Lesson From The Four Giants: To Be Innovative, Strategic and Transformative–Case Study of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google

In recent five years, with people spending more and more time online, digital marketing has become a vital marketing field where businesses compete fiercely with each other. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are four biggest winners that seized their opportunities in this competition with their own ace. Amazon dominates online retailing, Apple “sets the standard for the interface devices”, Facebook leads social engagement, and Google dominates online advertising by its strong search ability. However, the four giants don’t limit themselves to their ace fields. All of them want to compete with each other in other online marketing sectors. The market is changing fast. Everyone has a chance. Who makes the next shift firstly, who might be the next king of the industry. In order to win the battle, I believe that they should keep being innovative, strategic and transformative.

Innovation decides the productivity and the vitality

Apple’s creations, iPhone and iPad, are revolutionary changes to the way of interface with electronic devices. After iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system launched in 2012, Android lost 20% of its market share.

Amazon decided to open a  new physical bookstore in New York City, which is a creative trial going from online to offline. New buying experience may have a chance to guide consumers to fall in love with a new kind of lifestyle.

The creativity and innovation keep businesses being dynamic and leading the trend.

Never getting lost with good strategies

Having accurate estimation of the market and good understanding of consumers, Facebook becomes the biggest social media in the US, instead of quitting the industry before it got revenue in 2009. The buying of Instagram also showed a strategic head of Facebook. Instagram was bought by Facebook to target younger generation. Teenagers felt cool by using Instagram and old-fashioned to use Facebook, however, without recognizing that Instagram was also owned by Facebook.

Being transformative and never limit oneself

As the biggest e-retailer in the US, Amazon is not satisfied with the single character. Amazon Prime provides music and video services for customers, which competes products such as: iTunes, Apple TV and Google TV. Apple and Google also launched Apple Pay and Google Wallet to play a role in digital banking. Being transformative helps these companies to explore new fields. As a person, being transformative can help us to be flexible and get used to the fast changes of the world and never limit oneself.

In the future, big data will be a key for the four giants to compete with each other. They should figure out how to maximize the benefit from the large database that they already have.