MBA501 Dynamic Strategy And Disruptive Innovation Of Snapchat

Discuss about the Dynamic Strategy and Disruptive Innovation of Snapchat.

 

Answer:

Introduction

Strategies form central doctrine for the companies and organizations in terms of approaching the business activities in an efficient and effective manner. These strategies form a crucial component in the process of innovation. Moreover, in the phase of crisis, strategic approach enables the companies and organizations to secure their position within the competitive ambience of the market (Teece, Peteraf and Leih 2016). This assignment attempts to provide an insight into the strategic approach of Snapchat towards renovating the business dynamics.

Stakeholders of Snapchat

Stakeholders are agents, who invest in the products and services of a company or organization. This investment results in the expansion of the business. This proves true for all of the companies and organizations including Snapchat.  

Stakeholders are two types: internet and external. The internal stakeholders of Snapchat are: employees, managers and owners. The external stakeholders of Snapchat are: suppliers, customers, shareholders, and creditors.

Employees are the assets for the company, helping in achieving efficiency within the business activities. Managers play an important role in controlling the employee performance, assisting in estimating the progress in the future. Owners are the members of the higher authority, who need to be reported about the condition of the business. Suppliers are important in terms of producing quality services for the customers (Marx and Hsu 2015). Customers are the health of business, whose opinions brings profit or loss for the company.  

Employees are the most important stakeholder, who fulfils the identified goals and objectives of Snapchat. They are also the key players, as they, through their talents, skills; capabilities enhance the productivity of the business. Even the managers are key player, as they regulate the performance, so that Snapchat can reach the benchmark level performance. Suppliers are considered as least important. On the contrary, they are important, as supply of adequate resources is needed for executing the business activities in an efficient and effective manner (Christensen, McDonald, Altman and Palmer 2016). They are crucial assets providing support in enhancing the sales revenue and profit margin of Snapchat.

Stakeholder categorization and generic strategy programs

Stakeholders can be categorized into four types: Swing, defensive, offensive and hold. In the Swing type, stakeholders have high potential of being cooperative. Along with this, the risks of threats are also high from these types of stakeholders. In case of Snapchat, the boss or the owners can be placed in this category. Stability in the market position makes the boss and owners highly cooperative. On the other hand, when the market value is downwards, they can compel the managers to work overtime and overshoot the targets for restoring the position (Rothaermel 2015).

The defensive type of stakeholders is those, who have low cooperative potential but high competitive threat. In this category, the suppliers can be placed. If the suppliers are provided with quality materials, they supply the orders as per the requirements. These suppliers give intense competition to Snapchat, when they have a downmarket condition. Offensive stakeholders are those who have high cooperative potential but low competitive threats. In case of Snapchat, the creditors can be placed. They demand payments for the services provided. This is cooperation, but does not intensify the competition between the brand and the contemporaries like Facebook, Instagram among others (King and Baatartogtokh 2015).  

Hold category includes those types of stakeholders who have both low cooperative potential and low competitive threat. In case of Snapchat, non-sales consultant can be placed in this category. This is because he is in charge of other departmental functions than sales. He is not that important in execution of the sales operation. If he is not consulted for the sales operations, Snapchat’s market position are not affected (Snapchat.com 2018).

Behaviour analysis

Behaviours of the stakeholders are of four types: cooperative potential, competitive threat and actual behaviour. Cooperative threat and competitive potential are the essential shades of a stakeholders’ behaviour. According to the organizational requirements, noticeable changes are visible within the behaviour of the stakeholders. Urgency model can be used for delving deep into the behaviour of the stakeholders. According to this mode, there are three characteristic features of a stakeholder: Power, legitimacy and urgency. Power is the capability of the Snapchat owners to influence the stakeholders towards the services of the brands. Legitimacy is the assessment of the obligations, which the stakeholders are to comply for the execution of the activities (Annarelli and Nonino 2016). Urgency relates with the conditions, when urgent assistance is needed from the stakeholders for completing the business activities. This urgency is the time, when the actual behaviour of cooperation is expected from the stakeholders. Failure to provide the contribution increases the competitive threat for companies like Snapchat. Typical example of this is negligence towards the execution of risk assessment.  

Motives

Objectives

• To assess the appropriateness of the resources allocated to the stakeholders of Snapchat

• To check the relative importance of stakeholder grouping carried out in the workplace of Snapchat
• To check whether separate strategies are prepared for budgets and operations in the business dynamics of Snapchat
• To suggest recommendations, so that stakeholders of Snapchat can be served in a better manner

Stakeholders’ stakeholder

The managers are dependent on the instructions of the directors. These instructions enable the managers to allocate tasks to the staffs. Therefore, directors are the stakeholders of managers, who are the stakeholders of employees. The suppliers are the stakeholders of the employers, as the supply helps in execution of the business activities (?iutien? and Thattakath 2014). The creditors are dependent on the financial assistance of Snapchat finance administrative personnel. Success of Snapchat is dependent on the opinion of the customers, around whom the business revolves. Therefore, each stakeholder is complimentary to the other.

