Abstract
Meg Whitman built her legacy by helping eBay grow from 30 to13,000 employees during her tenure as the company’s CEO (Steen, 2006). Her tenure began in 1998 when the dot com era was about to take flight and as a transformational leader, she took eBay public six months after joining. The company was bringing in $4.7 million in revenue when she started and by the time she stepped down, revenue was at $7.7 billion. Meg Whitman has proven that in order to lead a successful web company, you need to be able to apply some “old” management styles while also adapting to the “new” web way. Today’s technology executives do not have to be computer geniuses, rather strong leaders who will embody the company culture they are trying to create or
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After these initial changes, six months later, eBay’s initial offering of $18 a share closed at $47 a share. Whitman is given credit for increasing eBay’s customer base from 750,000 members to more than seven million by 1999 (Anonymous, 2016). Whitman’s, strategic marketing and brand building of eBay were effective planning processes, in launching a successful IPO. During Whitman’s tenure, her decision making skills and her responsiveness to the task environment is a topic for discussion, ten years after her departure. On her first day at eBay, the website crashed for eight hours, halting all trading. Her quick decision making prompted the addition of backup software and an increase of computer servers to support the network traffic eBay was experiencing due to the high volumes of trading. The actions are standard reactions to the situation; it was her ability to manage the crisis on her first day that led her to successfully lead the senior managers to buy in that eBay’s number one job was to keep the site up. The website continued to experience power outages that lasted from 10-15 minutes during her first year which prompted her to develop a contingency plan. The plan consisted of her hiring Microsystems Inc. to manage eBay’s infrastructure while she worked on improving her internal technical environment (Holson, 1999). The infrastructure issues eBay was experiencing in the first few years
Dembosky, A. (2012). Ebay moves beyond its dotcom roots. Available:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df3723ca-1773-11e2-8cbe-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2EbzDqb5Y. Last accessed 10th Dec 2012
The time is now 1995; the internet is slowly evolving, and just as the company survived the arrival of television and other technology so it must with the internet. Convinced the internet will have
The aspects of Traits theory that are relevant to Carly Fiorina can be summarized as two styles that were exhibited by her at HP: “Achievement Oriented”and “Ambition.” Fiorina’s past achievements in business and her well known reputation for being ambitious were among the reasons she was hired by the Board in their desire to turn the company around. For example, she faced greater challenges than most CEOs in having to guide HP through a merger of computer maker Compaq, the acquisition culminating in 2002. It is identified that she was over ambitious in her leadership. A Leader wanting to grow the company is to be admired, but sometimes a company’s culture and resources place practical limits on growth, especially in the short term. Fiorina was caught in the middle; she could not grow revenues and profits quickly enough to meet the Board’s expectations.
Read the case carefully and answer the following questions: 1.Till 2005, eBay EachNet was the leader in the Chinese e-commerce market, controlling more than half of it. But eBay EachNet soon lost its market leadership position to Taobao.com (Taobao). In this context, analyze the reasons that can be attributed to Taobao’s edge over eBay. 2.a. To enable people to trade with each other, Pierre Omidyar created a marketplace in September 1995 which was later called eBay. By mid 1997, eBay received one million page hits per
Jeff Bezos is the fifty two year old Chief Executive Officer and founder Amazon, the largest United States based online retailer. A critical and innovative thinker, he created his online book sales company in his garage and has led Amazon to absolute market domination, technological innovation, and has become the third riches person in the world (BBC.com, 2016). His innovative ideas, demonstrated hard work and discipline, coupled with his ability to envision the future of online retail operations, positions his company at the forefront of the market. And behind the technology, the innovation and the drive to convert cash flows into opportunity, is the underlying commitment to the customer. Jeff Bezos demonstrates the leadership practices described by James Kouzes and Barry Posner’s as the five practices of exemplary leadership, model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart (Kouzes & Posner, 2012).
A businessperson who wants to do everything himself/herself will quickly find that he/she is making no progress. Walder needs to trust his employee’s abilities, and get past his fears of programmers quitting, leaving unfinished code. (p. 8). To combat this fear of losing employees, Walder should focus on creating and solidifying a strong organizational culture, instilling certain values among workers (Hill, 341). As the company grows in size, Walder will need to make more hires, especially on the technical side of operations. If not, he will be unable to keep the website functioning properly with the influx of site traffic as UGHH grows and develops.
