The research for this report and the period it covers took place before the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Our modelling and polling sought to quantify Google’s impact in the year 2019. While it is too early to be certain of the long-term economic impact of the pandemic, in the last few months we have seen how digital tools can help families stay informed and connected, and businesses adapt to new ways of working.
10 ways in which Google impacted Belgian citizens and businesses in 2019
Google tools make a difference in users’ everyday lives. In total, Google products allow users to save at least 26 hours a year - the equivalent of over an extra day in free time. Our estimates suggest that the median Belgian user evaluates the use of Google tools at a total value of 636 euros per year. At a national level, that "consumer surplus" represents nearly 5.3% of the Belgian GDP.
Google is helping consumers make better decisions. Before they make a purchase, 65% of Belgian shoppers research the product online upfront.1 71% of shoppers indicate they make smarter purchasing decisions thanks to online information. 75% of businesses agree that the internet is incentivizing the delivery of higher quality goods and services.
Google is helping people & businesses get things done. 47% of people agree that search engines make their work easier and take less time. In total, Google Search and G Suite are creating at least €3.8 billion a year in business time savings for the Belgian economy.
53% of Belgian exporting companies agree that online search and advertising have made it significantly easier to find international clients. Nearly half of Google Ads spending in Belgium is going to international spending, suggesting that it is driving €1.2 bn in exports a year.
Google products are enabling new types of activities and businesses, such as Android developers, TensorFlow engineers or YouTube Creators. The Android ecosystem alone supports over 16,000 jobs in Belgium. The 10 biggest YouTube channels in Belgium gather a total of 37.9 million subscribers.
Google offered free trainings to over 100,000 people in Belgium through its Digital Atelier initiative since 2015. 25,000+ individuals have been trained in the training space in Brussels in the last two years. 35% of self employed trainees claim their business experienced business growth (increased profits, sales or customers) and 10% of unemployed found a job within 14 weeks thanks to the training.
Google Search is helping people develop their careers. Every year, among Search users aged between 18 and 24 years old, 66% use it to find a job and 55% to get advice on their CV. 38% of all Google Search users use it at least once a month to learn a new skill.
Google’s products are estimated to contribute €1.9 billion a year in increased profits for Belgian businesses. For every euro a business spends on Google Ads, they receive eight euros back in profit from Google Ads and Search.
Belgium was the first country to host a Google Data Centre outside of the US. The site in Saint Ghislain (Mons) is a key part of Google’s European infrastructure. Between 2007 and 2017, Google’s investments in the site supported an average 1,500 jobs per year. By 2021, Google will have invested €1.6 billion in the data centre.
Google is the world’s largest business purchaser of renewable energy, investing over $7 billion globally in renewable energy infrastructure. Since 2017, Google has matched its entire annual electricity consumption with renewable energy. In 2019, following the €3 million investment in a new solar plant in Belgium, the company announced a new partnership with Engie, reaching a capacity of 92MW with offshore wind energy from the Northern Sea to supply its sites in Belgium. Google Maps also contributes to reducing the environmental impact of its users: by helping people get where they need to go faster, it prevents 70,000 tonnes in
CO2 emissions from Belgium every year. That is the equivalent of taking around 23,000 flights around the world.
Introduction
Google’s mission is to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As a guide to the internet for many people, Google’s products like Search, YouTube and Android have made it possible to navigate the immense amount of new information created by the internet.
In this report, Google commissioned us to explore and quantify the ways in which their products impact Belgian people and businesses:
- The different ways Google’s products support individuals and families in their everyday lives. We explore how Google’s products help people learn, save time, and better connect with their friends and family.
- How Google tools boost business growth and innovation. We look at how Google makes it easier for small companies to connect with customers worldwide, increasing consumer power and enabling new types of business and entrepreneurship.
- How Google helps people be more productive, learn new skills and develop their careers. We look at how workers are using Google products to get more done, how Google Search is an increasingly important tool for people to find jobs and the potential from AI to further enable workers to be even more productive.
- How Google’s products support economic growth in Belgium. We look at the overall economic impact and jobs supported by Google across Belgium, as well as the more local impact of the company’s data centre in Saint Ghislain.
In order to better understand the full breadth of the impact Google creates, we combined a range of qualitative and quantitative research techniques. We ran a new nationally representative poll of 1,001 Belgian residents from across the country, exploring how they used Google products in their ordinary life and how much value it was creating for them. At the same time we spoke to 500 senior business leaders across different types of industry and size of business, trying to assess the difference these products were making to their workforce.
While Google commissioned this report from Public First, all economic estimates are derived from official, third party and proprietary information. The full technical details of our methodology is given in an appendix at the end of the report.
Creating helpful products for everyone
Tools that make everyday life easier
Saving time with Google Search and Assistant
Easier access to information is making a significant difference to people’s lives. Before the arrival of the search engine, the only way to get the answer to a question might be to ask a friend or drive to the library.
In our polling, 62% of Belgians said that they use Google Search at least daily, with 85% using at least once a month.
