10 Business Moves That Rocked in 2013

Although it is still not clear from this move whether it will bank the ailing midmarket department store or not, it is true that the company’s attempt to reinvent itself under former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson as a professional and no-discounts shopping experience was a shattering failure. They however brought back an old CEO and discounts this year which although didn’t change the entire scenarios but sales of course is on the track.

Apple’s retail stores were going through even worse situation. To tackle the situation, Tim Cook brought in John Browett, CEO of British mass-market superstore Tesco, who with an imprudent cost-cutting drive alienated the loyalists without delay and finally was fired. Ahrendts, CEO of the far more upmarket British company Burberry, is however proved to be a much better choice, for the Apple’s retail stores are already unexpectedly successful.

It was a great move by Marissa Mayer, the president and CEO of Yahoo, to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion instead of handing it to shareholders. Tumblr not only brought substantial assets in terms of audience and social presence to the table, but also acted as an important signal to the current and prospective Yahoo employees that the company intends to invest in its own long-term future.

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Although, Google’s Chromecast television add-on is not a ground –breaking technology but with a price point of $35 it is simply great. Even the Chromebook laptops that start from $199 is loved by the people although they aren’t quite as cheap. Google’s strategy to pursue aggressive growth for the long term at the expense of short-term profits is really a very prudent idea. The global average income is just $10,000 per annum and top of which the population growth happens usually in poorer places, making things that are cheaper matters a lot.

By forging partnership with Pentagon, Starbucks is not only able to resolve a concrete labor market issue but is also able to do a great brand extension. Besides, it had a recurrent need for reliable people and even Pentagon was facing an unvarying challenge in finding lucrative civilian employment for discharged veterans.

The main obstacle to the growth of Uber’s ride-hiring service is the lack of drivers. Demand for driving jobs is also high as the national labor market is weak and Uber’s per-vehicle revenue is quite high. However, a car is anyway required to drive and to solve this Uber has taken a wonderful step by partnering with Toyota and General Motors to get discount car loans for Uber drivers.

The traditional revenue model of music industry is basically crushed by the internet. As a countermove however, Beyoncé released an iTunes exclusive album in the midnight with no promotion, which proved to be a brilliant act. In this era of social media, free publicity happens to be the best publicity. Moreover, it was a great way to combine surprise and artificial scarcity to get people take out money to buy the content.

People might have started forgetting it now but it’s not so long ago that Netflix seemed like a hopeless company having mismanaged the transition from discs in the mail to streaming video with the Quickster fiasco. But they instead of wasting much time apologized and went ahead with producing and purchasing of original television series, which eventually seemed to be working after a few hiccups. Through their streaming back end they got a unique level of insight into what the kind of content would engage the viewers.

Amazon’s plan for same-day delivery of small items through quadrotor drone is going through two big problems, first one being the technology not working yet and the second one it’s still not legalized. However, if the product is non-existent, Amazon announces it on 60 minutes, which is a smart way to encourage optimism and a can-do attitude.

Deutsche Telekom could not sell its T-Mobile unit to AT&T as the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department blocked them to do so. They had to find a resolution for the lasting straggler of the U.S. mobile phone industry. In 2013, they finally did and broke with the faux-subsidy model in which carriers offer people a high-interest loan to actually lock them into overpriced mobile service. And they now have the best tariffs and free data deals. The “uncarrier” strategy worked so well for them that now Sprint wants to buy them.

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