Stakeholder Analysis of Snap Inc. for MBA Assignment

This report analyses the internal and external stakeholders of Snap, Inc. and focuses on four specific stakeholders - Imran T. Khan, Mark Randall, Tim Stone and Michael Lynton. It discusses their organisational behaviour, motive and outcome. Strategies for stakeholder engagement have been categorised also.

RUNNING HEAD: MBA ASSIGNMENT
MBA ASSIGNMENT
Student’s Name
University Name
Author’s Note

2MBA ASSIGNMENT
Executive Summary
This report takes an in depth view of the internal and external stakeholders of Snap, Inc. the
various stakeholder groups of the company have been identified. They are individual
stakeholders, institutional stakeholder and the mutual fund holders. This group is
immediately followed up by the individual departmental directors. The base management
committee which is the most poignant stakeholder group have been described also. In the
next part of this report, the four specific stakeholders, namely Tim Stone, Mark Randall,
Imran T. Khan and Michael Lynton, their organisational behaviour, motive and outcome have
been discussed in detail here. Again, strategies for stakeholder engagement have been
categorised also. Identifying the stakeholder responsibility matrix as the most feasible
channel of management, the various ways in which, the identified stakeholders can
collaborate with the project teams have been highlighted.

3MBA ASSIGNMENT
Table of Contents
A. Snap Inc. Stakeholder View of the Organisation Model.......................................................4
B. Stakeholder Analysis for four selected stakeholder groups................................................12
Influencers: Imran T. Khan, Chief Strategy Officer.............................................................12
Providers: Mark Randall, the current Vice President of the Technology and Engineering
division.................................................................................................................................13
Functional Management: Tim Stone, Chief Financial Officer.............................................13
Governance: Michael Lynton, Chairman of Snap, Inc.........................................................14
C. Stakeholder category identification and generic strategic programs for each of the four
selected stakeholders................................................................................................................14
D. Recommended strategic program for each of the four selected stakeholder groups
including reasons for recommendations...................................................................................15
Recommendation 1: Financial Roadmap of Tim Stone.......................................................15
Recommendation 2: Role of Michael Lynton......................................................................16
Recommendation 3: Role of Mark Randall and Imran I. Khan...........................................16
Reference List..........................................................................................................................17

4MBA ASSIGNMENT
A. Snap Inc. Stakeholder View of the Organisation Model
Snap, Inc. is an organisation which is occupied with their camera platform. The
company also indulges in providing advertising services to their partners by means of helping
them to generate returns on their investments. The major market products of Snap, Inc. are
Snapchat, Spectacles as well as Publisher tools. The organisation was founded in 2011 by
Frank R. Brown, Evan Spiegel, as well as Robert Murphy. The major share of the company
rests in the hands of three stakeholder groups, which includes the likes of Individual
stakeholders, demanding a business share of 22.86%, other institutional stakeholders,
occupying 15.67% and finally the Mutual-fund holders who share 12.25% business share.
The employees were a stakeholder group of medium importance when the number of service
users were very low, that is up to 2014. After that when the popularity of the services of
Snap, Inc. gradually started to increase, the employees emerged as a very essential group of
stakeholders.
The number of employees were only 600 as of the fiscal year 2015. The two
consecutive financial years 2016 and 2017 saw an increase of employees up to 1.86k and
3.07k respectively (Fenwick and Vermeulen 2017). The group of top executives form another
major group of stakeholders. This group incorporates Evan T. Spiegel, who is the Director as
well as the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Tim Stone, the main Financial Officer is
another essential member of this group. The Vice-President of Technologies that is Mark
Randall is an invincible member of this core group of stakeholders and the last member of
this group is Imran Khan, who is the Chief Strategy Officer. The group of stakeholders next
in level of importance is the managerial committee of the company. This group is headed by
Evan Spiegel, who is the Executive head of the company (Wagner 2017). The Chairman, and

5MBA ASSIGNMENT
the group of Independent divisional Directors including Joanna Coles, Alan Lafley, Stanley
Meresman, Scott Miller and Christopher Young forms this managerial group. The companies
having the equity share of the mobile applications of Snap, Inc. are forming another
stakeholder group.
There are three Equity share groups also. Of them Share A have 962,983,090 share
units, Share B have 94,479,066 shares and finally Share C have 219,890,702 share units. Of
the first Group, that is Share A, 763,054,235 (79.2%) are floating shares (Spangler 2018).
The three primary shareholders who have major part of the Company share, are Tencent
Holdings Limited, Robert Murphy and Evan Spiegel (Kelly 2018). The secondary Company
share rests with Lightspeed Management Corporation. LLC, OppenheimerFunds, Inc.,
Tybourne Capital Management (HK) Ltd., Institutional Venture, Fidelity Asset Management
Company, The Vanguard Group and lastly Fidelity Management and Research Company.
Snap,
Inc.
Governance
Executive
Directors
Functional
Management
InfluencersProviders
Independent
Directors
Employees

