
forecast’s accuracies.
Google has always shown innovation by creating a mixture of intangible services and physical
products. The company has also shown innovation in their decision to acquire subsidiary companies in new
markets. This paralleled innovation has allowed for the company to release a new line of products, in areas
that Google had not been in previously. Google Home is one of the most popular recent releases, and is a
voice activated speaker with multiple functions.
By creating a SWOT analysis for Google, we found that one of the company’s main strengths is
the revenue earned from online advertising. However, this revenue strategy is also one of their greatest
weaknesses. The company became extremely susceptible to market changes and fierce competition in the
online advertising market. Google has planned to counteract this situation by releasing new products, and
utilizing the Google brand to attract buyers in new markets.
For the forecasting section of this report, we first organized Google’s stock values for a selected
date range (10/03/2016 to 3/14/2017). To create our forecasted values, techniques of naïve, simple moving
average, weighted average, exponential smoothing, and linear trend lines were used. Errors in forecasting
were analyzed using the methods of MAD, MSE, and MAPE.
The research conducted of the stock values proved that the naïve forecast produced the most
accurate results. The project also provides research and explanation to why the naïve method provided the
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most accurate forecasting results in this situation, and how this simplistic method of forecasting can prove
the most accurate for even a company that is as big of a player as Google. We then compared our results to
market trends and norms, to find out if this forecasting method is commonly used in current stock market
practices. Our prediction formulated is that Google’s stock values will continue to increase in the immediate
future.
1 Introduction
In this project, we chose to focus on Google and their decision to release the Google Home. The
Google Home speaker was released on November 4th, 2016, as a competitive product against Amazon's
Echo. The Google Home is a smart speaker that enables users to speak voice commands to interact with
services using the Google Assistant. Some supported services of the speaker include Netflix, YouTube, The
Wall Street Journal, with new services being integrated on an ongoing basis. Google Assistant serves as an
“intelligent assistant” that allows for the hands-free experience of the speaker [8].
The significance of this product release is that it has become arguably the most popular products in
Google’s recent new releases. Within the past year, the company has been expanding their product line
extensively. In the beginning of November 2016, Google released the new version of their digital media
player, the Chromecast Ultra. November 10th, the company released Google Daydream - a virtual reality
platform [9]. From this group of products, the Google Home has proved to be the most popular new product
release, which is why we chose to specifically focus on this product and its release date.
By using several forecasting methods, we analyzed Google’s stock values and created predictions
for their immediate future values. We found the naïve forecasting method provided the most accurate
predictions, which was also our most simplistic method used. We then studied the naïve forecast’s relation
to the mathematical probability theory, the Martingale theory, and how this theory is commonly used for
making stock market predictions.
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2 SWOT Analysis
Google is the most popular search engine on the web. There are many search engines today that
provide results based on keyword searches, but Google is the best at providing relevant search results. As
of April 2017, Google holds 77.43% of the global market share on search engines [1]. To better understand
both the company and their decision to release the Google Home, we conducted a SWOT analysis. In this
analysis, we highlight some of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
One of Google’s main strengths is the amount of revenue that is earned through online advertising.
In 2015, 90% of Google’s revenue came from advertising [7]. However, this great strength is also
considered to be one of Google’s main weaknesses. By earning most of their revenue from advertising, the
company is susceptible to changing market trends, competitive advertising websites, and marketing budget
Figure 1: SWOT Analysis Table – Google
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adjustments. Google realized that they were limiting themselves by remaining solely in the search engine
market, and has since taken steps to enter new markets. They began to examine their opportunities, and use
the revenues made from advertisements to begin acquiring new companies.
Google has found both success and failure in their quest to enter new markets. One of their
successful products, the Android Operating System, was released in 2008. By 2015, Android had surpassed
Apple’s iOS, claiming an astonishing 81% of the total smartphone unit shipments globally [16]. Google’s
primary competitor, MS Windows, currently has 38.59% of the world market share on all platforms
(desktop, mobile, and tablet), while Google’s operating system, Android, trails close behind with 37.42%.
