Discuss about the Dynamic Strategy and Disruptive Innovations.
The following report makes an analysis of the different stakeholders of Snap Inc, a company that runs Snapchat app and makes cameras. The report is further about the strategy program the company follows with regard to four of its specific stakeholders. The strategy with regard to four stakeholder groups is also discussed.
The following diagram shows various stakeholders of Snap Inc:
Snap Inc is a company which runs the popular mobile app snap chat that allows the customer to send videos and pictures both of which self destruct after a few seconds of a person viewing it. The company also sells specialized cameras. There are many stakeholders in this company. Stakeholders are the persons which get affected by the company achieving its objectives. In the case of Snap Inc the various specific stakeholders are:
The major competitors of Snap Inc are the Facebook and its service Instagram. On the Facebook a person can download pictures and also post comments. Facebook allows a person to share one’s feelings on the internet with thousands of viewers. The message that comes on the Facebook gets spread very easily (Ranieri, Manca and Fini 2012, p. 754). Snapchat ate into the market of Facebook. The latter launched an app similar to snap chat which did not become so popular. Facebook wanted to acquire snapchat but the company did not succeed in its efforts. Snapchat did not want to sell itself. A company like snapchat knows that it is on the right track when a big company like Facebook wants to acquire it. Snap chat was able to create an identity for itself in the market and would not like to lose it.
Another major competitor of Snap chat is South Korean app Snow which is very popular in Asia and is in very ways similar to Snap chat. Facebook has also launched new app Lifestage only for teenagers. Then there is Twitter a social media platform on which one can post comments.
The customers of the company are mostly teenagers and also grown ups who have been using you tube including some celebrities. They like to send funny pictures to each other and this is a source of entertainment for them (Best, Manktelow and Taylor 2014, p. 27). Then there are cameras of the company in the form of spectacles which have become popular among college students though they are priced higher than expected by the consumers.
There is media which keeps track of new products and companies. The media can be print media, television, radio and internet. The media was critical of the remarks of Evan Spiegel the Snap Inc Chief executive officer that the Snap chat was meant only for rich people and not for countries like India which were poor. The parents of the children are also worried that indecent pictures might be shared on Snap chat and their children who use the service might become corrupt. This story was also in the media.
The permission of the government has to be taken before a new product comes into the market. The governments in the developed countries are fairly open still if a product harms the society the government can ban it later on.
The management of Snap Inc is also an important stakeholder which would like the company to succeed. The company was founded by its current CEO Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy who is Chief technology officer (Carson and Heath 2017, para 1). Bobby leads Snap’s engineering and research teams. The individual also works on spectacle glasses project. Murphy and Spiegel own 44% of the stock. Imran Khan is company’s Chief strategy officer. Former Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton is Chairman of the board. All these people are important stakeholders in the company.
There are certain social and educational organizations which are not happy with the growing influence of social media platforms. They think that these platforms have an adverse impact on the development of school and college students as they ignore their studies and also do not go out to take part in outdoor sports.
One important stakeholder of Snap Inc are the suppliers of the company. The enterprise makes cameras which have different components and are made from various raw materials. If the company does well, the suppliers also prosper.
Facebook Facebook has been trying to kill the competition offered by Snap chat by offering services similar to the latter. Facebook’s Instragram has the Instragram Stories feature which is more or less the imitation of Snapchat’s My Story feature (Castillo 2017, para 1). Users of the service can put filters or stickers on photos and videos shared with friends. Facebook is trying to lure same kind of customers as that of Snapchat. Some of the users of Facebook would have shifted to Snapchat when the company offered the My Story feature. Now the Facebook wants these customers back. Companies do not like to lose customers, not even a single one. Facebook lost many customers to Snapchat. The company could not think of some better idea to lure these customers back, so it resorted to starting a feature Instragram Stories which shows that even a big company like Facebook with such a talented and a huge staff could not offer a new unique service of its own and had to copy Snapchat. Many would see this as a win for the latter. Snap chat service remained as popular as it was. But the move would have also added to customers of Facebook. Many would call this a clever move by Facebook which would have prevented further loss of customers to Snapchat to an extent (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang and Liu 2012, p. 428)
Teenagers Snapchat is becoming more popular among teenagers (Castillo 2016, para 1).. According to a recent study there are 160 million daily users of Snapchat and 60% are between 13 and 24 years old. The teenagers are moving towards more video and image based online media. They are attracted more by the use of attractive images which can be chosen and combined in innovative ways. They find this better than writing just text messages which also takes up more time and are also boring to them. Moreover Snapchat has become popular among teenagers because of initiatives like Snapchat discover and live coverage of Oscars.
