SWOT Analysis of Yahoo Inc - Essay Example

?Yahoo Inc: Yahoo Inc is a front line multinational American based company that specializes in multiple services and products. These services are broadly associated with the online and electronic devices applications and usage. Yahoo Inc has a grand of thirteen thousand and seven hundred employees in its store, a bench of over seven hundred million customers from across the globe and the country’s fourth most popular and most visited website online. It stands in the category of Google.com and You tube as the other two websites that attract more number of customers and attraction. With its headquarter placed in Sunnyvale, California the company has its market spread across a total of twenty five countries where it has its outlets expanded across the world in multiple continents namely Europe, Asia and America itself. What started off as a hobby of the two PHD students has turned into an enterprise and global entity in the era of a fierce competitive digital world where all the major businesses are subject to online activities and resources functions. Objectives of the paper: The paper looks into the early days of Yahoo Inc in the brief background section, followed by the overall structure of the company, its working, its scope and domain of operations, the financial standings, the recent hurdles faced, the internal state of the company, the reason for the changing of three top management officers in no time, along with the decline trends in the financial sector. A major part of the paper entails a SWOT analysis of Yahoo Inc, that would allow understanding the overall standing and potential future prospects in a better way. Products and services: Few of the services provided by Yahoo Inc are its search engine, Yahoo mailing service that attracts billions of clients from across the world, Yahoo finance that gives an insight into the financial aspects. Other notable features and functions of Yahoo Inc include the Horoscope service, Yahoo Answers and numerous other similarly associated services. Yahoo’s website is amongst the very few world’s websites that attract over a hundred million online customers and users onto its website on daily basis. As the company would proclaim in its recently released annual report of revenue a grand of around 700 million people are associated with the Yahoo Inc services in one way or the other from all parts of the world. The services so provided are in more than 30 languages and across 30 nations. Mission Statement: “The mission statement entails the aim of becoming the world’s online industry’s most reliable and integral business and service provider”. This mission statement is enacted in due regard of the customers as well as the business partners and aims at keeping up with both. The company is not just a service provider rather it enjoys a repute and name in terms of the partnership with the various notables of the business industry from the same field. Other business terms and agendas include the core value definition. The core value of the company is defined in terms of the achievement of excellence and top notch performance. It aims at providing the best services around. With little need for recall and replacement of the items, products and services provided by the company. Other focuses and objectives of the company include the enactment of team work and extending the partnership with the investors. Creating products and opportunities for the workers to work on new and innovative grounds makes up for the policy in terms of innovation and creation of new ideas. Customer fixation, customers trust and reliable services delivery makes up for the overall outer strategy of the company based on the true spirit of the company’s manifesto and working agenda. Brief History: Yahoo Inc came into existence in the mid 1990s when the usage and spread of internet was on the boom and people formally started using internet for commercial and personal reasons. The yahoo search engine is amongst the first few search engines that were operational in the starting days of the concept of internet. It was in 1994 under the partnership of David Filo and Jerry Yang who came up with an idea of initiating an online search engine based website. The entire move was part of their research and dissertation that they undertook in their studies for PHD program (Pasiuk, 249). Their policies were aimed at producing a search engine that was far more helpful and easy to handle. Prior to this the concept of search engines was a complex one and needed long list of extensive research and mindful practices to get the element of need. Yahoo search engine made this far more affordable and set precedence for other companies to follow the same pattern. It remains amongst the top three world’s websites and search engines that have been in practice of continuous service delivery to the masses since the middle of 1990s. The stocks aspect: Yahoo Inc has a special domain that deals in the Yahoo Finance and stock segment. In the recent times Yahoo Inc has made inroads with regard to the earnings and stabilizing its position in investment market. The single event of the London Olympics held in the summer of 2012 attracted a grand of 150 million users and roughly around 3 billion views of the Yahoo Sports page. This is an amazingly impressive figure that has been achieved through the in time reach to the market and being the first to present and facilitate the customers for the kind of news they desire. This one simple action and reach out of the Yahoo Inc speaks for the overall policy and mindset of Yahoo Inc. Microsoft’s attempt at purchasing: Microsoft recently made an effort that was focused on attempts of purchasing Yahoo Inc. For this purpose Yahoo Inc was offered an amount of around 19 billion dollars. The move was more of a finance motivated decision rather than long term expansion based strategy. SWOT Analysis of Yahoo Inc: Yahoo Inc is a company of a multibillion dollar magnitude and it attracts all kinds of investors and customers from across the world. The commercial domain of Yahoo Inc’s email account making makes up for the direct strength of the company and overall front runner for free online email accounts providers. The strength enjoyed is in terms of the new C.E.O’s arrival to the scene who enjoys repute and recognition both inside the company and with the stakeholders. The low bar standardization for the purpose of keeping itself in the contention of Wall street stocks makes up for the a strength of the company that has set easy goals and objectives in terms of retaining the previously lost financial strength. The addition of Goldman Sachs makes up for an enhanced working team and bench that would come in handy towards the analysis that are needed to be performed by the company for future considerations and future stocks handling. The induction and inclusion of Goldman Sachs has allowed for taking an encouraging step in form of rising the stock price from Dollars 22 to Dollar 24. This counts for an opportunity as well as the strength by Yahoo Inc. The threat comes up in form of the rival industry and rival services providers such as Microsoft, Google Inc and other main players of the search engine market. The other threat faced is that of the inter tangling into the investment market that is highly saturated and demands more stocks freezing with period of time. Social media websites such as Face book and Twitter are grabbing large attention with regard to the advertisements. Yahoo Inc can counter this by infiltrating