When we asked Belgians why they used Google Search:
Speed
- of Search users said speed: it saves them time
Coverage
- of Search users said coverage: it connects them with information not available in other ways
Convenience
- of Search users said convenience: it is easier or as easy as alternatives
In total, it is estimated that users save at least 22.8 hours a year from Search compared with other methods of finding information because it is faster and easier to access.2
This number
is likely to be a lower bound on the time saved by Google Search. If you
included the time saved by applying the new information from Google – trying
out a new recipe, or learning a new skill – time savings would be even greater.
“Should I wear a scarf today?”: the Royal Institute of Meteorology meets Kunstmaan I Accenture Interactive meets Google Assistant
In May 2019, for the first time, the forecasts of the Royal Institute of Meteorology (RIM) were made available to Belgian users via voice command, in French and Dutch.
Hand in hand with the Royal Institute of Meteorology (RIM) and propelled by Google Cloud’s natural language API, Kunstmaan | Accenture Interactive developed an extension that widens Google Assistant’s repertoire (comprising more than 1 million actions) even further, allowing people to get personalized, locally-relevant answers to weather-related questions. With this feature, users can ask the usual “What’s the weather today?”, as well as more elaborate questions such as “Do I need a jacket this morning?” or “Can I plan a barbecue next Saturday?”. Based on the RIM’s data, the system answers instantly in perfect coherence with the question.
Ultimately, this tool is a great opportunity for the Institute to transform and improve its daily interactions with users in a personal and intuitive way.
Saving time with Google Maps
Until recently, we relied on atlases and paper maps to find new places. We may also have gotten into arguments about directions while driving, or been worried about going to unknown locations on our own.
Today, we find that Google Maps and other location apps have made it easier for people to find restaurants and businesses, get around in new cities, and get to places more quickly and easily. 53% of Belgian Google Maps users use it at least once a week and 14% use it daily.
When we asked a series of questions about why people used Google Maps, we actually observed that saving time was a very common factor:
Percentage using Google Maps to...
In total, we estimate that Google Maps saves its users a total of 29 million hours per year in Belgium.
By helping people get where they need to go faster, Google Maps also helps the environment:
- Globally, Google Maps provides more than 1 billion kilometres of transit directions per day.
- 45% of Google Maps users in Belgium say that it allows them to walk or cycle rather than drive at least once a month.
- The time saved by Google Maps in Belgium saves 70,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year - the equivalent of flying around the world around 23,000 times.
Helping people of all ages access information and new skills
We found that the majority of Belgians, whatever age, are using Search to find new information, helping create a culture of lifelong learning. 84% of Search users say they are more likely to look something up when they are unsure about it than when before search engines existed.
While not every use of Search will be work related - around 10% of Belgian users say they use Google Search at least daily to find a piece of trivia - the majority of Belgian users say they regularly use Search to help with their everyday activities:
- of Search users regularly use Google Search to find a business, and 54% to research a big purchase
- of Search users regularly use it to research medical and health issues
Most popular uses for Google Search in Belgium (size=popularity)
And when they find an answer, most users do acknowledge Search’s usefulness. 92% of Search users agree that Search helps solve their problem as often as not. Search is also ranked as the most trusted source of information, more trusted even than official government publications.
YouTube uses: popularity and frequency
Many people find it easier to learn through video rather than text. Like Search, YouTube is increasingly a medium through which people learn more about the world, pursue their hobbies or get help with day to day tasks. Worldwide, there are over 1 billion views of learning content on YouTube every day.3 57% of YouTube users regularly use it to learn something.
Through our study among users in Belgium, we found that:
- Over two-thirds of YouTube users use it at least once a year to help with cooking (71%), and over three quarters to help with home maintenance (79%).
- 29% of YouTube users regularly use it to watch commentary on the news or political events.
- 30% of YouTube users regularly use it to learn about fitness or health.
Wondering about online family safety? Together we can be Cyber Heroes!
In 2017, Google and Test Achats partnered together to create Cybersimple.be, an online platform designed to help internet users become safer online. The website highlights numerous tips, tricks and tools available for all to use in Dutch, French and English.
As part of the Cybersimple initiative, the Cyber Heroes programme focuses specifically on children’s online safety and wellbeing. From cyber bullying to oversharing and fake news, it tackles many challenges that families might encounter when using online devices. With the support of local partners such as Libraries without Borders and Child Focus, the Cyber Heroes have not only come to life online but also offline, by providing workshops for children, teachers and parents.
In late 2018, Libraries without Borders was granted €309,000 from Google.org to bring the Cyber Heroes to schools across Belgium. By the end of 2019, 345 teachers had participated in a Cyber Heroes training and the programme had reached more than 14,900 children.
Find out more on Cybersimple.be.
Who uses Google products in Belgium?
Over the last twenty five years, the Internet and smartphone have gone from being niche products to almost universal adoption.
Like the internet as a whole, Google’s products have been taken up across society, by people from all backgrounds. In the data from our poll, there was no statistically significant difference in how likely those with different incomes were to use Google Search. Our polling data also found clear evidence that Android was more likely to be used by those with low incomes than other smartphone operating systems.
Similarly, Google’s products are widely used by both women and men, and there is little age gradient for Google Search use. While the young are slightly more likely to regularly use YouTube, the majority of Google’s products saw high usage across ages.
The one exception where we did see a clear distinction was G Suite, where usage was significantly higher for younger generations.