Evan Spiegel Evan Spiegel believes that the business of Snap Inc was built on the basis of creativity. Snap Inc went public recently in order to procure more funds for business. Evan wants to educate people on how the business of the company was created. The company is now valued at $ 28 billion. The company has been making losses still Evan Spiegel is upbeat about the prospects of the company and brought the public issue of capital (Vanian 2017, para 1). The individual thinks they can come up with new popular products and continue to give stiff competition to competitors like Facebook. The company Snap Inc has been adding new features like more video and picture filters under the individual’s leadership.
Internet The internet has on the whole been good about the company Snap Inc and its management. Evan Spiegel has been praised for building a social media platform at such a young age which could take on big companies like Facebook and Twitter. There was some adverse publicity relating to Evan’s comments about India but it has also been reported that Evan did not mean it that way and was misquoted (Dhapola 2017, para 1). The success of the recent capital issue has been displayed prominently. The company’s products and developments are tracked and reported by the media..
Facebook falls in the stakeholder category of defensive. It will cooperate less with Snap Inc and is a high competitive threat to the company (Akpinar and Vincze 2016, p. 53). The actual behavior of Facebook has been that of a competitor which has copied Snap Inc’s products and also been disturbed by Snap Inc eating its market share. The company will not cooperate and will remain a competitor. Teenagers fall in the stakeholder category of offensive. Teenagers can cooperate more with the company and are low competition threat. Teenagers have been using and supporting the products of Snap Inc and look forward to a healthy relationship with the company. They fall in the category of offensive. Evan Spiegel also falls in the stakeholder category of offensive. The individual is a person who would like to see Snap Inc grow and cooperate with the employees of the company. The individual falls in the category of offensive also because in the past also the individual has contributed magnificently to the growth of the company. Internet falls in the stakeholder category of Swing. It has a high cooperative potential but can also be adverse and a competitive threat. The internet has been a supporter of Snap Inc in the past but has also written negatively about Evan Spiegel. Therefore internet falls in the category of Swing.
Snap Inc would form the generic strategy program for each of the above mentioned stakeholder on the basis of the category the stakeholder falls into (Missonier and Loufrani 2014, p. 1108). Facebook has been a competitor of the company since a very long time. It lies in the category of defensive. The actual behavior so far of Facebook has been a competitor who has also tried to show that it is a friend by giving the offer to buy Snap Inc. But accepting that offer would have meant an end to the independence that Evan Spiegel and the individual’s team had got in running the company. Facebook was trying to kill the competition by purchasing Snap Inc. In future also the company would not cooperate with Snap Inc in any way and remain a competitive threat (Yang, Wang and Jin 2014, p. 74).
Snap Inc would follow a strategic program that would help the company in defending the competitive threat from Facebook. This would involve developing and launching new products that can help the company retain and increase its market share. The company would spend on advertising that would show its products as being better than that of Facebook. The company would take steps to retain its creative team so that they are not lured by Facebook.
Teenagers fall in the category offensive. The generic strategy program of the company would be to find new ways of cooperating with the teenagers in the promotion of the company products. The company would interact more with the teenagers and strengthen its customer relationship management (Castillo 2016, para 1). The company would try to exploit new opportunities like holding campaigns and functions in which teenagers would be invited to take part and try out the new products that the company is developing. The company can consider making teenagers their brand ambassadors. The company can hold functions in schools like quizzes to spread more solidarity with the group.
