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
icon
Related questions
Question
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.
Expert Solution
trending now

Trending now

This is a popular solution!

steps

Step by step

Solved in 4 steps

Blurred answer
Knowledge Booster
Branding
Learn more about
Need a deep-dive on the concept behind this application? Look no further. Learn more about this topic, marketing and related others by exploring similar questions and additional content below.
Similar questions
Recommended textbooks for you
Principles Of Marketing
Principles Of Marketing
Marketing
ISBN:
9780134492513
Author:
Kotler, Philip, Armstrong, Gary (gary M.)
Publisher:
Pearson Higher Education,
Marketing
Marketing
Marketing
ISBN:
9781259924040
Author:
Roger A. Kerin, Steven W. Hartley
Publisher:
McGraw-Hill Education
Foundations of Business (MindTap Course List)
Foundations of Business (MindTap Course List)
Marketing
ISBN:
9781337386920
Author:
William M. Pride, Robert J. Hughes, Jack R. Kapoor
Publisher:
Cengage Learning
Marketing: An Introduction (13th Edition)
Marketing: An Introduction (13th Edition)
Marketing
ISBN:
9780134149530
Author:
Gary Armstrong, Philip Kotler
Publisher:
PEARSON
MKTG 12:STUDENT ED.-TEXT
MKTG 12:STUDENT ED.-TEXT
Marketing
ISBN:
9781337407595
Author:
Lamb
Publisher:
Cengage
Contemporary Marketing
Contemporary Marketing
Marketing
ISBN:
9780357033777
Author:
Louis E. Boone, David L. Kurtz
Publisher:
Cengage Learning