In response to TechCrunch’s article which reported that Yahoo is currently looking to close its offices in Southeast Asia, including the one in Indonesia, we contacted a trusted informant who, sadly, confirmed that the giant will move all of its premises from Indonesia to its regional office in Singapore by next year. What is actually going on?
Ever since the resignation of Roy Simangunsong from the position of Country Manager and Sales Director last January, Yahoo Indonesia didn’t look for any replacement at all. By this situation, all the operational stuffs are practically handled by the head of the regional office. The only managerial position which is still held by an Indonesian in the Country Editor which is filled by Dodi Ibnu Rusydi. This might be an early sign of Yahoo’s reluctance of keeping its businesses in Indonesia as the company’s main priority any longer.
In Indonesia, the only remaining businesses that Yahoo Has are the news management (especially news aggregation) done by the editorial team and the advertising slots done by the marketing team. Mind you, it would be extra hard for Yahoo to keep being competitive when Google advertising (and the latest Facebook advertising), which get numerous support from third parties, are its main competitors in the industry. Even though Yahoo’s popularity as a news portal is quite remarkable, it still can’t help increasing its performance in advertising that much.
Michael Smith, former Yahoo’s Executive, has his own words regarding the situation. He stated that Yahoo actually makes a terrible mistake. While other Silicon Valley enterprises go for Asian market, Yahoo focuses its business in the U.S whose market is actually not as promising as it was years ago. What was Marissa Mayer thinking? Is Yahoo getting more and more irrelevant to the global tech industry?
The ugly truth is, Yahoo slowly closes its offices in some parts of the world, including its engineering center in India which is the company’s second biggest center after its HQ in Sunnyvale. This makes Yahoo practically has yet noted any significant milestone at all since its debut in Indonesia.
There are 50 employees that Yahoo has hired here in Indonesia, and the closure of the office will surely affect all of them. Most likely, those in Malaysia and Vietnam will also face the same situation. We predict that this restructuring by Yahoo would not end anytime soon, particularly considering the massive business pressure that the company encounters.
Update: A confirmation has just been made by Yahoo in regard to the closure of its office in Indonesia. “To make sure that Yahoo remains being on a continuous growth path, we will keep our eyes on a number of areas of our business in order to reach better efficiency, collaboration, and innovation by downsizing our operation. Indonesia remains a fundamental market for Yahoo, that’s our commitment. We will keep providing quality products and captivating experience for our users and advertisers there.”
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