Stakeholder Analysis Of Snap Inc. In Essay.

You are required to watch the YouTube Clip Snapchat's three-part business model with CEO Evan Spiegel

You will also need to perform your own research on Snap Inc.

You must then prepare a Snap Inc. Stakeholder Analysis & Strategy Program Report including an Executive Summary and a Conclusion and using the following headings:

A. Snap Inc. Stakeholder View of the Organisation Model

Prepare a diagram with Snap Inc. as the central organisation surrounded by the company’s stakeholder groups using the stakeholder view model

For each stakeholder group identified in the stakeholder view model research Snap Inc. further and prepare a list identifying and describing the specific stakeholders within each stakeholder group

B. Stakeholder Analysis for four selected stakeholder groups

Select four specific stakeholders and analyse their behaviour and motives

Tip: choose a stakeholder from each of the different four stakeholder categories to avoid repeating yourself in sections C and D

C. Stakeholder category identification and generic strategic programs for each of the four selected stakeholders

Identify the stakeholder category that each of the four stakeholders belong to and list the generic strategic programs available for managing each stakeholder

D. Recommended strategic program for each of the four selected stakeholder groups including reasons for recommendations Recommend a specific strategic program for each of the four identified stakeholders that are consistent with one of the generic programs identified in section C.

Stakeholder Identification and Categorization

The Snap Inc. offers users with Snapchat which is a messaging application that allows them to share their experiences and stories using snaps and videos. Besides sharing moments between users, Snap Inc. has developed a discover feature on its app that allows businesses to advertise their product and services to online consumers (Snapchat users).

Under the leadership of CEO Evan Spiegel, the company has shown an increase in the number of its users to over 150 million people in the developed countries. Snap Inc. was founded in September 2011 and has four main products, namely spectacles, Snapchat, Zenly and Bitmoji (Billy Gallagher, 2018). The company uses quality of its services and customer satisfaction as a competitive advantage in the highly competitive tech industry. Today, Snapchat generates billions dollars as revenue per annum using its three-part business model of content, age, and audience (Pahwa, 2011).

Stakeholders are described as people, organisation, or groups that have interests in the activities and affairs of a given organizational. Stakeholders are categorised into two categories, that is, internal stakeholders (employees and shareholders) and external stakeholders (customers, communities, government, trade partners, competitors, and trade unions) (Swisher & Mossberg, 2015).

Customers: Snap Inc. focuses a lot of the satisfaction of its customers. The long-term financial and sustainability success of the organisation is based on its ability to attract, retain and generate customer loyalty. The customers of Snap Inc. are grouped into individual users, advertisers, and publishers. Example of publishing companies that have sought the services of Snap Inc. are MTV, National Geographic, and Buzzfeed (Billy Gallagher, 2018).

Government and Communities:  The interest of the government and communities in the running of Snap Inc. is closely tied. Activities of the organisation directly impact the community. People expect Snap Inc. to act morally and ethically. Likewise, the organisation is expected to engage in charitable events that benefit the community. On the other hand, the government makes rules and regulations that impact the operations of business and organisations. Therefore, Snap Inc. should ensure a good working relationship with the government and the communities (Dietrich, 2017, p. 56). 

Partners and Suppliers: For a company to thrive, it must form a long-term relationship with its partners and suppliers. Snap Inc. has formed a partnership with Shazam Company, which allows users to search and share the music online using the Snapchat application. The partnership between Snap Inc. and Shazam and many other companies have helped the former to develop shared visions, strategies, and goals which are beneficial to the parts involved (Wasieleski & Weber, 2017, p. 111).

Stakeholder Categories and Strategic Programs

Competitors: The players in the technology industry face stiff competition. Snap Inc. is not excepted from the competition. The company faces competition from other companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram among others. Competition shape how Snap Inc. provides its services to obtain a competitive edge over other players.

The Snap Inc.’s stakeholder groups can be presented in a diagram using the stakeholder view model as shown below;

For the purpose of this section the employees, competitors, customers, and trade partners stakeholder groups have been chosen. The section seeks to analyse the behaviour and motives of specific players under each category.

Employees

The employees working at Snap Inc. describes the Company’s culture as one that lack transparency. The employees (execute) rarely engage in decision making. The CEO Evan Spiegel makes all the decision which has led to friction with other executive members while many members opt to quit their jobs. The relationship culture of the organisation is different from that found in other technology companies. The company operates from different buildings instead of a centralised place which affect transparency between the management and the employees (Phillips, 2011, p. 78).

The CEO prefers operating in secrecy. It is astonishing that most employees learn about new products when they are launched in the press. In other tech companies like Twitter, Google, and Facebook, the employees are given the first opportunity to test new products before there are launched. It is also difficult to meet the CEO as he always locked in his office located in the Venice Beach.

Nevertheless, Snap Inc. provides breakfast, lunch, and supper to its employees. The company has also committed to taking care of part of the employees monthly phone bills. Irrespective of such a positive gesture from the company, many employees feel that Snap Inc. does not recognise their effort. Most of them are less motivated to work at the company (Quora for Business, 2017).