The Apple operating system iOS, falls in third place, holding 12.99% of the market share [11]. Despite the
success that Google has found in the Android Operating System, other products have been discontinued to
avoid extensive financial loss.
The company also suffers from other weaknesses, one being compatibility issues with Google
Chrome. One of the more recent compatibility issues happened with the Windows 10 update. A significant
bug popped up in the Chrome browser, which would cause the browser to crash unexpectedly [4]. While
the company has taken steps to resolve Chrome’s compatibility issue, they have still risked losing users
who see these compatibility issues as unacceptable.
The main threats that the company faces include competition from other companies, regulations,
and foreign currency risk. These threats can directly affect the profits made by the company. For example,
if another country’s currency is stronger against the U.S.’s dollar, this could mean money lost when the
company is doing transactions with currency exchanges across different countries. With regulations, it can
become very costly to keep up with current and changing laws. The company also faces risk of future
regulations that may impact the production of their products.
After completing the SWOT analysis, we gained a deeper insight of the strategy behind the release
of the Google Home. The product was a perfect medium to incorporate successful technology the company
already had, such as Google Search, Analytics, and Translate. Google was also able to capitalize on their
subsidiary, Nest Labs, by including the capabilities to connect smart home products such as thermostats
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and security cameras. This product was also a way for Google to get people ready for artificial intelligence
by incorporating the “intelligent assistant”. Finally, the product served as a sign to the company’s
competitors that Google is still a force to be reckoned with.
3 Organizational Strategy
Organizational growth has traditionally been characterized as either organic (internally generated)
or inorganic (from acquisition). Companies will typically follow one method or the other when choosing a
strategy for growth. The organizational strategy of Google is inherently different from these traditional
approaches, by practicing a mixture of both organic and inorganic strategies. Google has a “semi-organic”
strategy for growth, which is when revenue results from acquired technology or assets attaching to a
company’s existing capabilities in a complementary manner [5].
The Google Home is an excellent product to use as an example of Google’s organizational strategy.
In 2013, Google acquired the company Nest Labs, which is a home automation company that produces Wi-
fi enabled products. The Google Home has been enabled with the capabilities to connect to these “smart
home” devices created by Nest. This connectivity capability provides an additional feature to the speaker,
and will ideally also increase sales of smart home products in the future.
Google’s main source of revenue has been from offering ads on their online websites. This business
strategy has been the first of its kind, and Google has remained dominant in the search engine world, holding
77.43% of the market share currently [14]. However, Google realized that they cannot rely on this main
source of income forever. The company has taken the steps to look for new ways to earn revenues, while
practicing a very forward-thinking strategy to ensure the company’s survival. One of the most influential
steps the company has taken to achieve this goal was their restructuring.
In 2015, Google restructured into a company called Alphabet, Inc. The purpose of Alphabet is to serve
as a parent company to several subsidiary companies [Figure 6: Alphabet’s Structure]. Google serves as
Alphabet’s largest subsidiary. In addition, Alphabet owns seven subsidiaries companies including: Verily,
Google X, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, Google Capital, Calico and Nest Labs [3]. Co-founder of
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Google, Larry Page serves as Alphabet’s CEO, while the other co-founder, Sergey Brin, serves as President.
By restructuring into Alphabet, Page and Brin now have the ability to oversee the many businesses and
ventures of the company in a “bird’s eye view”. Sergey Brin and Larry Page have chosen CEOs to run each
business, thus allowing the pair to aid and provide insight to the areas that need it the most.
An additional benefit of the restructuring from an organizational perspective, is the vast range of
diversity within the subsidiaries. For example, the company Calico is focused on combating aging and
disease, while Google X is currently working on self-driving cars. The vastly different subsidiaries of
Alphabet each have independent listing opportunities. Each subsidiary can individually attract talent, by
providing higher salaries compared to other start-up companies. These strategies increase the overall talent
in employees, which will give the companies a better chance at finding success.
