When we started learning about market trends and how to predict company sales based on past performance I really was thinking that it didn’t seem right to even make an educated guess at how a company would do based on past performance. Think about any retail company in the month of December, are you going to tell me that January should outsell December? If anything I would say that sales would decline because of the Holliday being over (keep in mind that most companies keep this in mind and do not have crazy sales goals for January).
When Yahoo announced that they took a 5% dip in profits this year I was not surprised. Yahoo who used to be a major name in the online world has somewhat fallen off the map in most people’s eyes, and these customers would rather use a power house like Google to provide them with email accounts. When co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from Yahoos board the stock actually increased 3.4%. Rumor has it that Yang stepped down because of the fact that Yahoo hired Scott Thompson as a Executive Officer. The BBC article went on to say that “This is clearly a positive. It provides a more objective and unemotional approach to strategic alternatives,”, and “It’s also good for the new CEO. He has one less entrenched legacy board member to resist his vision.”
This did not make any sense to me in terms of what we have learned thus far. Operations management is defiantly a huge part of a business, and this could be why the company saw an increase in profit once the CEO reigned. Like the article stated maybe the market believes in PayPals president Scot Thompson as its new chief executive, and that is why the value went up. This was just a overnight phenomenon while in fact total revenue fell 13% during the quarter, while net revenue ended $1.17bn – $20m below analysts’ projections.
This brings me back to my major point, how can a company really know what is going to happen over all. When I have seen companies’ project amazing sales numbers but at some locations completely miss their goal by thousands, while others crush their goal without even breaking a sweat. I understand the point of making these sales projections, but when a company like Yahoo drops 13% you have to wonder who did their job right and who didn’t. was it Yang that did not take Microsoft’s offer of 47.5 bn for the company that made the market a little uneasy over that decision? I think not, sometimes companies just have a rough year and either they will recover in the next couple of years or they will close shop and sell off everything they have to still come out on top. What do you think happened with Yahoo? Who used to use Yahoo and is now using Google or a different mail provider? Anyone out their still using AOL? They have been planning a come back for a couple of years now and I am interested to see what they do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16602041
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16713092
I agree that yahoo is definitely in the decline stage. With other competitors (such as google) offering a wider variety of free services, it is difficult to remain on top year after year. I have not heard anyone using AOL for the past few years, and I think the possibility of them making a come back is low because of the current internet users. Everyone seems to want high speed internet, and many people believe that AOL wasn’t able to keep up and provide the “high speed experience” that other companies started offering years ago. This article looks very interesting and it would be fun to see what other trends are forming in the internet industry.
I also agree that Yahoo is in the decline. We watched a video about Yahoo in my Marketing class when they were still #1 in the internet market. Yahoo offers a lot of features on it’s site. However, I have noticed that we want something to quick and simple. When you go to Yahoo’s search engine, you have to look at their chaotic home page just to search for a simple subject. However, when you log onto Google, you get a simple, clean and easy search engine. (Unless of course you have logged into your own Google page) I believe that makes all the difference. We are fast paced society, if I am searching for the governor of Florida, I don’t want to distracted by Yahoo’s mess of a homepage for a 2 second search.
I agree that Yahoo is in the decline stage. I agree with the comment above. Google is something that is known and very simple to use. Also, Yahoo has changed over the years with offering new features to complete with its competitors. They do offer mail, finance, sports, messaging, news, and a search, but so does Google. Personally, I would prefer to use Google over Yahoo. But your post does make me think about the upcoming years. I wonder if anyone is going to try and over pass Google. Should be interesting to see what the next couple years bring with search engines.
I definitely agree with your opinion that yahoo is in the decline stage and your article is really interesting since I never think it before why yahoo users change their mind and choose other power house. For myself, I used to have a yahoo email address while I change my choice because the design of Google is simpler than yahoo and most of my friends are using Google now.
Well I think that eventually everything has to run its course especially if it doesn’t adapt to changing markets. If forecasting was easy then everybody would be successful. The only way businesses survive is because of their ability to adapt. I mean think about it, if Kraft continued to bank solely on its ability to provide individually sliced/packaged cheese to be successful then that company would have disappeared a long time ago. But instead they adapted to changes in consumer needs/wants and expanded into a wide array of food products. The same goes for Blockbuster, if they had though about streaming video first then they’d still be around, or even kiosks, but they were too late and hence they have disappeared. The same rings true for any business out there. Adapt and overcome or don’t and die.
I agree with the comment above as well as the post. A business’ ability to adapt to change is very important. Changing things within a big company can be difficult in the sense that there are so many things to do before it is officially made a change. If companies are able to detect what changes must be made and how to make them in the most efficient and quick way, they will be successful.