How do you estimate economic impact of your business - Google shows a way!

Most often, I have been left wondering, what impact does my company make with businesses  that I deal with, the value difference some of the activities/programs that my clients' customers see of what we do for them and how to measure it effectively, showcase the value created to our employees who spend a significant part of the day of their lives( across the year!) with getting our clients' businesses customer ready!

Google has found an interesting way of  measuring the economic impact of their business across America. They have kind of looked at the what economic growth they have added to all the states in the US!  A whopping US $ 54 billion according to them!

Some interesting facts that I took out of the study:

• According to Google's own words - "Aside from being a well-known search engine, Google is also a successful advertising company.". Interesting to know that advertising business can drive economic value to the tune of several billion dollars when it is measured & accountable. 
• Google's business is based on 3 core offerings - Google Search & Ad Words, Ad Sense & Google Grants. When you are able to  build and measure the ability to connect customers to business, you create value. When you share a part of the revenue you make with a business, you create immense value to that business.
• Google Grants has supported over US $ 600 million in advertising for non-profit organizations worldwide. When businesses move from  participating in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to driving Customer Social Responsbility( CuSR), there is immense value that can be created.
  

• How do we define economic value is key to a business - Google estimates that for every $1 Ad Word spend, businesses earn $ 2 of revenue. Also, businesses receive 5  clicks on their search results for every $1 ad click. Interesting. In our business, if we were helping business cross-sell & up-sell or retain customers, it is a great way to quantify the value we bring to the table.Imagine you are in a Insurance business, the economic value added to the family of the deceased can be measured over time and the impact it creates on millions of households.Or if you were a MF company, the economic impact of making dreams of daughter's education, retirement, daughter's marriage expenses & consumption that happens around these events can create great economic impact in the economy.

Here's the report for you to read

I wonder though, why only the US!  Google, I believe has to be more global. The web and Google Ad Sense are pretty much well penetrated across countries today. May be this is a start but I would have liked Google to measure this across geographies.

Comments

[Naari]

Hi Swami - ur observations are bang on. For the advertising business to demonstrate its value, in this era of shrinking fees & commissions, they must find ways to measure the impact of their ideas on various aspects of the business. Which is why, there's so much money moving into Search. Thanks for the link :-)