From our study in Belgium, we saw clear data that Google’s products were being used by people from all backgrounds to help out with their everyday life:
- 40% of Google Search users over 65 regularly used it to research a medical issue.
- 82% of Android users over 65 regularly use their smartphone or computer to keep in touch with friends.
- 33% of Google Search users with only a basic education regularly use it to learn a new skill, and 53% of YouTube users with only a basic education regularly use it to learn something new.
Use of Google products by income (1 = national average)
Use of Google products by gender and age (1 = national average)
The value of Google products in daily life
In this chapter, we have explored some of the ways in which Google products help people in their daily lives: saving time, making it easier to find information, and helping people better keep in touch.
There are all kinds of value that often do not get picked up by traditional economic impact studies, which have tended to focus on the impact of a company or product on Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, GDP itself has never included everything we value or every type of work we do. Taken literally, GDP takes no account of changes in our leisure time or the amount of work we do in non-market roles, such as housework or looking after family. The majority of the kinds of help we have explored in this study do not increase GDP in the way we normally measure it - but most people would agree that they are important.
How can we better understand and quantify the value created by Google in daily life?
One way to do this is to look at changes in the consumer surplus. The consumer surplus is defined by economists as the difference between the amount a consumer would be willing to pay and the amount they actually do pay.
This is particularly relevant for products such as Google’s, which are largely provided to the end user without monetary charge. Just because their price is zero does not mean that they are not worth anything.
We found that the cumulated consumer surplus of Google’s products for the average person in Belgium is around €53 per month.
For Google Search, the total consumer surplus is equivalent to €7.3 bn
For YouTube, the total consumer
surplus is €3.8 bn a year
For Google Maps, the total consumer surplus is €1.5 billion a year
For Gmail, the total consumer
surplus is over €10 billion a year
For Google Docs, the total consumer surplus is over €1.9 billion a year
Consumer Surplus (bn)
The total consumer surplus is equivalent to nearly 5.3% of GDP, over eight times the size of the agricultural industry and nearly one third the size of the industrial sector.4
Crucially, our estimates found that this consumer surplus is significantly higher than for other consumer products. Indeed, when we asked people to choose from a range of things they would least like to give up, we found that Belgians would rather give up public transport than Search, and would rather lose access to their TV than give up their smartphone.
Helping businesses grow and innovate
How referral traffic drives revenue for Belgian businesses
At the heart of Google’s business model, for most of its products, is advertising. Google’s key innovation in the advertising space consisted in using data to:
- Help advertisers reach people at the best possible moment;
- Help them ensure that their Euros were well spent;
- Enabling niche businesses to target those with very specific interests.
That means fewer, better ads for the customer - and a much higher rate of return for the business advertising. On average, Google calculates that for every euro businesses spend on Google Ads, they receive back €8 in profit.5
While the direct impact of Google Ads is important for Belgian businesses, even more important is the organic referral provided by Google Search. In our polling, 78% of businesses in Belgium said that online search was an important way in which customers find them. 76% of the businesses we spoke to agreed that thanks to search engines, it was far easier for local customers and clients to discover them.
Helping companies and customers to find each other, within and across borders
How important do you find these ways in which customers find your company?
Making it easier for local customers to find businesses
Tools like Google Maps and Google My Business have made it easier for people locally and nationally to find new businesses such restaurants and shops. This can be particularly important to those in remote locations.
In our consumer polling, we found that:
Local Business
Local Restaurant
Something New
Fun: a Belgian business finding its way to customers in the holiday season
The holidays are a critical time of year for stores, as shoppers stop in to get an item quickly or see it in person. Online research to find local stores is actually continuing to surge—we’re seeing 350 times more search interest in "local" + "near me" than there was 10 years ago.
When holiday shoppers are deciding where to shop – to buy items for multiple people or for last-minute gifts after shipping cutoffs have passed – how can businesses help them find their store?
Fun, a Belgian toy retailer based in Bruges, relied on a Local Campaign (consisting in leveraging online media to increase offline store visits) for the first time back in 2018, on the holiday season, to bring more shoppers into its 29 locations across the country.
Fun had already run existing Search, Shopping, Display and YouTube campaigns on Google. In 2018, the brand secured additional budget to launch a Local Campaign and increase store visits specifically to locations that needed to accelerate their footfall and revenue. It evaluated performance before and during the campaign compared to Y-1 to see the impact on offline business.
This initiative drove 24,000 additional store visits on top of its existing Google Ads campaigns, at a strong 19x ROAS. This helped lift total store sales and completely reversed a year-to-date decline.
“Local campaigns have proven to be a good alternative for our above the line campaigns. Of course, in such peak periods, offline media still helps boost awareness (and we’ll continue running them), but being there when customers search for toy store locations has helped us bring traffic to our retail locations. And the link to our website always remains around the corner” says Sven Dhollander, in charge of E-commerce & Retail manager at Fun.be.
In 2019, Fun.be repeated the experience with even more successful results: 70,000 additional store visits were registered, with an estimated 55x ROAS.
Enabling Belgian businesses to tap into new markets
One of the biggest transformations of the internet is that businesses can reach anywhere across the globe. At the same time, it has made it easier for small businesses to compete with larger enterprises: organisations no longer have to commission expensive TV or print advertising campaigns, but can target customers much more precisely.