into the social media sector which would not only improve the chances of protecting the advertisement domain but also open up new horizons of investment and ads capturing in a totally new market of social media. Opportunities come in form of the New C.E.O as well as the expansion in the international market. The London Olympics output in terms of the attraction of the customers makes up for positives deduction in multiple ways. Reaching out to the far more international clients makes up for additional opportunities that are in offing for Yahoo Inc. further exploring the Chinese market and Indian market for investment and attracting the customers attention makes up for the opportunities that the company can cash in on. Facilitating the small medium enterprises would also allow for exploring new horizons and potential increase in the profits in different proportion and as a result potential prevention of the stock values that have been constantly exhibiting a declining curve in last five years. Adapting itself to the requirements of the international markets, inducting the employees with regard to the Human resource skills and management and understanding the cultural translation of the overall business and legal terms serves as opportunities and challenges for Yahoo Inc. Opportunities also come in form of the further effective means of promotion for the company that would enable it making the wise decisions and attract more number of customers. Other opportunities lay in form of its exploration in the field of social media. Incorporating more effective strategies that would allow better presence in the social media would enable better outcomes and strengthening of the stocks and overall revenue aspects of the company. The weakness of the company comes in terms of the search engine segment. Recent surveys and findings have shown that Google Inc and Google search engine stand as the lone dominant force and element in the field of search engine activities and that it has swept the market leaving Yahoo.com with no or little customers bench when it comes to the searching facilities. Yahoo Inc has to work in this area to make sure that the company catches up on the competition and revamp its overall ideas and policies which would facilitate more effective search engine client bench. The ads segment of the Yahoo mail makes up for the large segment of the advertisements and earning of profits from this domain. This enables the clients attraction as well as the business investors. The fact that Yahoo mail is amongst the most secure web mail services makes up for another edge enjoyed by the company in terms of the services provided and good working relationship with the partners who facilitate Yahoo Inc in terms of the better services in the Information Technology and security domain. The change of command between the Chief Executive Officers also marks for suspicion and unevenness amongst the clients and business partners. For this purpose the newly inducted top management has a role and responsibility with regard to the retaining of its name for growth and development. The internal challenges are another area that need to be addressed and it was one similar event of embarrassment on account of the Yahoo Inc management and top leadership when it proposed the name of an individual for top slot as the Chief Executive Officer in the form of Scott Thompson and later on without deeply investigating the credentials and prerequisites of the individual, the company had to withdraw the name of Scott Thompson from the post of C.E.O. such errors and bloopers at this level are really embarrassing and don’t go well against the company’s name and repute thereby these acts must be stopped. Similarly the change of command between the three C.E.O’s in a span of less than one year is also a concerning point from the investors view point who would need stability and reliability. Needing to develop working relationship in professional terms and good cordial relationship with the partners need time and for that purpose enacting long term appointments is necessary therefore this must taken care of in the effective manner. One positive and challenge at the same time faced in the entire case of switchover of three C.E.Os in the short span has been the good find of Ross Levinsohn who worked as an ad hoc and interim C.E.O and now with the arrival of the new C.E.O his abilities must be cashed in on now that he has shown his abilities and performed exceptionally well. Inducting him lower down the place than he deserves would yield to no good and output for the already struggle Yahoo Inc. External challenges faced: Despite being amongst the world’s top most online research resources and utilities, the businesses and level of investments the company has initiated requires it to retain the standing and status. Recent times has shown negative trend with this regard. The reports and findings from the 2012 midyear stats showed that the company has been on negative trend and curve. Michael Liedtke in his report, review and study of the company and the challenges faced by the newly appointed C.E. O Marissa Mayer highlights the main threats and challenges faced by the company as well as the challenges faced by the incumbent C.E.O with regard to the ever decreasing profit rates and reports of financial assessments. What was presented as a net of 227 million profit in the mid session of 2012, was actually a decrease of 4 percent compared to the same year ( 2011) profits and financial standing percentages. Michael Liedtke further stresses that the pattern has been a consistent one and this has been on observation for the last five years and a total of 41 percent decrease has been seen in the company trends and financial stability factor compared to where it stood in terms of profit and stocks five years ago. Other threat faced is in form of the Google’s intended expansion and consolidation of its position and standing in the mailing domain. Although Yahoo enjoys dominance in this regard as of present, yet it is faced with the rivals such as MSN and Gmail that aim at further strengthening the presence in this domain. This comes as a direct threat and a challenge and must be mitigated through different means possible. The revamping of the homepage: The revamping of the homepage shows an intent and mindset based on rejuvenation and overall restructuring that would allow the company moving on its previous footings of success and being the front runner. The home page revamping is far more colorful, innovative and participative in its outlook that allows for additional customers interest attraction. The potential introduction of the applications and other similar functions and features would allow for more increased customer capture opportunities. Turning its focus from mere advertisements and search engine to mobile phones services and mobile phone applications may provide better opportunities with regard to the future trends and future opportunities capitalizing. Conclusion: Yahoo Inc has number of obstacles to clear, yet it is still in contention with regard to the top companies in the field of digital media in modern times. The time is ripe to assess the overall situation and capitalize on the advantages enjoyed and counter the challenges faced. Holistic reassessment of policies and definition of new goals achievements must be made through the partnership and participation of the stakeholders. References: Pasiuk, Laurie. Vault Guide to the Top Internet Industry Employers. Vault Inc, 2006.Press. Read More