SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS ARTICLE
The strategy, as well as, governance at the Yahoo Inc. was an important concept that assisted in revamping the performance of the entity. This was in the face of the challenges that it was going through at the time that encompassed firing of the chief executive office and the consequent appointment of an unnamed one, lagging prices of its stocks, bitter memories regarding the failed deal with Microsoft and with all these information being available in the public domain. Therefore, the following article will present a summary and analysis of the article ‘Strategy and governance at Yahoo! Inc. (G. Palepu et al. 1)
Analysis- Porter’s five forces
According to porter’s five forces of analysis, Yahoo doesn't have a lot of substitutes. An example of some of the substitutes of the company's products includes Yahoo's email services. However, worth noting is that there is no substantial substitute for the search engines in the industry of web portals both in the offline and the online world making the substitution threat low. Secondly, the bargaining power of the suppliers regarding Yahoo can amicably be said to be low. This is because Yahoo basically uses that mechanism for providing its users with the capability of searching through the content available on the web. In essence, this information is available free of charge on the web and as such, Yahoo search engine only collects and also categorises them for its clients. The bargaining powers of the buyers can be said to be on the medium. This is explainable in terms of the range of services provided by the web portal company such as email services and advertisements. Because of the little or even no chargeable, the switching costs for its users can be said to be low. The threat of entry of the entities in direct competition with Yahoo is very low. This is because the entry requires high capital investment, very innovative skills and also very complex technological know-how which many businesses do not have.
Identification of a significant strategic issue
Yahoo faced a lot of significant strategic issues in the period around 2011 in its trial to favorably compete with such rivals as Google in its market of operation. The issues also came up in its bid towards the monetization of the shareholding, as well as, the creation of commercial links with the Alibaba group found in China. This depth of the issues as faced by the organization is complimented by the regular chief executive officers’ changes that the organization has had leading to the firing of Carol Bartz, who was a recent CEO of Yahoo. Besides, the entity is experiencing significant pressures from the shareholders and other investors aimed at improving the performance of the company.
Recommendation and justification
The first alternative course of action i.e. the development of mobile applications and the use of advertising which has a backup through quicker deployment should be upheld. In order to counter the limitations presented above, an identification of the applications, as well as, services to be implemented should be done. This should be conducted in light of the technological advancements of shifting the consumer behaviors to mobile and not desktops. Secondly, R&D (research and development) is primary to the implementation of the strategy. There should be an internalization of the complex technologies, adjustments and the adaptation of processes towards offering of new services and improving the processes. To achieve all these, an adequate financial budget that can be utilized in monitoring the performance of the strategy should be created.
WORK CITED
G. Palepu, Krishna et al. Strategy and Governance at Yahoo! Inc. 1st ed. America: Harvard Business Review, 2011. Print.