This paper will profile Jeff Hawkins, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for PalmOne, Inc. examining qualities that Mr. Hawkins exhibits that make him influential leader. The paper will also examine details of the business strategy that make this man an exceptional innovator and his contribution to eBusiness technology.
As Thompson (2015) has discussed, the world is changing fast and organizations must be flexible in handling changes to be able to thrive well or they may experience dilemmas. In 1997, Apple Company, which almost reached bankruptcy ousted its that time CEO, Gil Amelio, where Steve Jobs replaced him and declared himself interim CEO. Apple that time is experiencing a disruptive change, a change that is radical and immediately happening, in other words unexpected. However, they were able to response to it quickly and prevented the company to hit the very bottom by bringing back Steve Jobs. Jobs had so much idea with him, which the company needed most at that time (Time, 2016).
In 1989, David Packard, the co-founder of Hewett-Packard put into writing the company’s organizational values which was to be used as the HP’s way and also use as a management tool and as a criteria for daily decision making. These company values have been reinforced by the company’s current CEO, Meg Whitman and they are: 1. Integrating critical opposites- to create an organization that sustain its competitive advantage regardless of the
The organizational structure of Zappos.com is revered as one of Americas’ most innovative corporate cultures. The unique structure of this company has been so successful that they have a department for business-to-business consultations that assist other companies interested in adopting the model into their own organization. From a struggling start-up business to a $1.2 billion merger with Amazon.com, the company has remained true to its value of “delivering WOW through service” not only to its customers but also to its employees as well. Although there are hierarchical levels, there is a
This is one of the factors that makes Meg Whitman to accept the offer from eBay. This incident shows that she has a good decision making skills. As a successful businessman, she had a good decision making skills by making any choices or decision that will get the benefits by everyone in a company such as eBay .She has the ability to define any problem in her business and selects the best choices or made a good decision. She always want to select the best ways to solve the problem and make sure that the company will get the benefits. She is confident in the decision that she
Yes I agree with Donahoe’s decision on his turnaround strategy. Change can be difficult but adapting and innovation is the key to success. “ The “power of mass procurement” can be utilized to ensure that only those systems that meet the defined criteria for sustainability are considered for purchase” (Fichter, 2003). Change is something all companies have to go through and the ones that make the transitions the most smooth are the ones that excel.” Given that expert projections suggest that mobile commerce will top $119 billion by 2015, being on top of this trend s a great place to be” (Armstrong, 2013). This is exactly what eBay did, they found a new leader and he lead them through new changes and it is paying off. Yes at first there was “growing pains” but their profits are increasing in areas do to their innovation and changes they had to make.” We have gone from turnaround to offensive” (Armstrong, 2013)
In concert with high rivalry in the industry, the ecommerce industry has seen large brick-and-mortar retailers making moves to catch up with Amazon. Amazon came to dominate the ecommerce industry through technology, innovation, a laser focus on customer experience and efficient operations. The company had a first mover advantage, but today, as traditional retailers look at growth in the ecommerce market and see it beginning to chip away at traditional retail’s share of the overall market (Exhibit 3), these companies are making moves to further increase their own sophistication. In October, Best Buy brought in former Expedia president, Scott Durschlag, to head its ecommerce business and to “boost its online transformation.” In 2011, Wal-Mart acquired Koomix, hoping to apply “artificial intelligence to commerce.” It also hired the well-regarded Silicon Valley engineer who was instrumental in the development of eBay’s infrastructure as its Chief Technological Officer. Wal-Mart and eBay both announced this fall that they
*This will make the intrinsic value of eBay about $59.5 million, should eBay decide to issue the 3.5 million shares. This $59.5 million will be very beneficial for eBay's future growth. (Exhibit 2)
The case study Renovating Home Depot was the case of a leader who joined a successful business only to discover that the company was running out of growth opportunities and also did not have the basic systems needed for increased growth in place. Robert “Bob” Nardelli was chosen as the CEO of Home Depot based on his proven ability to reenergize slow-growth businesses. He was a leader that went all out to achieve his goals and was identified as someone who was “comfortable in his own suit”, and believes in being successful his own way. He made several innovations which were used in General Electric (GE) where he recorded past successes. We see the success demonstrated in the growth of revenue in Home Depot, as well as opening