Lacking Growth at Yahoo! Inc.

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The goal of a corporation is long-term success and growth. In order to meet this goal companies must be evaluating the market and environment constantly and be prepared for changes that will happen. Even a previously widely successful company can fail if the company does not manage change and have a strategic plan in place. By using environmental scanning a company can monitor trends that may affect performance and use this information to maintain and drive success. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how Yahoo, Inc. could have used environmental scanning to improve performance and prevented the decline of the company.

Environmental scanning is the acquisition and use of information about events, trends and relationships in the organization’s external environment (Choo, 2001). This information can then be used in the planning of future actions for an organization. There are many variables that contribute to environmental scanning, including, natural, societal and task environments (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012). In the case of Yahoo, Inc. the following external factors had major influence in the struggle the company has faced recently: technology advancement, changing pace of life, and competitor analysis.

Technology Advancement

Technology continues to grow and change at an amazing rate. Companies come and go from the marketplace rapidly, and can be highly specialized. Historically, Yahoo had generated a large portion of its income from advertising revenue. As companies fail or leave the market, this affects Yahoo, by losing a customer who is no longer advertising (Indu & Gupta, 2007). By evaluating internet companies, and their life span, Yahoo could have recognized this issue more quickly and refocused efforts...

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...ill be left in the dark.

Works Cited

Blenko, M. W., Mankins, M. C., Rogers, P. (2010). The decision-driven organization. Harvard Business Review, 88(6), 54-62

Choo, C. W. (2001). Environmental scanning as information seeking and organizational learning. Information Research, 7 (1). Retrieved from: http://informationr.net/ir/7-1/paper112.html

Holahan, C. (2006). Why Yahoo’s Panama won’t be enough. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2006/tc20061226_633699.htm

Indu, P. & Gupta, V. (2007). Reorganizing Yahoo! Hyderbad, India: ICFAI.

Wheelen, T. L. & Hunger, J. D. (2012). Strategic management and business policy: Toward global sustainability. (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Yahoo! Inc. (2008). Yahoo!, Inc. SWOT Analysis, 1-9. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 18, 2012).

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