Competitors

The main competitors that Snap Inc. has to deal with in the Tech industry is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Snap Inc. is still a small company compared to its competitors based on company size and the number of uses. The rivalry between the companies is so intense that Snap Inc. have accused its competitors of stealing its innovations and products. For instance, in 2017 Snap Inc. accused Facebook and Twitter of stealing its products before it was launched. Some of the competitive disadvantages facing Snap Inc. are caused by its small size, it's underperform rating and the ease at which its competitors can copy its products/ innovations. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google and Instagram enjoy economies of scale which makes it easier for them to copy Snap’s innovations and launch them to their large user bases within a short time (Bonnafous-Boucher & Rendtorff, 2016, p. 52).

Conclusion

Customers

Snap Inc. has over 150 million active daily users on a daily. The customers can be categorised into three groups, namely individual users, advertisers, and publishers. Both the advertisers and publishers are the leading source revenue generators to Snap Inc. Publishing companies such as BuzzFeed, ESPN, and Mashable engage Snap Inc. as an advertising channel for their products. The companies use the Snapchat to generate event synopses and contents which can be viewed by the millions application users (Billy Gallagher, 2018). Snap came up with a length film feature which allow publishers to create entertaining films about their products, services. Snapchat uses its multimedia prowess to capture the attention of its million users.  Compared to other tech companies, Snap Inc. is still young yet it many publishers have sought its services as a way of reaching their consumers. Therefore, there is a mutual relationship between Snap Inc. and the publishers which is beneficial to both sides (Baker, 2011, p. 87). 

Trade Partners

Snapchat has more than fourteen partners, namely Shazam, Celtra, Refue14, Percolate, Spredfast, Vidmob, Vidsy, and Quickframe among others. The partnership with these companies allows Snap Inc. to provide quality and satisfying services and products to its users. The company continues to forming new partnerships as a way of improving their services offered to the advertisers, publishers and end users. For instance, a partnership formed between Snapchat and Ceros provides advertisers with the freedom to create their advertisement videos based on their own design and make them as interactive and attractive as possible. Likewise, by partnering with Jebbit, advertisers are provided with an opportunity to gather insightful information on the targeted market. The information is then used to create interactive online campaigns by the Snapchat users (Wasieleski & Weber, 2017, p. 76). 

Stakeholder category identification and generic strategic programs for each of the four selected stakeholders
This section addresses the identification of the stakeholders of the Snap Inc. discussed under the section above as well as identifying the generic strategic programs used by the organisation to handle each category of the stakeholders.

Stakeholder identificationfor each of the four selected stakeholders

Stakeholders are categorised based on their relationship with the stakeholders. There are three categories of stakeholders, namely primary, secondary and key stakeholders (Freeman, et al., 2017, p. 175).

• Primary stakeholders refer to the people/ groups that are directly affected by the activities of an organization. Example of primary stakeholders includes the employees, customers/ users, investors and communities(Phillips, 2011, p. 216).
• Secondary stakeholders refer to the people/ groups that are indirectly affected by the activities of an organization. Example of secondary investors are business partners, service providers, and competitors.
• Key stakeholders are people or groups/ organisationswhich have the ability to positively or negatively impact organisations directly or indirectly. Example of key stakeholders includes government agencies and the media (Wasieleski & Weber, 2017, p. 234). 

Based on the stakeholder identification categories above, the employees, competitors, customers and trade partners of Snap Inc. can be grouped as shown below.

Stakeholders	Stakeholder identification
Employees	Employees are primary stakeholders. Any decision taken by the organisation has a direct impact on them. For example, the culture of secrecy at Snap headquarters makes employees feel unrecognised which in return lead to high turnover. Likewise, over 100 employees lost their jobs when the Snap Inc. decided to lay them off, citing poor financial performance and high operating cost.
Competitors, e.g. Facebook and Twitter	Competitors are regarded as the secondary stakeholders. The decisions taken by Snap Inc. affect them indirectly. For example, a loss of customers by Snap Inc. means is a gain to its competitors. Likewise, an increase of Snap Inc.’s market share has a negative impact to its competitors, however, the situation can be mitigated if the competitors come up with more effective strategies.
Customers, e.g. Publishers and Advertisers	The publishers and advertisers are directly affected by the operations of Snap Inc. Poor services to them leads to dissatisfaction while quality services means satisfaction. Snap strives to ensure that its products/ services meet the customers’ expectations. Basically, customers are regarded to as primary customers.
Trade partners, e.g. Shazam	Actions and decisions by Snap Inc. has indirect impact on the performance of its trade partners. Therefore, companies like Shazam which have formed partnership with Snap Inc. are treated as secondary patterns.

