International Management 9th Edition by Helen Deresky

Exercise 5

Search Engines Aid Decision Making and Negotiation
Search engines help consumers search for and find useful information on the World Wide Web (WWW). In technical terms, the search queries and their results show up in the forms of search engine results pages (SERPs) and related information. This information may encompass web images and other types of useful files. Data mining is also part of this process. Major parts of the global web traffic include computers, networks, the Internet, WWW, browsers, search engines, and content.1 "Collecting, storing and disseminating Internet-based content" come from search engines, which use processes such as crawling and caching.2 In today's fast-changing world business and MNCs' domestic and global markets, search engines are highly useful and have been introduced in a multitude of languages. Local cultures and environments matter a lot when designing country-specific search engines.
Within search engines, data is an important part of technology. When retrieving information from search engines, the need for large-scale data is imperative in global business. Chief executive of IBM Virginia Rometty in The Economist's World in 2014 correctly commented:
A new model for the firm is on its way; data constitute a vast new natural resource; our world has become pervasively instrumented and interconnected, with computation infused into things nobody would think of as a computer; … and powerful new computing systems can store and make sense of it nearly instantaneously.3
Search engines come in different forms and types and may include general search engines, P2P search engines, meta-search engines, information-specific search engines, geographically based search engines, business search engines, enterprise search engines, and so on.4 In 2015, Google (now renamed "Alphabet") was the most popular and powerful search engine in the world, followed by Baidu (China), Bing (United States), Yahoo, AOL Global, Ask.com, and so on.5 Of course, Google is highly diversified in its products and maintains sites in various languages. This is a perfect example of today's global business with diverse markets and localization strategies. In 2014, Google sales surpassed $66 billion with a market capitalization of $384 billion. This shows the company's immense power, R D capability, and corporate visibility.6
Search engines in global business are mostly affected by local cultures, country-specific regulations, data authenticity, and national ideologies. For example, in 2015, Baidu was the largest search engine in China, with sales of $7.91 billion and market capitalization of $76.15 billion.7 Yandex was a leading search engine in Russia. In addition, South Korea had Naver and Daum. In the Czech Republic, Seznam is pretty popular. Sohu continues to be a dominant player in the Chinese market. Regardless of their types and forms, search engines in global business are highly differentiated based on their national languages, functions, country image, and usage. Search engines' contents and search results can reveal an interesting array of data and information. 8 Above all, search engines and their commercial identity remain country- and regionspecific. No wonder we witness a few search engines that dominate global business. This is also the result of proprietary technologies, unique algorithms, and knowledge capital. In short, search engines are still being refined and will have major implications for MNCs, domestic companies, governments, and consumers alike.9 Above all, consumers' privacy and national policies are critical issues in the growth of the global search engines industry.
Search engines carry national identities and cultures. Compare five major search engines from each continent, based on their local markets, strategies, and national characteristics.