In typical Google fashion, the company’s decision to restructure in this manner was extremely
innovative, and analysts became “gaga” over the situation. According to Doug Anmuth, analyst at J.P.
Morgan, “We are bullish on Google’s new operating structure. Overall, we view the new structure as an
elegant way for Google to continue to pursue long-term, life-changing initiatives while simultaneously
increasing transparency and management focus in the core business [13].”
4 Operational Strategy
Google follows a strategy of differentiation. We can understand this by looking at the Google
Search engine and seeing how much the product was unlike anything else before. With many competitive
companies now following a similar strategy, Google has decided to slightly alter their overall strategy.
Through the acquisitions of companies, Google has begun to combine their technologies with others. While
this strategy is certainly advantageous, the company has faced some bumps along the road. It will be
interesting to see where the company finds success from the many projects that are in the works.
Google’s operations involve having separate management teams and goals. These teams are
individually focused on existing or future products and services. However, the company encourages a
universal strategy for these areas of operation to maintain an overall connectivity between these different
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teams. The decision areas that Google focuses on for their operations are: design of goods and services,
quality management, process and capacity design, location strategy, layout design and strategy, human
resources and job design, supply chain management, inventory management, scheduling, and maintenance
[18].
Google has also taken innovative steps to improve their supply chain. One of their changes can be
seen in their release of a Google mobile phone. Previously, Google had to work with other companies to
produce their Nexus units. This allowed for those companies to have a significant control over Google’s
supply chain. By creating their own phone, Google can now control the entire process of manufacturing,
and allow them to function independently from other companies [17]. By intentionally purchasing
subsidiary businesses that can create products for Google, they have eliminated many of the steps and
companies they previous had to work with.
5 Forecasting
The preliminary plan for our forecasting technique was to record sales data for the Google Home
speaker. While we could find some information from Alphabet’s financial reports filed through the SEC,
the reports were not sub-divided in appropriate detail for us to recover enough relevant data. Upon finding
that sales data was not a viable option, we decided to focus on Alphabet’s (GOOGL) stock values and apply
our selected forecasting techniques for analyzation.
The first step in our forecasting process was to collect the data of stock values within our date
parameters. The Google Home was released in November 2016, so we began collecting stock data from
October 1st, 2016. We found and recorded this data from the Nasdaq webpage and collected the information
of date, low price, high price, closing price and volume amount traded [2]. (Ref. Excel Stock.Report Table
of Stock Records)
We determined that our ending date for data collection would be March 14th, 2017. By ending the
data collection on this date, we would be able to specifically focus on the initial impact of the release of the
Google Home. The data that we used to create our forecasting methods ranged from October 3rd, 2016, (first
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trading day in October) to March 14th, 2017. After organizing the data, we created a chart to visualize the
patterns of Google’s stock over this time range [Figure 5: Linear Trend Line]. Upon the completion of this
chart, we observed that despite some notable decreases, the values were increasing in a linear nature
following the release of the speaker. Due to the observed linear nature of the values, we created a hypothesis
that our linear trend line forecasting method would provide the more accurate forecast predictions.
6 Forecasting Methodology
We began with creating a Naïve Forecast for our collected data. Our forecasting equation for the
Naïve category was:
Forecastt = 𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑡−1
After creating the forecast for the stocks, we calculated the errors between the actual data and the
forecasts. We then analyzed our forecast errors using the MAD, MSE, and MAPE methods of forecasting
accuracy. We then continued to create the remaining of the forecasting methods of moving average,
weighted moving average, exponential smoothing, and linear trend line.
When creating our forecast for the simple moving average, we began by using three periods.
The equation for this category was:
Forecastt =𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑡−1 +𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑡−2 + 𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑡−3
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After creating the forecast using three periods, we also wanted to be able to analyze how the
forecasts and their accuracies would change when using a different number of periods in the formula. We
decided to also include forecasts for simple moving averages using both four periods and five periods. The