Generic strategic programs for each of the four selected stakeholders

Stakeholders	Generic Strategy Programs
Employees	According to Snap Inc.’s CEO, the company looks for the right people, for the right job at a right pay. Innovation, creativity, and flexibility are major factors that are considered during the recruitment process. The organisation has also developed several strategies meant to help in retaining its top talents I terms of benefits and compensation packages (Dietrich, 2017, p. 79). First, irrespective of small size, Snap Inc. offers competitive salaries and benefits to its employees as like the big players in the industry. The company has a free health plan for its employees, which covers vision, dental and mental care. In addition, the company gives its employees a 3 % 401 (K) match and a 3 to 5% benefits on an employee’s contribution. A family benefit package comprising of paid parental leave, assistance with adoption, surrogacy, egg freezing, and infertility (Swisher & Mossberg, 2015). Second, the employees are also offered with free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the company’s cafeteria. Lastly, the company offers its employees a monthly stipend which helps them to cover their phone bills (Quora for Business, 2017).
Competitors e.g. Facebook and Twitter	The number of Snapchat’s monthly active users increased from 100 million to 200 million between 2015 and 2016. The figure shows that is growing faster as compared to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Snapchat is slowly becoming a major threat in the tech industry considering that 83% of its users are below 35 years. Snapchat’s success can be attributed to its flexibility to embrace risk as a way to improve the platform and offer rich content to the users. The company also leads in product innovation in the tech industry (Porter, 2008, p. 91).   Lastly, the company has positioned itself to take advantage of the growing mobile advertising. Marketers and advertisers are shifting from TV advertising to mobile advertising which have present Snapchat with an opportunity to create product/ service promotion-oriented features. Snapchat is considered to be a leader in innovation and has on several occasions accused its competitions of stealing/ copying its innovative ideas (Hintze, 2015, p. 121).
Customers e.g. Publishers and Advertisers	Snap Inc. strives to create the right content for different categories of users from single users, to publishers, advertisers, and marketers. Some of the strategies employed by the company to satisfy the need of publishers and marketers are; · Snapchat-exclusive promotions which allow publishers and marketers to regularly post content on coupon codes or occasional discounts (Pacis, 2018). · Day-to-Day Snaps which is a feature that allow new business to present their products and services to the perceived consumers. It also helps businesses to create brand awareness. · The Geofilter feature allows business to buy a Snapchat filter available within a certain locality. The feature allows publishers and marketers to present their products/ services to a given market segment. For example, Geofilter can be used to promote a product during valentine (Pacis, 2018). ·  Snapchat Q&A: the features can be used in two ways. First, the Snap Inc. customer representative uses the feature to communicate with the users. Listening to the customers is the best method of knowing whether or not they are satisfied with the products and services offered. Second, marketers and publishers can use the feature to create direct contact with their followers, answer their queries, and send more information about products and services (Pacis, 2018).
Trade partners, e.g. Shazam	Formation of partnership with other companies is seen as an opportunity to increase Snapchat’s market share by presenting more contents and options to the customers. Snap Inc. targets small companies which still have an opportunity to grow in the future, which is influenced by the company’s long-term growth and expansion strategies. The partnerships are meant to benefit all the parties involved (Wasieleski & Weber, 2017, p. 192).

Recommended strategic program for each of the four selected stakeholder groups, including reasons for recommendations

The following recommendations are based on the generic strategies applied by Snap Inc. on its employees, competitors, customers, and trade partners.

Stakeholders	Recommendations
Employees	Although the employees are well compensated, they feel that the company does not recognise them. The company does not engage the employees in decision making which is demotivating. Therefore, the executive of Snap Inc. should be open and start engaging its employees on the key issue affecting the company operations (Porter, 1985, p. 133).
Competitors e.g. Facebook and Twitter	Snapchat have accused its competitors, Facebook and Twitter, of stealing/ copying its innovations. The company should engage copyrights and intellectual property experts in coming with effective ways of stopping the theft of innovations. The company has no clear generic strategy. Considering the high competition in the tech industry, Snap Inc. should adopt cost leadership as its competitive edge in the market where there is a high level of product similarity (Porter, 2008, p. 67).
Customers e.g. Publishers and Advertisers	The company strives to provide features that meet specific needs of its users. However, does not engage users in understanding the products that are likely to maximise their satisfaction. Therefore Snap Inc. should engage publishers and marketers through consultations when developing a new product. Snap should also protect users against cyberbullying as well as improving the privacy of the information posted. The company has not fully addressed this part (Porter, 1985, p. 201).
Trade partners, e.g. Shazam	Snapchat have entered into partnership with over 50 companies. Although such partnership help in increasing market share, they also come at a cost. Therefore, Snapchat should create some of the features offered by its partners. By doing so, the company will not only reduce its operating cost but also increase its revenue.

Conclusion

Although Snap Inc. cannot be compared with its competitors like Facebook and Twitter in the tech industry in terms of number of users, financial performance, and market share, the company has achieved a lot since inception. Under the leadership of CEO Evan Spiegel, the company has shown an increase in the number of its users to over 150 million people in the developed countries. Today, Snapchat generates billions dollars as revenue per annum using its three-part business model of content, age and audience. As discussed in the paper, the company applies different strategies to address different issues and needs of its stakeholders. Snap Inc. understands that maximising customers’ satisfaction is the only way of increasing its profitability level as well as market share. With consumers shifting from traditional TV advertising to mobile advertising, Snap Inc. has an opportunity to expand its market share even further 

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