US Business and Economy

Yahoo Inc. is forecasting a modest upturn in revenue for 2013, but Chief Executive Marissa Mayer warns that it may take a lot of work to get there. The company, with new CEO Mayer, plans to overhaul a dozen of its online services to try to increase the amount of time that users spend on their sites.

As Mayer recently said, “While the road to growth is certain, it will not be immediate.” Yahoo does predict that their revenue will grow at a rate of .7% to 3% for the year ahead, ranging between $4.5 billion and $4.6 billion for 2013.

As Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said, “What was clear from the call is that this is a long-term turnaround story. We shouldn’t expect anything to just snap back and correct itself.”

Mayer said that the Yahoo efforts to revamp their mobile properties, including Flickr, are definitely on track. As she said, “From a monetization perspective this is still a very nascent source of revenue for us. With any platform shift, revenue always followed users and mobile will be no different.”

Mayer seems to be steering the company in the right direction after a rough period. Taking over when former CEO Scott Thompson resigned less than six months after taking the job. Mayer has seen stock rise approximately 30% since she took over. The company’s fourth-quarter net income was $273.3 million, or 23 cents per share. It was $295.6 million, or 24 cents a share one year ago. Yahoo shares were up 59 cents at $20.90 on Monday.

Wal-Mart has big plans for the next decade. They have their sites on $50 billion in US-made products that they hope to buy over the next decade to help boost the US economy. As the largest private employer in the US, they plan to hire 10,000 newly discharged veterans over the next five years as well.

As Terry Lundgren, chief executive at Macy’s Inc. said about the plan to invest in American goods, “We would all love to do that, the customer will not pay more.”

While some are looking favorably on Wal-Mart’s plan, others have a more critical interpretation of their efforts. Some have criticized Wal-Mart, however, for not paying its workers enough and for selling too many products from countries like China. Wal-Mart, however, claims that approximately two-thirds of the goods that it buys for its stores come from the US.

Starting on Memorial Day in May, Wal-Mart has said that it plans to hire 100,000 US veterans, a move that is supported by First Lady Michelle Obama.  As Wal-Mart US Chief Executive Bill Simon said, “We’ve developed a national paralysis that’s driven by all of us waiting for someone else to do something.  But if we’re waiting on government, we’re waiting on a process that can’t act with the same speed as business.” They plan to offer a job to any honorably discharged veteran within the first year after active duty.

Ford Motor Co. has been working for six years now developing its “One Ford” global product strategy. As Mark Fields explained recently at a roundtable at the LA Auto Show, “The priorities are almost exactly identical to the priorities we’ve been working on. First off is delivering the ‘One Ford’. It’s a timeless plan.”
Fields, who has been leading Ford’s business until for seven years, is now viewed as the front runner to become the next CEO. Mulally plans to stay on through 2014, approximately a year longer than had been expected.
Now, Fields will be Ford’s first COO since 2006, and he plans to implement the One Ford plan around the world. In South America, for instance, Ford plans to have almost 100% global models by 2014.
As he said, “We are just starting to see the full potential of the global scale and the operating margin benefits through the One Ford plan. We are really still at the beginning stages of operating truly as a global company.”

Whether you love or hate the Thanksgiving shopping rush, it looks like it’s here to stay. As Marshal Cohen, the chief industry analyst for market research firm NPD explained, “Not everybody’s going to watch 12 hours of football on Thanksgiving Day.
Most people, after 20 minutes of sitting at the dinner table, are ready to get out and do something. Why not cater to the people who are into the sport of shopping?” Now, the pressure is mounting to actually stay open on Thanksgiving, a day that is a national holiday. Target, Sears, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Gap are all staying open on Thursday for your shopping pleasure and for their bottom line.
Some people, however, think it’s a terrible thing that the stores are open on Thanksgiving. They argue, understandably, that people should have one day where they can just relax and that employees shouldn’t be expected to work. There is a petition, for instance, on change.org asking Target to “save Thanksgiving” and stay closed. They have over 355,000 supporters at this time who have signed.
Some argue that being open on Thanksgiving only shifts spending but doesn’t accelerate it. It just means that more people will shop that day and not during the rest of the holiday weekend.

American Airlines, in an attempt to get out of bankruptcy, has gotten closer to reaching a new contract agreement with its pilots. AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, had to file a Chapter 11 protection last November. Up until now, it has been able to reach labor agreements with all of its unions except for its pilots.
Now, the board of directors for the pilots’ union will vote on the latest agreement. They predict that the new vote will be supported, as a similar proposal was already accepted 13-2. The board’s next vote is expected to happen within the week. The airline pilots are then given two weeks to look over the contract before voting.
American Airline, being cautious, has said that it is pleased to be moving ahead on an agreement. They say that they have worked “to structure an agreement that addresses the priorities identified as most important to our pilots, while staying within the economic framework.” —