Yellow Pages Ltd. struggles to survive

An iconic Canadian company with roots in printed telephone directories has shed nearly 18 per cent of its workforce in what may be its final attempt to remain viable in the digital age, says an industry expert.

“I think this is it,’’ said Louis Hebert of the University of Montreal HEC business school.

He said Montreal-based Yellow Pages Ltd. has two options — give itself a little breathing room to develop a new strategy or stabilize the organization for a potential buyer.

“The alternative to these scenarios is the progressive degradation and bankruptcy or a fire sale,’’ he said in an interview.

Yellow Pages has cut another 500 jobs across the country as it continues to struggle with a shift of consumer preferences from print to digital directories.

The company (TSX:Y) said the job losses, which took effect Tuesday, are on top of 300 positions that were eliminated in October 2015.

Considerable effort has already been made to transform Yellow Pages, which was founded in 1908, from a publisher of printed directories to a digital model in an era of growing cellphone use.

Digital now accounts for 70 per cent of revenues, but even those have stalled and slightly declined of late.

Hebert said those type of transitions are risky and the Yellow Pages has shown it has been unable to pull it off, especially in the face of deeppocketed competitors like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.

“They have the same problem that newspapers or magazines where basically the whole environment has shifted to something else,’’ he said.

Hebert said the turning point was when Bell Canada sold the operations in 2002.

“Their bread and butter has disappeared. In fact the whole purpose of Yellow Pages has disappeared.’’

A revolving door of executives have tried to stabilize the company by moving to digital, but the speed of change of their environment has meant they were always playing catch-up, he said.

“They have the same problem that newspapers or magazines where basically the whole environment has shifted to something else.” Louis Hebert, University of Montreal HEC business school