Tools like Google Ads, Analytics and Market Finder have made it much easier for businesses of any size to reach new customers wherever they are based. 68% of the businesses we spoke to agree that compared to the time before search engines, it was now far easier for global customers or clients to find their business.
Looking only at Belgian businesses who said that a majority of their customers came from abroad, 53% agreed that their business would have significantly fewer international clients without online search and online advertising.
Based on our polling, we estimate that around a third of Google Ads spending from businesses in Belgium is targeted at international spending, suggesting that Google Ads is driving nearly €0.8 bn in exports a year.
Creating a more consumer focused economy
More transparency, better customer service
By increasing transparency and choice, Search and other online tools have led to more productive companies and a better quality service for the end customer.
The people and companies we polled agree:
- 71% of shoppers think they make better purchasing decisions because of online information.
- 75% of businesses agree that search engines have made maintaining high levels of customer and client satisfaction more important.
This happens not only online, but offline too. 58% of people say they used their phone to research a potential purchase in the last year when in a shop. This allows them to avoid products which get poor reviews, and make sure they are paying a good price.
Helping small businesses compete and grow
Given their lower entry costs, internet tools are often particularly important for the productivity of small businesses. Anyone who wanted to start a large export business twenty years ago, would probably have to invest in an international advertising campaign, in-house IT servers and expensive software licences.
In Belgium, out of businesses with less than 250 employees we saw:
Making it easier for newcomers to challenge established firms
Free online tools, cloud computing, and the ability to communicate to customers across the globe have dramatically reduced the barriers to entry for start-ups, and made it easier for them to grow.
In our poll, out of businesses less than five years old we saw:
Enabling and empowering new types of businesses
YouTube Creators: an emerging ecosystem
For decades publishers, record labels, and TV producers have been besieged by requests from individuals wanting a chance to reach a wide audience. YouTube has provided many with an alternative - giving them a platform to communicate directly to people all over the world. While children used to dream of becoming a film or sports star when they grew up, an increasing number now say their dream is to become a YouTube creator.6
Worldwide, YouTube has a total audience of over 2 billion users, with over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute and one billion hours of content watched every day. This immense audience supports thousands of independent creators. The number of YouTube channels with more than one million subscribers has grown by more than 65% and the number of channels earning five figures per year more than 40%.7
Belgium is a great example of this expansion: 300 YouTube channels in Belgium currently have more than 100,000 subscribers - a number which has grown 60% between 2018 and 2019. 21 channels in Belgium now have more than 1 million subscribers, against 14 in 2018 and 6 in 2017). In total, we estimate that YouTube is driving over €10 million in revenue to local creators.
Three Belgian channels, three different ways to spread knowledge, creativity and fun through YouTube
Vexx: the fresh and funky Belgian illustrator who draws on everything for inspiration.
2.48M
SUBS
Vince Okerman, also known as Vexx, is a fresh and funky Belgian YouTuber/Illustrator who likes to share all his bright and imaginative art creations with the world. Vexx’s videos never fail to impress, and range from timelapses to site-specific street art to illustration challenges. He also creates crazy sneaker customisations that are sure to blow your mind.
On the occasion of the latest YouTube Pop Up Space in Brussels, Vexx was recalling his debuts: “I started it five years ago. I made drawings and posted pictures of the result on Instagram. But I was sorry that no one saw how much time and effort I put into those drawings, so I posted a video online of the drawing process."
About his life as a YouTube Creator, he added: "Last week I painted a Lamborghini together with another YouTuber, next week I will make a mural in Argentina. It’s great that I also earn money with my passion and that it’s actually enough to live on it. ”
Alexiane Wyns: the lawyer that finds her clients through YouTube
+5.5K SUBS
Alexiane Wyns is a Belgian lawyer specialized in start-ups and small & medium enterprises, who started her activity in 2011. With her channel which compiles more than 250 videos - and still counting - Alexiane examines different aspects of Belgian law and gives out her advices with a lot of pedagogy, even on the most technical topics.
At first, taking her expertise to YouTube didn’t feel like an obvious choice: “I was told ‘Why not video?’. I knew nothing about that, also I’m a very shy person! I got to YouTube and discovered a new world. I self-trained for 6 months while working full time. And then when the holidays came in Summer 2017, I started posting once a day”.
The success of Alexiane’s channel played a major part in the development of her activity: “Today all my clients get to me via my videos. The channel also helps me save a lot of time to present and explain things to them. That allows me to free some more time to work on the actual cases.”
Alexiane points out: “This also deconstructs the usual lawyer persona. When I’d distribute business cards, people used to say: ‘Oh, a lawyer, talking to you will cost me an arm and a leg!’ Video actually takes the dust off our profession and reassures my interlocutors”.
UAntwerpen: spreading knowledge and skills, one clip at a time
2K SUBS
The University of Antwerp has been present on YouTube since 2016 and has since published more than 560 videos on its 5 different channels. From Mathematics lessons to Economics exercises to introductions of the school’s campuses, the clips published by UAntwerpen both allow to promote the university and support the students’ learning process. A unique, inspiring example of education professionals reinventing the way they connect with their students.
