Winning Moves Blog

A recent Wall Street Journal article (May 26, 2016) with the headline “Focus Is In, Scale Is Out for Tech Giants,” tells that major tech companies have been shedding lines of business.

The article mentions that Microsoft has been dismantling the smartphone business it invested billions to acquire not all that long ago. The article also discusses HP’s efforts to slim down, and includes a picture of Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman next to a chart showing her company’s revenues in decline. According to the article, tech companies need to scramble as the market changes and “scrambling is hard when you are huge.” Regarding the tech sector’s tendency to shed assets and shift toward greater focus, the Wall Street Journal article says, “That is quite the change. Scale once mattered in tech.”

But, the Wall Street Journal’s statement about scale can Continue reading “Scale Still Matters, Despite Giant Companies Shedding Businesses” »

The most recent earnings report for Alphabet, Google’s parent company, indicated that the company’s big bet moonshot businesses did not perform well in terms of revenue and earnings. The article “Big ‘Bets’ Temper Google’s Earnings” by Jack Nicas in the April 22, 2016 issue of the Wall Street Journal, reported that losses from Alphabet’s moonshot laden non-Google units increased to $802 million, although revenue from those units more than doubled to $166 million. As the article points out, Alphabet “posted healthy increases in first quarter revenue and profits, driven by the growing strength of its core Google business on mobile devices,” but in the company’s non-Google businesses, losses grew.

The weak financial performance of Alphabet’s moonshots is not surprising. Nor, is it necessarily discouraging. Continue reading “Alphabet’s Moonshot R&D: Potential Value for Google, Not Necessarily New Revenue Streams” »

In late January 2013, roughly six months after Marissa Mayer became CEO, she said she’d take Yahoo back to its roots. In my newsletter back then, I wrote that Mayer was saying it right, since back to basics can often be a successful turnaround strategy, but that the outcome would depend upon how well Yahoo actually did go back to its roots.

Now, three years later, Yahoo continues Continue reading “Reasons Why Yahoo’s Challenges Continue” »

As I wrote previously in my newsletter article about paper versus digital, there is still room for the older way of doing things as long as the older way continues to offer advantages.  And, we see more and more indications that bricks and mortar stores–essentially the older way of retailing often thought to be in decline–still play an important role despite Continue reading “More Signs that Bricks and Mortar, Online Retailing Can Coexist and Complement One Another” »

Issues aren’t always clearly black and white. When there’s disagreement about an issue, sometimes both sides can have merit despite their opposing viewpoints. It depends on the situation or on the purpose for which something is used. This is the case for the definition of disruptive innovation. Uber, the company that competes with taxi Continue reading “More on the Diverse Viewpoints about Disruptive Innovation” »