INTRODUCTION

American multinational company Headquartered in California One of the most popular sites in the US Attracts more than half a billion consumers every month in more than 30 languages Features

Web portal Search engine Yahoo directory Yahoo mail, Yahoo news, Advertising Online media Video sharing Fantasy sports

FOUR STAGES

1994-96 Entrepreneurial stage 1996-2001 Collectivity Stage 2002-2005 Formalization Stage

(Post

Dot com bubble)

2006

Present Elaboration Stage

ENTREPRENEURIAL STAGE (FEB 1994 1995)

Started by two Stanford graduates David Filo and Jerry Yang Initial name of "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web Gradually converted the homemade list into a customized database Typical Features:

There was no formal structure within the organisation The start-up was basically being run from the trailer owned by Yang and Filo Product offering is not diversified. The product development and innovation work was done by the ownermangers They had to put in increasing number of hours to update the website Management to take care of the increasing size of the organisation Money to fund further growth

Problems encountered by Yahoo

COLLECTIVITY STAGE

Appointed Tim Koogle as CEO Yahoo! started developing clear goals and direction for further progress Yahoo!s informal structure transformed to a formal organisation through the development of hierarchy, job authority and division of labour. Yahoo transformed from a home-grown Web to a popular web sites on internet. The innovative ideas of Yang and Filo were transformed into revenue generating models by Koogle and Mallet. In the late 1990s, Yahoo! grew rapidly and started acquiring many companies to expand the range of internet services it offers.

On March 8, 1997, Yahoo! acquired online communications company Four11 and their web mail service became Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! also acquired ClassicGames.com and which later became Yahoo! Games Yahoo Yoyodyne Entertainment, Inc., web hosting provider GeoCities, eGroups (which became Yahoo! Groups in June 2000) On March 8, 1998, Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Pager, renamed Yahoo! Messenger later.

They developed the organisation structure during this phase and also acquired many small organisations and

FORMALIZATION STAGE

In 2004, Yahoo! dropped Google powered Yahoo! formed partnerships with telecommunication and Internet providers to create broadband services. Yahoo! upgraded the storage of all free Yahoo! Mail accounts from 4 MB to 1 GB, and all Yahoo! Mail Plus accounts to 2 GB. In 2005, Yahoo! acquired Konfabulator and rebranded it Yahoo! Widgets, a desktop application. Yahoo! also purchased photo sharing service Flickr Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger became interoperable. Midlife in this stage

more clear division of roles and formalised procedures many acquisitions Yahoo! made. Established of its R&D department importance on innovation

ELABORATION STAGE

In 2006, Yahoo! continued introducing new products such as Yahoo! next, Improvised its mail and messenger services to stay competitive in the market The R & D team tried to introduce innovative ideas within the existing bureaucratic setup There is a sense of team work among the R & D department to introduce innovative products and be competitive. The managers focussed on expanding the range of services provided by Yahoo! through innovation and acquisitions to remain competitive in the market. There is a new sense of collaboration and team work among the management. After the stepping down of founder CEO Yang since 2009, Yahoo! has been exposed to the leadership of three CEOs in 3 years, having different operating styles. Under the leadership of Scott Thompson, there were 2,000 jobs cuts, filed a patent lawsuit against Facebook, trying to gain its leadership position . He also completely reorganised the company forming teams across functions or divisions of the company.