Lothar van Diessen, marketing and communication strategist, explains: “At the University of Antwerp, the teaching staff makes so-called ‘knowledge clips’ for the students on different courses, such as accountancy, economics and mathematics. These clips allow students to get the explanation of difficult concepts and exercises anywhere, anytime, anyplace. As teaching staff can refer to the clips - e.g. when students ask for extra exercises - they win precious time in the long term.
The mission of our university states that we want to contribute positively to society. For that reason, we publish clips that can be useful for a wider audience, publicly, on YouTube. We actually notice that high school pupils and their teachers also find their way to our UAntwerp knowledge channels. Our accountancy channel is a great example: our videos on accountancy are quite plain, but they explain theory and concepts in a clear and concise manner. Therefore, the channel registered more than 71K views in 2019.
The economic impact of Android in Belgium
The average consumer in advanced economies regularly uses over 30 apps, with just under 100 apps installed on their smartphone.8
Android is the world’s most popular app platform, helping app and games developers to deploy and market to customers worldwide.
Globally, over 5.9 million developers prioritise working on Android.9 In total, the Google Play store offers around 2.7 million apps to download,10 with over 75 billion apps downloaded globally from the Google Play store in 2018.11
Alongside direct revenue from the Google Play Store, developers also receive a significant income from contract work developing apps for businesses and brands.
In Belgium, independent estimates have found that the Android
ecosystem supports 16,000 jobs.12 Around a third of those jobs are core
developer jobs from producing apps directly for sale or contract work, with
each of these jobs stimulate another two jobs, either in other parts of the
business such as marketing or management, or through higher demand in the wider
economy.
Helping workers be more productive and develop their careers
Supporting business productivity
Usage of internet technologies over time
Like the PC and the spreadsheet a generation before, arguably the most important personal productivity tools of the last generation have been the smartphone and the search engine.
Through our polling in Belgium, 62% of workers agreed that search engines make their work easier and take less time.
But it is not just Search. 47% of individuals say that smartphones make their jobs easier, while 21% of business leaders say that online maps are essential to the running of their business and 41% think the same about online office suites.
The employers we spoke to agreed that the internet has increased productivity and enabled new styles of working:
Increasingly, many companies are turning to cloud providers such as Google Cloud Platform to enable them to grow seamlessly. According to Eurostat data, over 40% of Belgium enterprises use cloud computing services, compared to an EU average of 26%.13 In total, Deloitte estimates by increasing productivity Google Cloud has increased profits for businesses in Belgium by around €70 million a year.14
Based upon this, and other work on the time
saved by Google Search,15 we estimate that Google
Search and G Suite alone could be creating €3.8 billion a year in business time
savings for the Belgian economy.16
Helping managers make strategic choices
Like their workforce, business owners and managers are also increasingly turning to Google products to stay on top of trends and opportunities, be aware of what their competitors are doing, and constantly improve their own practices and management.
In our business poll, we found that at least once a month:
Smartphoto: the digital photo pioneer that switched to Cloud
Smartphoto is a leading European B2C and B2B provider of digital printing services for a large variety of products such as cards, albums, textile and many more. It is one of the pioneers of digital photo printing. Customers can simply upload their photos to smartphoto's website, where they can then easily create their own photo product. Within just a few days they receive their photo product at home. The company ships about 2 million orders a year.
During the holiday period, smartphoto has about ten times as many visitors compared to the period between January and October. Until recently, smartphoto relied on a server infrastructure that was capable of dealing with this end of year peak period; yet, its capacity remained unused for most of the year. Hence, smartphoto's infrastructure was sized for peak loads during certain periods of the year, leading to severe under-utilization outside the holiday season. Furthermore, smartphoto’s growth and international expansion led to the fact that they were in need of highly scalable IT infrastructure. The current way of working would inevitably lead to technical issues and constraints in the near future, and would also require significant investments to keep up with smartphoto's growth.
Cloud computing seemed to be the right answer to most of the business and technical challenges. The solution enabled the company to quickly scale up the number of server capacity it needs at a specific moment in time, without needing this capacity for the entire year. Today, the company enables its millions of customers to design their own products with photo prints via state-of-the-art, homegrown cloud creation software. The benefits of Google Cloud Platform are increasingly felt as scalability is now a key characteristic of the infrastructure. Smartphoto is ready to further scale the business in the coming years, optimize its infrastructure to reduce cost and fully embrace the benefits of becoming cloud native.
"To support our growth ambition, we chose to move our server infrastructure to the Google cloud."
— Stef De corte, CEO at smartphoto
Protecting businesses online with leading security
While the internet has
enabled new opportunities for businesses to save time and money, it has also created the potential for new
types of risk from data breaches or loss. One recent business survey found that
28% of small businesses in the US had suffered a data loss in the last twelve
months, with 69% of those forced offline for a limited period and 10% forced
into bankruptcy.17
Protecting businesses online with leading security
Security features are built into all of Google’s products, services, and infrastructure to keep data protected, and Google has dedicated teams and technology to continually improve that security.
- Defense in depth The security of Google’s infrastructure was designed in layers that build upon one another, from the physical security of data centres to the security protections of hardware and software to the processes used to support operational security. This layered protection creates a strong security foundation for everything Google does.
- Physical security to protect data integrity: Google distributes data across multiple data centres, so that in the event of a fire or disaster, it can be automatically shifted to stable and protected locations. Each of those data centres is monitored and protected 24/7, and access is tightly controlled with measures like biometric identification and laser-based surveillance.