Beliefs

Every stakeholder has a particular attitude, set of values and belief towards the services of the companies like Snapchat. Mutual understanding between the stakeholders results in collaborative output towards fulfilling the identified goals and objectives. As a matter of specification, it is the belief, which the stakeholder holds about the services of Snapchat. Adoption of surveys and feedbacks is the best means for gaining an insight into the stakeholders’ mind (Beck and Lengnick-Hall 2016). Collative approach within the stakeholders creates a group, which is crucial in terms of conducting joint initiatives. This develops community feeling.

Generic strategy programs

Swing stakeholders

Bringing change in the formal rules of the government can be one of the strategy programs for this type of stakeholders. For this, decision forum needs to be altered for renovating the decision making process of Snapchat. Typical example of this is lobbying lawmakers in which the governmental intervention is necessary (Helfat and Peteraf 2015).

Defensive stakeholders

Organizing defensive programs would be fruitful in terms of reinforcing current beliefs. However, maintaining the traditionalism in the programs of Snapchat would be a wise step. Providing the stakeholders to lead the transaction process would result in their empowerment.

Offensive stakeholders

Bringing change in the current beliefs can be one of the strategic programs for this type of stakeholders. For this, the objectives need to be changed. Perceiving the situation from the position of the stakeholders would result in the achievement of positive outcomes (Gans 2016).

Hold stakeholders

Monitoring the existing programs can be one of the effective strategic programs for this type of stakeholders. Along with this, reinforcement of the current beliefs of Snapchat can lure more stakeholders to the brand image. However, the changes need to be tracked for ensuring that the transactions take place in a proper manner (Foss and Saebi 2017).

Recommendations

Resource allocation needs to be proper for Snapchat. Preparing budgets would enhance the appropriateness of the resource allocations. The time span of one year would be appropriate in terms of gaining an insight into the resources allocated to the stakeholders. The grouping of the stakeholders needs to be done on the basis of relative importance, hierarchy and power. Once this positioning is done, resource allocation would be easier. Failure of identifying the relative importance would create biasness within the stakeholders. The business unit managers of Snapchat need to assess the rationality in the allocation of the resources.

The resource allocation can be done through restructuring the organizational structure, creation of teams and recruiting new staffs. The stakeholders need to be taught about the importance of commitment towards the activities. The staffs of Snapchat need to ensure that the stakeholder participate in the strategic programs. Promoting the news of incentives would result in the high involvement of stakeholders to the services of the brand, Snapchat. Preservation of shared values among the shared values would result in the exposure of collaborative output.

Organizing open forums and discussions among the stakeholders would be beneficial in terms of gaining an insight into their approaches. Ignoring the opinions of the stakeholders would add vulne4rability into the parameter of public relations for Snapchat. Negotiation means need to be achieved for resolving the issues and the disruptions.

Conclusion

The stakeholders of Snapchat are important in terms of contributing to the success. Stakeholder mapping helps the readers in gaining an insight into their role within the business dynamics. The strategic programs are means towards attracting the stakeholders towards the services of the brand. Evaluation would be crucial in terms of assessing the appropriateness f the means adopted for fulfilling their needs. Maintaining consistency, in the execution of evaluation, would upgrade the services towards the stakeholders. Examinations of the systems would enhance the awareness towards the specific needs, demands and requirements of the stakeholders. This would avert the issues and disruptions. Market research would help in adopting latest and modern services, making Snapchat services trendy. 

References

Annarelli, A. and Nonino, F., 2016. Strategic and operational management of organizational resilience: Current state of research and future directions. Omega, 62, pp.1-18.

Beck, T.E. and Lengnick-Hall, C.A., 2016. Resilience capacity and strategic agility: Prerequisites for thriving in a dynamic environment. In Resilience Engineering Perspectives, Volume 2 (pp. 61-92). CRC Press.

Christensen, C.M., McDonald, R., Altman, E.J. and Palmer, J., 2016. Disruptive innovation: intellectual history and future paths. Harvard Business School.

?iutien?, R. and Thattakath, E.W., 2014. Influence of dynamic capabilities in creating disruptive innovation. Economics and Business, 26, pp.15-21.

Foss, N.J. and Saebi, T., 2017. Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: How far have we come, and where should we go?. Journal of Management, 43(1), pp.200-227.

Gans, J.S., 2016. Keep calm and manage disruption. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(3), p.83.

Helfat, C.E. and Peteraf, M.A., 2015. Managerial cognitive capabilities and the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), pp.831-850.

King, A.A. and Baatartogtokh, B., 2015. How useful is the theory of disruptive innovation?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(1), p.77.

Marx, M. and Hsu, D.H., 2015. Strategic switchbacks: Dynamic commercialization strategies for technology entrepreneurs. Research Policy, 44(10), pp.1815-1826.

Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Snapchat.com (2018). About us. Available at: https://www.snapchat.com/ [Accessed on 29^th August 2018]

Teece, D., Peteraf, M. and Leih, S., 2016. Dynamic capabilities and organizational agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California Management Review, 58(4), pp.13-35.