谷歌借力‘消費化’挺進企業級市場
????谷歌(Google)在企業級市場上的銷售的戰略如下:拿一種流行的個人消費產品,做一些小的改進,然后在產品名后加上“企業版”三個字。聽起來很簡單?事實證明這種方法確實奏效。購買Gmail、谷歌日歷以及谷歌地圖等產品的公司規模越來越大【谷歌最近公布,西班牙銀行巨頭西班牙對外銀行(BBVA)也已成為其企業客戶】。雖然實際上谷歌致力于企業客戶的團隊規模仍然相當精干。 ????盡管如此,企業市場銷售在谷歌總收入中所占比重尚不足4%,因此,要想與微軟(Microsoft)或SAP比肩,成為企業級市場上的重量級選手,搜索引擎公司谷歌可謂任重道遠。如何爭取企業用戶(開發者就更不用說了),成為他們必不可少的工具?谷歌對此有何打算。為了了解這方面的情況,我們最近采訪了上任伊始的谷歌企業業務負責人阿米特?辛格,辛格曾在企業市場巨頭甲骨文(Oracle)效力了20年。 《財富》:你們的企業戰略是什么? ????辛格:我們的長遠目標是把同樣的個人消費產品帶給那些極有興趣改變運作方式的企業,因為它們已經看到了個人消費市場眼下出現的創新。我們首先將搜索設備推向企業級市場,隨后是應用程序,然后是我們的地圖解決方案。我們利用自身的技術資源開發這些產品企業版本——可以把它們看成增強版。當然,有些(功能)只面向企業,因為它們顯然并不存在個人版。但整個信息技術的消費化有著深遠的影響。它遠不止是帶自己的設備去上班這么簡單。 除了實時協作外,使用企業級谷歌應用還有哪些優勢? ????協作和共享是重點領域。此外其優勢還在于簡易和快速。下一個版本馬上就要發布,用戶無需安裝任何東西。它使用起來不需要什么技術。完全不需要使用手冊,因為這些產品簡單而直觀。用戶完全不用操心我們為實現這一效果在后端所做的工作。 那么谷歌應用的下一步是什么? ????設想一下,你在機場,查看一下社交圖譜,就可以知道臨近的登機口有某位工作中接觸過的人。我們正從用戶要求系統完成某項任務轉變為系統建議并協助用戶完成某項任務。地理位置服務對企業用戶有著廣泛的用途——大家很快就會看到我們在這個領域推出的一系列產品。我們有日歷、任務和電子郵件,大家接下來會看到我們從用戶方面將它們深度整合。Google+和谷歌應用正日益靠攏。現在你知道某人在哪兒,也知道他們與另一個人有什么聯系。因此,手機可以提示你去作一番自我介紹。它可以影響到銷售。 |
????Here's Google's (GOOG) strategy for selling to the enterprise: Take a popular consumer product, make a few small enhancements and tack the words "for business" on the end of the name. Sound simplistic? Turns out, it works. Larger and larger companies are signing on for products like Gmail, calendar and maps. (Google's most recently announced enterprise customer is Spanish banking behemoth BBVA.) All of this despite the fact that Google has a relatively tiny team devoted to snagging corporate customers. ????Still, enterprise sales make up less than 4% of Google's total revenues, so the search company is nowhere near becoming a large-scale enterprise player on par with Microsoft (MSFT) or SAP (SAP). To find out more about how Google plans to become an indispensable tool for corporate users (not to mention developers), we recently caught up with Amit Singh, the newish leader of Google's enterprise business and a 20-year-veteran of enterprise power-player Oracle (ORCL). FORTUNE: How would you describe your enterprise strategy? ????Singh: Our long-term goal is to take these same consumer assets and bring them to businesses that are keenly interested in changing how they operate because they see the kind of innovation that's taking place in the consumer space. We did this first with our search appliance, then with apps, then with our maps solution. We are taking our technology assets and building enterprise versions of them -- think of them as enhancements. Of course, certain things we'll do just for the enterprise, because clearly there's no consumer version of it. But the whole consumerization of IT has deep, profound implications. It's much more than bringing your own device to work. Are there advantages to using Google Apps for Business, other than real-time collaboration? ????Collaboration and sharing are the key areas. But it's also about simplicity and speed. The next version just shows up, so you don't have to install anything. Technology is moving out of the way. You never have to use a manual because it's simple and intuitive. You shouldn't have to worry about what we do in the back-end to enable that. So what's next for Google Apps? ????Imagine you're at an airport and based on your social graph you know that at the next gate there's someone you're in touch with through work. We're moving from asking the system to do something for you to the system suggesting and assisting you. You can do a lot with location for enterprise users -- you'll see some product launches in this area. We have calendaring and tasks and email, and you'll see us deeply integrating the people side of it. Google+ and Google Apps are coming closer and closer together. You now know where someone is and you know how they're connected to someone else. So your phone could prompt you to go introduce yourself. This has implications to sales. |