- Custom hardware with security at its core: Security starts in hardware. Google created processes to help ensure the security of its hardware, including vetting the vendors they work with, designing custom chips, and taking measures to identify and authenticate legitimate Google devices. This foundation allows the delivery of security at every level.
- Encryption to keep data private and protected: Encryption brings an even higher level of security and privacy to Google’s services. As the data created moves between your device, Google services, and data centres, it is protected by security technology like HTTPS and Transport Layer Security. Google also encrypts email at rest and in transit by default, and encrypt identity cookies by default.
- Processes for secure operations: Google uses security monitoring to protect users from malware. Applications are constantly monitored and patches are deployed through automated network analysis and proprietary technology. This allows Google to detect and respond to threats to protect products from spam, malware, viruses, and other forms of malicious code.
- Google actively scans to find vulnerabilities: Google scans for software vulnerabilities, using a combination of commercially available and purpose-built in-house tools, intensive automated and manual penetration testing, quality assurance processes, software security reviews, and external audits.
- Google designs with security in mind: Google’s security and privacy experts work with development teams, reviewing code and ensuring products utilise strong security protections.
- Strong controls to limit access to trusted personnel: Google limits access to users’ business’ data to Google personnel who need it to do their jobs; for example, when a customer service agent assists a user in managing their data. Strong access controls are enforced by organizational and technical safeguards. And Google works with third parties, like customer support vendors, to provide Google services, an assessment is conducted to ensure they provide the appropriate level of security and privacy needed to receive access to data.
- Incident management to resolve threats quickly: Google’s security team works 24/7 to quickly detect, resolve, and notify the appropriate individuals of security incidents. The security incident management program is structured around industry best practices and tailored into the "Incident Management at Google (IMAG)" program, which is built around the unique aspects of Google and its infrastructure. Incident response plans are regularly tested, so Google always remains prepared.
To know more about safety at Google, go to: safety.google
Allowing people to get more done while on the go
From podcasts to apps, streaming video to gaming, the rise of the smartphone has helped to make travelling far more entertaining for many people - and often more productive too. Rather than wait to get back to your desk to look up a crucial piece of information or respond to an urgent message, we are now able to act much more in the moment.
In our polling, we saw many ways in which Belgians were using their smartphone to remain productive while on the go:
Looking up information
Managing work
Keeping on schedule
Helping people find jobs and grow in their career
For over a hundred years, an important goal of public policy has been to help match workers with the right jobs, and once in work, train and improve their skills. Today, Google Search is increasingly the leading gateway through which workers look for a new position and, once there, seek to improve their skills.
Every year in Belgium:
This is particularly true of younger workers. 66% of 18-24 year old Search users say they use it at least once a year to look for a new job.
The Grow with Google initiative: when technology becomes a vector of employment
Grow with Google is a global initiative that aims to create more opportunity for everyone. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Grow with Google provides free training courses, tools and in-person coaching through national Digital Workshop programmes. In Belgium, the initiative is called the Google Digital Atelier. Through the program, Google aims to help people get the right (digital) skills to find a job, advance their careers or grow their businesses.
With the Google Digital Atelier training program, Google offers small businesses, self-employed, students and job seekers the opportunity to obtain the skills they need to set themselves up for success in the 21st century. The company does so not just online but also face-to-face in the Google Atelier Digital education space in BeCentral (Brussels Central Station) and at events with partners throughout the entire country.
Since 2015, Google offered free trainings to over 100,000 people in Belgium through its Digital Atelier initiative. 25,000+ individuals have been trained in the training space in Brussels in the last two years. 35% of self employed trainees claim their business experienced business growth (increased profits, sales or customers) and 10% of unemployed found a job within 14 weeks thanks to the training.
Google’s overall impact in Belgium
Estimating the economic impact of Google
Measured conservatively, we estimate that Google products support at least €1.9 bn of economic activity for Belgian businesses. If we assumed standard economic wide multipliers, that is the equivalent of supporting around 19,000 jobs.
It is also worth noting that over the last five years, the economic activity driven by Google Search and Ads in Belgium has grown by around 49% in nominal terms.
The value created by Google products is generated right across the country.
Google Search and Ads Economic Impact in Belgium (€ bn)
Google contribution to GVA by region (Ft)
Google’s data centres in Belgium
The rapid growth of demand for data has required companies like Google to invest significant resources into the underlying infrastructure that powers the internet. Whenever someone uses Gmail, does a Google Search, edits a Google Doc, or watches a YouTube video, they are using a Google data centre. As well as powering Google’s own services, Google’s data centres are also the backbone behind its cloud platform, supporting the digital infrastructure of tens of thousands of businesses across Belgium.
There are currently five active Google data centre sites in Europe, with a sixth coming online in the Autumn of 2020, serving computers in their own countries and around the world. Saint Ghislain was the first data centre to be opened in Europe back in 2010. It was also the first data centre worldwide to run entirely without refrigeration - instead relying on evaporative cooling using water from a nearby canal.18
The whole site currently employs around 350 people in full time and contractor roles - from computer technicians to electrical and mechanical engineers, to security, catering and facilities management. This number does not include construction workers building new data centres or upgrading existing facilities.
