YAHOO SPECIAL .....The turnaround struggle

The turnaround struggle   Marissa Mayer is in the midst of a crisis at Yahoo. Here's what other CEOs can learn from her attempts to revive the company's fortunes Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stepped into a difficult situation when she first joined the company in 2012. The company was already in decline and it wasn't clear how it wanted to revitalise the business. A number of CEOs had damaged their reputations trying to save Yahoo before her. The company's been stuck in perennial drama and dysfunction over the past decade. Four years in, and Mayer's quest to save Yahoo is still far from over. In any case, there's a lot to be learned from Mayer's struggles to turn around Yahoo. It's hard to change company culture “It's even more difficult to change when the company has been struggling like Yahoo. When you work at a company like this for a long time (11 years in my case, 13 years at Google in Mayer's case), you believe you can do just about anything. And you develop a strong belief that no matter what situation you are dropped into, you will come out victorious.“ -Brett Fox, former CEO @ Touchstone Semiconductor, GM at Micrel, EIR at Crosslink Capital You can't buy your way into growth “Yahoo had a chance, but it didn't lie with the dumb acquisitions Marissa made, nor her hirings (Henrique de Castro, anyone?), both staid, moribund plays that establishment companies make. Which is fine, but in and of itself, is not innovation, much less entrepreneurship.“ -JP Kaneshida Know when to say “NO“ “I get it ­ Marissa is bright, determined, capable, and wanted to show that off in a spectacular way. Given the opportunity to `turn around Yahoo,' it's almost an irresistible challenge. Problem is, none of her prior experience prepared her for this. Like, at all.“ --Stan Hanks, serial entrepreneur since age 12 Know the company's strengths and weaknesses “Marissa Mayer failed in her pursuit of making Yahoo predominantly a mobile company. That was her agenda for the turn around. Too bad, she did not have the right product teams in place and I am sure she knew that it was going to be an up hill task when she took charge.“ -Deepak Selvan, CEO ­ VizConn The CEO can't do it alone -it's the whole team “Marissa Mayer found a Yahoo with many issues and much legacy business in trouble. Turnarounds require a lot of cooperation, but clearly not everyone at Yahoo agreed on direction. Despite brilliance of mind and character, it takes people, money and teamwork to get things done. It seems she has had issues there.“ -Robert Heiblim, Expert in consumer electronics, technology and markets Old guard is always at risk of getting replaced “Some once-great industry leaders get obsolete and have zero reason to exist. In today's world, Yahoo has no reason to exist, and this has been true for years. Yahoo used to be `the front page of the internet.' Today, the internet doesn't need a front page like that, and if it does -Facebook is that front page.“ -Marc Bodnick, Co-Founder, Elevation Partners Shut out the noise and focus “I think the lessons here are to persevere on your path of reform, adjusting regularly as new data comes to be known, but to shut out the noise and focus on the core of the plan.“ -Patrick Hawley, 20+ year web developer businessinsider.in ET4MAY16