Strategic Management - Yahoo Case Study

Poe further describes web directories as man-made guides to the internet, which create portals that provide everything from e-mail to entertainment, to ensure stronger understanding of the Web. Poe defines the top-down system through describing the process in which Yahoo’s cofounder, Jerry Yang set up his universal directory—which was through setting up a system of categories followed by classifying the websites accordingly. While this system solved the current web chaos, as shown by Poe through stating, “Web surfers flocked to the site because no one could find anything on the web in the early 1990’s” (Poe 351), it was not the best system. Poe describes Yahoo as hierarchal as he introduces a second more, democratic approach— “Web rings”. A web ring is a set of related websites linked together, creating easier access for surfing the web, which began on the premise that it’s “good to share”. The mentioning of web rings acts as a threshold to Poe’s ideas on information sharing and the power the people have upon doing

A while ago the Economist featured this graphic to demonstrate the true value of Yahoo’s core business after stripping away all of it’s holdings. Holdings included Alibaba, Yahoo Japan, it’s cash and debt. By examining the underlying asset, we can predict how defensible and powerful it truly is without having to deal with any of the fat.

Due to the increased competition from Yahoo and Microsoft, it has posed a great threat to Google Company. Entry of such like companies in the market has been relatively easy and even offering similar services to the consumers is no longer a problem as unlike a while back, technology has greatly improved. With an improvement in technology, creating sites that help people access information from the internet has been quite cheap and all it calls for is the creativity of a company. Google, however, has been able to remain at the top of the chart. They have been able to come up with a user-friendly search engine for their clients, one that is easy to understand as well as easy to use. Also, Google has been able to cut on cost as they are able to create web pages using UNIX web servers which are relatively cheap. This makes it possible for them to minimize the cost of input and hence maximizing their profit margins. This makes it possible for them to hire qualified personnel, offer quality services, advertise their products, and even offer promotions, helping them overcome the competition in the market structure.

End users who enjoy these resources and services available in the internet without knowing the knowledge of where and how these resources are manage. It is always available and is highly mobile across the platforms;

Google is a multinational corporation that serves thousands of consumers worldwide. Through Internet related products such as Internet searches, maps, emails, mobile apps, and other online contents for users Google became the company it is today. Every employee of Google is different in his or her own way; making it a well-diversified organization similar to the global audience they serve. Google’s mission statement is to organize information from all around the world and make it universally accessible at a quick and orderly fashion. This means creating a search engine smart

Customer features are very appealing. These include instant chat, video conferencing, free communications and applications, customized personal pages, games, and advertising for events or small businesses as well as major corporations. It is a platform for different people around the world where they can share their ideas and reconnect. It has a solid reputation.

Flickr a popular photo sharing application is a direct competitor to the Google’s Picasa. So, in essence, Yahoo is a multi-market competitor of Google and their competition does not end there. Their tangible and intangible resources are also comparable. For instance, both Yahoo and Google have high powered servers and large data centers that backup and power their various online applications. Both have more than two decades of experience in consumer level applications and services. Both have garnered a strong goodwill and are among the most popular internet companies in the world. Since both of their customers are online and consumers of services such as search engine and emails, their competition would fierce in this respect and would naturally get intense as they release new products to encompass new users in their online ecosystem.

Salesforce.com has been considered one of the most disruptive technology companies of the past few years and is credited with single-handedly shaking up the software industry with its innovative business model and resounding success. This company provides CRM solutions in the form of 'software-as-a-service' leased over the Internet, as opposed to software bought and installed on machines locally. It was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, and has since grown to 2,600 employees and earned $748 million in revenue in 2007.

Google is the most successful information technology and web search company in the world. It was founded in 1998 by two Stanford Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company name, Google, is a play on the word “googol” which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose this name to reflect the large amount of information on the web. The two created this search engine so that people can find anything on the web all in one place. The company’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Now, the company is far more than a search engine website, it has grown to be a substantial collection of products and services that are

In 1998, Stanford University graduates Larry Page and Sergey Brin combined their ingenuity and built a search engine called “BackRub” that evolved into what is now known as Google. Google, with over 150 domains, now functions as a search engine that offers many different products and services including web applications, advertising, sports scores, stock quotes, headlines, addresses, videos, etc. Google’s focus is “to provide useful and relevant information to the millions of people around the world as they rely on us (Google) to provide the answers they are seeking.”

Yahoo! provides its users with free services such as email, stock tracking, customized news searches, weather, travel rates, and sports information all on one personalized home page.

2010 also boasted a healthy year for Yahoo! in terms of it’s business evolution and communication initiatives. For one, Yahoo! Mail Beta, a faster and more social communications experience that allows users to navigate easily and organize their inbox, browse photos and videos, more efficiently search for emails and benefit from improved spam protection was launched. Also launched was Yahoo! Messenger Beta, which allows users to play social games from publishers including Zynga Inc., ELEX and OMGPOP, share their status across networks, and view, comment on, and “like” updates from Yahoo! Pulse, Flickr, Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. – all from their instant messaging client.

(Joint Ventures). contributed its Australian internet business, Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand, and SEVEN contributed its online assets, television and magazine content (Joint Ventures). Yahoo!

As we can infer from the table above, Google‘s mission is consistent with its objectives in terms of how they complement each other. In its mission, Google promises to organize the world’s information and make it available for everyone to access. On the other hand, Google’s first objective is to provide information independent of any financial incentives. Moreover, they clearly state that their profits are mainly derived from advertising while information providing is for free. Google focuses on improving its operation by achieving higher quality products in order to better satisfy consumers, while the objectives precisely states that Google will employee all potential technological developments to improve users’ experience.

Following the success of Netscape and its web browser, Internet became a resource and communication platform idolized by many IT students in the universities. What started off as a hobby-cum-research[1] work by Jerry Yang (now Chief of Yahoo!) and David Filo (Co-founder of Yahoo!) for their Ph.D. dissertations; has evolved and became an Internet sensation over time. What they did was to compile all their favourite web links to form an online directory for easy navigation in the World Wide Web. The duo’s work immediately garnered a lot of attention from many surfers in the Internet world and before they realized it, Yahoo! became one of the most highly visited websites of all time. The duo saw the