By 2021, Google will have invested €1.6 billion in the Saint Ghislain data centre. Copenhagen Economics estimates that this has supported an average of 1,500 jobs per year between 2007 and 2017.
By applying AI to the design of its data centres, Google has helped significantly increase their energy efficiency: they use 50% less energy than a typical data centre, and compared to five years ago, achieve seven times as much computation power with the same amount of electrical power.19
In
addition, Google is the world’s largest
business purchaser of renewable electricity. Since 2017, it has matched
100% of the electricity of its operations with purchases of renewable energy.
The data centre extension in Saint Ghislain
In June 2019, Google announced a new investment of nearly €600 million to build another data centre on their current site in Saint-Ghislain, bringing Google’s total investment in data infrastructures in Belgium to €1.6 billion. This fourth data centre is expected to be ready by 2021.
A year before, Google had already unveiled the construction of a third data centre, operational by the end of 2019, and a new solar plant on the land of the data centre, generating 2.8 megawatts of clean and reliable renewable energy every year for the use of the data centre.
Charles Michel, at the time Prime Minister: “This new investment in Saint-Ghislain is excellent news for Wallonia and Belgium, and confirms our position as digital pioneers, achieved over the past years. Our country plays a leading role in Europe when it comes to expanding the growing digital economy that creates many new jobs. Our know-how and skilled work force leads to service providers like Google and many start-ups to continue investing and expanding here. Over the past years, Belgium has become increasingly attractive to investors. To maintain our position as a frontrunner, we have to keep reshaping and stepping up on digital innovation.”
Frédéric Descamps, Data Centre Facilities Manager, adds: “We’re proud to call Belgium home for 12 years now and look forward to many more. Google’s commitment to Belgium is unwavering. Today’s €600 million expansion brings our total investment to €1.6 billion. Additionally, we actively support local NGOs, community groups, schools and businesses in the St. Ghislain and Mons area. ”
Philippe De Backer, Minister of Digital Agenda: “We are convinced that artificial intelligence and the transition to the digital economy must play a central role in our country's strategy. By doing so, we can improve our standard of living with better healthcare and environmental protection, create new jobs and keep Belgium competitive. Infrastructure such as the Google data centre are also essential in this respect. We are therefore very pleased that Google has decided to continue investing in Belgium with an additional data centre of €600 million.”
Methodology
As described in the main report, accurately estimating the value created by digital products is extremely challenging – and this is particularly true for products that are offered without monetary charge, are used widely across the economy, and contain elements of both consumption and production, as is true for many Google products.
While we believe our estimates are based on conservative assumptions, it is worth being aware of their limitations:
- Many of our estimates are based on the gross impact of Google’s products, as it is hard to accurately quantify what a counterfactual world without Google would look like.
- Conversely, in some cases we have not been able to fully quantify all the impacts created by Google products, suggesting that our estimates should be viewed as a lower bound.
- Many of our estimates make use of new polling carried out for this report – but as in any poll, consumers may underestimate or overestimate their use of products. Best practice in many of these areas, such as valuing an hour of leisure time or using stated preferences to calculate consumer surplus, remains an area of active academic debate.
- Google did not provide any new or internal data to generate these estimates. All our modelling is based on third-party or public data, alongside our own internal estimates.
Polling
In order to build a broader picture of the benefits, we conducted extensive public polling to ask individuals and businesses how they made use of Google products, and what difference they made to their leisure, work and society.
Working with the panel provider Dynata, we polled a nationally-representative sample of 1,001 adults and 500 senior business managers in small, medium and large businesses across Belgium, asking them 50 and 23 questions respectively about their experience using Google and other online products.
Public First is a member of the British Polling Council, and full tables for all the data used in this report is available to download from our website.
Consumer Benefits
Google Search
Our headline estimate of the total consumer surplus of Google Search is calculated as the geometric average of:
- Time saved. Following the methodology of Varian (2011), we assume that using Google saves 15 minutes per question, with the average person asking 1 answerable question every 2 days. Time saved is valued at the self-reported polling data of average incomes, and we scale the overall estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on Google Search usage. (More information on this overall approach can be found in the Economic Value of Google, a presentation by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian.)
- Stated preference (Willingness to Accept). As part of our polling, we asked participants a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to Google Search or go without access to Google Search for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled this estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on Google Search usage.
Following Brynjolfsson et al (2017), we chose a Willingness to Accept (WTA) rather than Willingness to Pay format for our Stated Preference question as we believed this best matched the status quo, given that the majority of Google Services are offered without monetary charge.
As with many other products, the mean consumer surplus is significantly higher than the median – or, in other words, a few dedicated users use it disproportionately more than the average.
In order to ensure that our household level figures were not misleading, we based them not on the mean household value for WTA compensation, but instead a separate estimate of the median WTA. We derived this by regressing our polling data again, using an exponential method which we judged was more likely to accurately represent the bottom of the distribution.
Google Maps
Our headline estimate of the total consumer surplus of Google Maps is calculated as the geometric average of:
- Time saved. We calculate time saved by Google Maps, using estimates of time saved by advanced traveller information systems from Levinson (2003) and total time spent travelling by mode from our polling, calibrated by Belgium Mobility data on the total time spent commuting. Time saved is valued at 37.5% of the estimated hourly income of Google Maps users, following standard practice for calculating the value of travel time savings.
