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December 14, 2015 by admin

Yahoo integrating Gmail

Last week, Yahoo announced that it had integrated Gmail with the online version of Yahoo Mail, just two months after integrating Outlook.com, Hotmail and AOL Mail in a major redesign. Here is what I said in an interview with TechNewsWorld about this, “It pays off for Yahoo to remain competitive in this market segment. More email users … [will] lead to a growing user base, which Yahoo can monetize by maximizing ad revenue and by launching new premium services.”

You can read the entire article here.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Andreas Scherer, Gmail, Salto Partners, TechNewsWorld, Yahoo

February 25, 2013 by admin

Five Key Phases of a Turnaround

Turnarounds are not for the fainthearted among us.  Turning around a troubled entity is complex. There are many stakeholders: a nervous board, a thin-skinned management team and worried employees are just the beginning. There are customers who might run for the exits, partners second guessing their alliances. Public companies need to deal with the stock market expectations while private companies have private equity investors on their heels. If things are really bad, then the business needs to deal with lenders, creditors and potentially courts. Nothing about a turnaround is simple. Everything is urgent. The expectations are high, resources are scarce and time is limited.

So, what do turnaround specialists like Salto Partners do? Well, a first good advice is to stop digging further if you are already in a hole. As an independent third party we can lend the business a new set of eyes, trained in managing and advising in troubled situations. The key to a turnaround is to rebuild an enterprise that has a future, to build an enterprise that people want to do business with, to build an enterprise that people like to work for.  Here are the five major stages of the turnaround process:

Phase 1: Situation Analysis

First, it is important to find out how severe the situation is. Is the business viable? Can its products and services compete in the market place? Is there sufficient cash to go through the turnaround? This analysis should result in a preliminary action plan that shows what is wrong, what potential solutions exist, key strategies to turn the entity in a positive direction, and a cash flow forecast to understand cash usage.

Phase 2: Establish The Go Forward Team
All options are on the table. The turnaround can be managed with the existing management team, perhaps augmented by advisers. It is possible and has been done. The biggest problem for the existing leadership that presided over the downturn is to challenge its own assumptions and decisions. For that reason, it is not uncommon in turnarounds that key players are being replaced. The most important characteristic of the go forward team is that it is willing and able to function with minimal friction while executing the new strategy.

Phase  3: The 30-60-90 day plan
Now, it is important to gain control of the situation. Based on the preliminary analysis create a detailed 30-60-90 day plan that outlines how to tackle the problems. Create ownership by distributing responsibility for parts of the plan to key people in your organization. What ever causes the problem, stop it right here. The 30-60-90 day plan lays out key initiatives and actions that happen in the near term. For example the plan might include the following topics
a) Portfolio: Which products and services will be carried forward? Which ones need to be cancelled? Which ones need to be fixed?
b) Sales: What are the must-win deals for the quarter requiring executive level attention?
c) Cash flow: Aggressively collect accounts receivable, and renegotiate payments against accounts payable.  Secure asset-based loans if needed.
d) Restructure debt and equities: Sell unprofitable or non-strategic business units, real estate, and under-utilized assets. Restructure debt to balance the amount of interest payments with to a level the company can afford.
e) Reorgs: Realign organizations, reduce overhead, conduct lay-offs if needed. Do this swiftly. Avoid the death of a thousand cuts.
f) Key processes: Fix’em. If you have problems with product quality, then  fix your Q&A process. If your delivery organization is creating non referenceable clients, then fix the way you manage your custo-mer engagements. If the company doesn’t get any leads, fix your marketing. If promising deals are consistenly lost, then fix your sales process.
e) Top Talent: Identify top talent early. Create opportunities for people to grow even in these trying times.

Whenever possible, have a way to measure the outcome of each element of the 30-60-90 day plan , e.g. closed sales in $, product quality, customer satisfaction, P&L of business unit/company etc. Make the plan known. Get buy-in. You need everybody pulling in the same direction.

Stage 4: Building Momentum
Look for positive signs of recovery. This could be anything:
– Winning a major deal
– Better product quality metrics
– A new partnership
– Reaching break-even in a business unit
Look for any and all indicators that show that the plan is working. Nothing is more important than people believing into the future of the organization. Enter into another 30-60-90 day plan if need be.

Stage 5: Stabilize
At some point, declare the turn-around to be completed. For example, the business has reached profitability. Declare publicly the crisis is over. Capture the lessons learned. Make the findings known. Enter into mid range planning to ensure the future of the business. Shift the focus back to innovation, customers and the market place.

Communication is key to a successful turnaround. Get your management team aligned. Make your employees believe in the future. Most importantly, let the market place know that you are here to stay. Assume that bad news about your business reaches clients, partners and your competition. Be proactive with your communication, so you can control the message.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Andreas Scherer, Hewlett Packard, Salto Partners, Turnaround, Yahoo

February 14, 2013 by admin

Yahoo Acquires Alike

Recently Salto Partners’ Andreas Scherer talked to E-Commerce Times about Yahoo’s acquisition of Alike. Here is the full analysis. 

Yahoo is picking up speed and Marissa Mayer is the driving force behind this. She defines Yahoo’s core business in a simple way: It’s about delivering personalized content. Having a sophisticated mobile strategy is a critical part of this vision. Smart phones offer information about time, location as well as preferences of a user. The mobile internet allows news ways to combine relevant content with smart advertising.

Without any doubt, the Alike acquisition will boost Yahoo’s mobile presence. It lets a user know about nearby restaurants, bars or any other type of venue that is like the ones she is already a fan of. Users can share their preferences also on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. The app can serve as a focal point of Yahoo’s future strategy. Along with this acquisition comes the inevitable clean-up of past attempts to compete in the mobile arena. The company has in total more than sixty apps. Marissa has to determine which ones continue to make sense. It will be likely a number between 12 – 15 when it is all set and done. The mobile strategy of Yahoo needed an overhaul. The Alike acquisition could be the turning point that brings a promising new technology and new talent into the company.

In the big picture Yahoo has to get three things right: Content, Distribution and Monetization. Marissa Mayer already overhauled Yahoo’s approach to monetization by entering into a strategic relationship with Google after recognizing that the Bing partnership didn’t grow combined market share. With the Google partnership it has access to the adsense platform – a well-oiled advertising machinery. Overhauling the mobile strategy helps Yahoo to catch up in a mission critical space. It remains to be seen what else Yahoo plans to do to provide premium personalized content.

One thing is for certain. Things are changing over at Yahoo. And they continue to do so until Marissa gets it right.

You can find the E-Commerce Times article on this subject here.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Alike, Andreas Scherer, E-Commerce Times, mobile, Salto Partners, Yahoo

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