Evan Spiegel falls in the stakeholder category of offensive. The individual created the company and would not be a threat to the company willingly. The person would like to see the company grow and would help the company make new products and increase its market share. The company as an entity should try to build better relations with Evan Spiegel and the employees of the company should show enthusiasm for any of the individual’s ideas for better management of the company. If Evan Spiegel comes with any proposal of a new product the top and the middle management should thoroughly look at the proposal. Even if they do not agree with Evan Spiegel’s idea, the relationship with the person should not be allowed to deteriorate. It is in the company’s interest to search for new ways to associate with a talented person like Evan Spiegel.
Internet is in the stakeholder category of swing. It has high cooperative potential but is also a high competitive threat (Akpinar and Vincze 2016, p.53). While there have been positive stories about the company in the internet, there have also been negative responses on the medium which hurt the company. Snap Inc should also focus more on print media and television. It should not rely excessively on the internet for spreading positive news about the company. It should have positive stories in other media. This would counter any negative stories on the internet. The rules of engagement of the company with internet would change. The internet would no longer be as powerful to malign the name of the company.
The four selected stakeholder groups of Snap Inc are competitors, customers, management and media. The competitors of a company are a very important stakeholders which cannot be ignored. Facebook is the biggest competitor of Snap Inc. So far Snap Inc has been more popular among the youth. The school and college going youth use the services and products of the company very much. The company should continue to make innovative products and make attractive additions to its current products. In order to accomplish this task the company should employ more creative people who can make new impressive designs even at the cost of paying them high salaries. This is one area where the company should not shy away from spending. South Korean app Snow has been giving tough competition to Snap Inc (Ramirez 2016, para 1). The latter should study the culture and society of Asian countries more and come with products that can appeal more to the Asian masses.
Another important stakeholder of Snap Inc are the customers. No company can survive if it ignores its customers. Snap Inc should get more feedback from its customers. The company should ask its customers to give ideas as to how the services of the company can be improved. The company can get the idea for the next big product from a customer. The company should not ignore the older generation like parents of children. They can also be good customers of the company which should not ignore text messages. It should not rely only on video messages and pictures. There is lot of scope for text with pictures. The older generation likes to write also. This is the reason why so many messages are posted on twitter (Lin, Hoffman and Borengasser 2013, p. 39). The Facebook also makes profits on the basis of text messages.
One more stakeholder group is the media which is interested in giving information to people in order to make money. People like to read about the corporate world. The company which stays in news for all the correct reasons can make more customers. The executives of Snap Inc should give interviews in the print media and also on television and internet talking about the future plans of the company, the areas in which the company wants to grow, the kind of research that is going on in the company to make new products. Snap Inc has in its team people like former CEO of Sony Entertainment Michael Lyton who understands what entertains the teenagers. Michael, an important stakeholder in the company can give direction to the product designers and technologists of the company on how to create products that appeal to the youth (Chaykowski 2017, para 1). There are certain areas of interest to teenagers like movies and cartoon characters. These can be used as stickers and inspire the designers of the company. The team of Snap Inc should give full support to the top management like Imran Khan the Chief strategy officer of the company and learn from the individual’s knowledge and experience. There should be unity of direction in the company. Even if the employees have certain issues with the top management, they should be sorted out through cordial discussions and work should be carried on.
Conclusion
Snap Inc works in a business environment where there are many external and internal stakeholders also. These stakeholders respond to the business moves of the company. Similarly, Snap Inc also has developed strategies to create a distinct identity for itself in the market. So far the company has been able to compete with companies like Facebook. The enterprise has so far been following the policy of differentiation which has led to formation of customer base for the company. The success of the company in future would depend on its ability to use technology and creativity to come up with innovative products that customers find attractive.
References
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