- Stated preference. As with Google Search, we asked the participants of our poll a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to Google Maps or go without access to Google Maps for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled this estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on usage. In addition, we constructed a separate estimate of the median WTA compensation for losing Google Maps which we used for our per person and household estimates.
YouTube
Our headline estimate of the total consumer surplus of YouTube is calculated as the geometric average of:
- Time saved. Extrapolating from the methodology Varian (2011), we assume that using YouTube saves 11 minutes per question, using self-reporting polling data to calibrate the number of questions asked. Time saved is valued at the self-reported polling data of average incomes, and we scale the overall estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on YouTube usage.
- Stated preference (Willingness to Accept). As part of our polling, we asked participants a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to YouTube or go without access to YouTube for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled this estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on YouTube usage.
Gmail and Google Docs
Given that we did not have access to time saving estimates for these products, we instead relied on estimates drawn again from stated preferences, following the same procedure.
We asked the participants of our poll a single discrete binary choice question “Would you prefer to keep access to [Gmail / Google Docs] or go without access to [Gmail / Google Docs] for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user.
Finally, we scaled these estimates bythird party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on each product’s usage. In addition, we constructed a separate estimate of the median WTA compensation for each product which we used for quoted per person and household estimates.
Android
In addition to measuring the consumer surplus individuals received for individual Google services, we also investigated the overall consumer surplus Belgians receive from their smartphone.
We asked the participants of our poll a single discrete binary choice question “Would you prefer to keep access to your smartphone or go without access to your smartphone for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500.
We then scaled this number by Android’s market share in Belgium and Lee (2016)’s estimate of the proportion of net smartphone consumer surplus, excluding substitution value.
Given the overlap with individual services - one reason we value our phone is because it allows us to access Search, Maps, Gmail or YouTube - and the challenges in decomposing the value attributable to software and hardware, we did not include this estimate in our number for the overall value created by Google in Belgium.
Business Benefits
Google Ads
Following the precedent of past Google impact reports, we use third-party data to estimate the total size of the Belgian Google Ads market, combining PWC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook data on the total Belgian paid search market with other estimates of Google’s market share.
Following the methodology of the US Google Economic Impact Report, we then scale this revenue by an assumed Return on Investment (ROI) factor of 8, from:
- Varian (2009) estimates that businesses make on average $2 for every $1 they spend of AdWords.
- Jansen and Spink (2009) estimate that businesses receive 5 clicks on their search results for every 1 click on their ads.
- Google estimates that search clicks are about 70% as valuable as ad clicks.
- Total ROI is then 2 * spend + 70% * 5 * 2 * spend – spend = 8 (spend).
More information on this methodology is available at https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/.
AdSense
In order to estimate total Belgian Adsense revenues, we scale Google’s 2019 global Traffic Acquisition Costs to network members by Belgium’s share of global display spending, derived from PWC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook data. In addition, we also include the estimated returns to advertisers, drawing on the estimated ROI of display advertising from Kireyev et al (2013).
YouTube
In order to estimate total Belgian revenues to Belgian creators, we combine:
- Google’s reported global YouTube advertising revenue in 2019
- PWC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook data on total Belgian video advertising revenue
- Sandvine data on YouTube’s 2017 share of EMEA video bandwidth
- AdStage data on YouTube CPC (cost per click) and CTRs (click through rate)
We then further scale this by an assumed conservative ROI factor.
Android
We scale App Annie 2019 data on worldwide Android app store consumer spend and Android revenue share by Caribou Digital (2016)’s estimate of the Belgian share of total app store value captured, and a 70% revenue share for the developers. We then scale this by the ratio between app store revenue and total revenue, including consultancy work, derived from Card and Mulligan (2014).
- The Smart Shopper Research Kantar/Google 2019 - Belgium
- Economic Value of Google, Hal Varian
- https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/data/youtube-viewership-statistics/
- https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/be.html
- https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/
- See, for example here or here.
- https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/youtube-2-billion-users-tv-screen-watch-time-hours-1203204267/, https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/ and https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-uploaded-to-youtube-every-minute/
- The State of Mobile 2019, App Annie
- Caribou Digital Report
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/266210/number-of-available-applications-in-the-google-play-store/
- Store Intelligence Data Digest Q4 and Full Year 2018, Sensor Tower
- The App Economy in Europe: Leading Countries and Cities, Dr Michael Mandel and Elliot Long, Progressive Policy Institute, 2017
- https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Cloud_computing_-_statistics_on_the_use_by_enterprises
- Public First calculation based on Economic and social impacts of Google Cloud, Deloitte, September 2018
- Economic Value of Google, Hal Varian, 2011
- Assuming half of Belgian workers use Google Search on a weekly basis, and 20% of workers use G Suite. Based upon work by Forrester Consulting, we assume each user of G Suite saves between 15 minutes and 2 hours each a week. We conservatively assume that workers research one question through Google Search a week, and that this saves them 15 minutes. Total time saved is converted into a monetary amount using Belgian average output per hour.
- https://staysafeonline.org/small-business-target-survey-data/
- https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/st-ghislain/
- https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/google_2019-environmental-report.pdf