In the first half of this decade (2010-2020), when technology was finding its way in the world of communications, Google came up with Hangouts in 2013. Before launching Hangouts, Google did offer communication software products like Google Talk. Hangouts, however, was launched with a view of making it a future of voice. Soon after it started facing competition from other channels like Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, and similar others. This called for changes in the way Hangouts was projected and operated in the market. With frequent changes and nothing concrete out of the policies and decisions made, Hangouts has seen the fall in its market share. The question now was how to re-position a communication product in the market full of competition.
Situational Analysis and Research Methodology
During the second half of the decade, when businesses realized the potential of communication software, there was a substantial increase in the number of service providers in the market.
To enable their customers with ease and save time, most of the service providers came up with a mobile application along with the website. The primary purpose was to provide comfort at disposal while ensuring high consumer satisfaction.
Secondary research was done to gather and analyze the data regarding potential competitors in the market.
Primary research, through executive interviews (of people using this product and people using competition product), to understand the gap in what is expected and what is being offered.
Recommendations
Studying the key-value offerings that each of the players' offers, helped perform gap analysis, and narrow down the point of differentiation.
Understanding the future trend and anticipated future needs helped pave the path for the next product version.
Outcome
Google came up with two Apps named Chats and Meets which were the new version of Hangouts.
G-suite version being replaced by the above-mentioned apps by 2019 to meet the market trend and position itself back in the market.
Few extra features tweaked and downgraded as the availability of them didn’t add any offerings to clients. Similarly, several key features, primarily missing, were added to align with the identified future trend.
However, even after replacing the traditional hangouts with Meet and Chat, it ensured that it would continue to support the consumer version of classic Hangouts.