WHITESPACE’S PEANUT BUTTER MANIFESTO WhiteSpace! which was once the web’s advertising giant and the most visited sites on the internet, has in recent times seen significant market value decline. The once revered market leader has been loosing market share to rivals Google and Facebook in the digital advertising space which is getting more competitive with the entry of Twitter, Amazon and the Linkdin. Growth had slowed, Google had overtaken WhiteSpace! in terms of online advertising revenues, and the share price had fallen by nearly a third since the start of the year, with an imminent problem of Microsoft takeover which could spell danger for WhiteSpace! Over all, employees, shareholders and internet users have been at the receiving end of this exploitative management. Leadership was sharply ciritcised for lacking ownership and strategic direction. It would soon be realized that Senior Executives had personally benefited from the problem faced by WhiteSpace! The situation has been perceived as synonumous to the tragedy of the commons, a problem in economics that occurs when individuals neglect the well-being of society, the common good, in pursuit of personal gain; and this is related with two currents that have developed in Economies. It was “Greed”! Greed prevented application of common resource/common endowment from fulfilling its purpose, that is, from serving the common needs of all stakeholders. In November 2006, Brad Garlinghouse, MBA graduate and a WhiteSpace! Senior Vice President, wrote a memo to his top managers arguing that WhiteSpace!, the diversified Internet Company, was spreading resources too thinly, like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Edited extracts from the memo follow: Three and half years ago, I enthusiastically joined WhiteSpace! The magnitude of the opportunity was only matched by the magnitude of the assets. And an amazing team has been responsible for rebuilding WhiteSpace! But
WHITESPACE’S PEANUT BUTTER MANIFESTO WhiteSpace! which was once the web’s advertising giant and the most visited sites on the internet, has in recent times seen significant market value decline. The once revered market leader has been loosing market share to rivals Google and Facebook in the digital advertising space which is getting more competitive with the entry of Twitter, Amazon and the Linkdin. Growth had slowed, Google had overtaken WhiteSpace! in terms of online advertising revenues, and the share price had fallen by nearly a third since the start of the year, with an imminent problem of Microsoft takeover which could spell danger for WhiteSpace! Over all, employees, shareholders and internet users have been at the receiving end of this exploitative management. Leadership was sharply ciritcised for lacking ownership and strategic direction. It would soon be realized that Senior Executives had personally benefited from the problem faced by WhiteSpace! The situation has been perceived as synonumous to the tragedy of the commons, a problem in economics that occurs when individuals neglect the well-being of society, the common good, in pursuit of personal gain; and this is related with two currents that have developed in Economies. It was “Greed”! Greed prevented application of common resource/common endowment from fulfilling its purpose, that is, from serving the common needs of all stakeholders. In November 2006, Brad Garlinghouse, MBA graduate and a WhiteSpace! Senior Vice President, wrote a memo to his top managers arguing that WhiteSpace!, the diversified Internet Company, was spreading resources too thinly, like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Edited extracts from the memo follow: Three and half years ago, I enthusiastically joined WhiteSpace! The magnitude of the opportunity was only matched by the magnitude of the assets. And an amazing team has been responsible for rebuilding WhiteSpace! But
Principles Of Marketing
17th Edition
ISBN:9780134492513
Author:Kotler, Philip, Armstrong, Gary (gary M.)
Publisher:Kotler, Philip, Armstrong, Gary (gary M.)
Chapter1: Marketing: Creating Customer Value And Engagement
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1.1DQ
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WHITESPACE’S PEANUT BUTTER MANIFESTO
WhiteSpace! which was once the web’s advertising giant and the most visited sites on the internet, has in recent
times seen significant market value decline. The once revered market leader has been loosing market share to
rivals Google and Facebook in the digital advertising space which is getting more competitive with the entry of
Twitter, Amazon and the Linkdin. Growth had slowed, Google had overtaken WhiteSpace! in terms
of online advertising revenues, and the share price had fallen by nearly a third since the start
of the year, with an imminent problem of Microsoft takeover which could spell danger for WhiteSpace! Over
all, employees, shareholders and internet users have been at the receiving end of this exploitative management.
Leadership was sharply ciritcised for lacking ownership and strategic direction. It would soon
be realized that Senior Executives had personally benefited from the problem faced by WhiteSpace! The
situation has been perceived as synonumous to the tragedy of the commons, a problem in economics that occurs
when individuals neglect the well-being of society, the common good, in pursuit of personal gain; and this is
related with two currents that have developed in Economies. It was “Greed”! Greed prevented application of
common resource/common endowment from fulfilling its purpose, that is, from serving the common needs of
all stakeholders.
In November 2006, Brad Garlinghouse, MBA graduate and a WhiteSpace! Senior Vice President, wrote a memo
to his top managers arguing that WhiteSpace!, the diversified Internet Company, was spreading resources too
thinly, like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Edited extracts from the memo follow:
Three and half years ago, I enthusiastically joined WhiteSpace! The magnitude of the opportunity was only
matched by the magnitude of the assets. And an amazing team has been responsible for rebuilding WhiteSpace!
But all is not well. I imagine there’s much discussion amongst the Company’s senior most leadership around
the challenges we face. At the risk of being redundant, I wanted to share my take on our current situation and
offer a recommended path forward, an attempt to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Recognizing Our Problems
We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything — to
everyone. We’ve known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We
are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course. We are separated into silos
that far too frequently don’t talk to each other. And when we do talk, it isn’t to collaborate on a clearly focused
strategy, but rather to argue and fight about ownership, strategies and tactics. I’ve heard our strategy described
as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The
result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular.
We lack clarity of ownership and accountability. The most painful manifestation of this is the massive
redundancy that exists throughout the organization. We now operate in an organizational structure — admittedly
created with the best of intentions — that has become overly bureaucratic. For far too many employees, there
is another person with dramatically similar and overlapping responsibilities. This slows us down and burdens
the company with unnecessary costs. Equally problematic, at what point in the organization does someone really
OWN the success of their product or service or feature? Product, marketing, engineering, corporate strategy,
financial operations… there are so many people in charge (or believe that they are in charge) that it’s not clear
if anyone is in charge. This forces decisions to be pushed up – rather than down. It forces decisions by committee
or consensus and discourages the innovators from breaking the mold… thinking outside the box. There’s a
reason why a centerfielder and a left fielder have clear areas of ownership. Pursuing the same ball repeatedly
results in either collisions or dropped balls. Knowing that someone else is pursuing the ball and hoping to avoid
that collision – we have become timid in our pursuit. Again, the ball drops.
We lack decisiveness. Combine a lack of focus with unclear ownership, and the result is that decisions are
either not made or are made when it is already too late. Without a clear and focused vision, and without complete
clarity of ownership, we lack a macro perspective to guide our decisions and visibility into who should make
those decisions. We are repeatedly stymied by challenging and hairy decisions. We are held hostage by our
analysis paralysis.
We end up with competing (or redundant) initiatives and synergistic opportunities living in the different silos
of our company.
REQUIRED:
i. Explain five (5) reasons why the issues facing WhiteSpace were strategic. Find examples of all the items
discussed in characteristics of strategic decisions.
ii. Explain in two (2) ways how the problems facing WhiteSpace would have impeded their strategy
success?
iii. As a Strategist for WhiteSpace, based on your understanding of the “tragedy of the commons”,
recommend five (5) policies/strategies you believe could be introduced by the Board of WhiteSpace in
order to address their problems and restore WhiteSpace to its position as industry leader, while fulfilling
their commitment to stakeholders.
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