6MBA ASSIGNMENT
Figure 1: Stakeholder View Model of Snap, Inc.
(Snap.com 2018)

7MBA ASSIGNMENT
Stakeholder
Name
Contact Person
Phone, Email,
Website, Address
Impact Influence What is important to
the stakeholder?
Strategy for engaging the
stakeholder
Evan T.
Spiegel
(Governance)
Evan T. Spiegel
Snap, Inc.
63 Market Street
Venice,
CA 90291
Phone :
+1.310.399.3339
Web
: http://www.snap.co
m
High Impact He is the Head of
the Operations and
the Projects
undertaken by the
company
The development and
Economic advancement
of the Corporation is
primary to him.
Round-Table Meeting of the
Directors every month. He can
also call the Associate
Directors, Departmental
manager and independent
Directors for meeting, as and
when he proposes. He has the
highest level of discretionary
power in the company.
Tim Stone, Snap, Inc. High Impact He has the Final Maintenance of the Information as well as

8MBA ASSIGNMENT
Stakeholder
Name
Contact Person
Phone, Email,
Website, Address
Impact Influence What is important to
the stakeholder?
Strategy for engaging the
stakeholder
Chief Financial
Officer of the
Organisation
(Influencers)
63 Market Street
Venice,
CA 90291
Phone :
+1.310.399.3339
Web
: http://www.snap.co
m
discretionary
authority to
financially power
any business
project.
annual financial budget
and other financial
aspects of the company
like sales rates.
feedback meetings every six
months
Mark Randall,
the Vice
President for
Snap, Inc.
63 Market Street
High Impact He has the
discretionary
power to research
The development of new
and competitive
technologies is central to
Quarterly press meetings for
releasing new technologies (.
Internal meetings with other

9MBA ASSIGNMENT
Stakeholder
Name
Contact Person
Phone, Email,
Website, Address
Impact Influence What is important to
the stakeholder?
Strategy for engaging the
stakeholder
Technologies
management
(Functional
Management)
Venice,
CA 90291
Phone :
+1.310.399.3339
Web
: http://www.snap.co
m
and develop need
technologies for
the products and/or
services that Snap,
Inc. offers to the
customer market
(Antonopoulos et
al. 2017).
his disposition. important stakeholders are
needed.
Imran T. Khan,
Chief Strategy
Officer
(Providers)
Not Available High Impact The strategic
initiatives of the
including the likes
of new
The creation, execution,
communication and
sustenance of the
business strategies of the
The managers and the group of
independent directors directly
and officially report to him

10MBA ASSIGNMENT
Stakeholder
Name
Contact Person
Phone, Email,
Website, Address
Impact Influence What is important to
the stakeholder?
Strategy for engaging the
stakeholder
brand/product
launch and
promotional
activities or market
segregation
depends on him
business strategies of the
company depends on
him.
quarterly in an year.
Shareholders
(Influencers)
Miscellaneous Low Impact The stock rate of
the company and
hence the market
equity of the
organisation
depends on the
This group of
shareholder is not
directly influenced by
the interest of the
company. They are
basically concerned with
Developing more global brands
and having a stable and healthy
brand equity.

11MBA ASSIGNMENT
Stakeholder
Name
Contact Person
Phone, Email,
Website, Address
Impact Influence What is important to
the stakeholder?
Strategy for engaging the
stakeholder
favour gained from
the shareholders.
the high selling rate of
individual shares
Employees
(Executives)
Miscellaneous Medium Impact The employees are
essential
stakeholders who
execute the
company’s
strategies.
The employees are
primarily concerned
with proper execution of
their own job roles.
Competitive salary and
lucrative allowances alongside
a vibrant nd jubilant working
atmosphere is crucial for the
engagement of the employees.

12MBA ASSIGNMENT
B. Stakeholder Analysis for four selected stakeholder groups
Influencers: Imran T. Khan, Chief Strategy Officer
One important stakeholder of the Snap, Inc. organisation is Imran T. Khan who is the
actual brain behind the rebranding strategy of Snapchat. In unison with the Vice President of
Technology team of the company, Imran Khan decided a rebranding for Snapchat. One of his
key role in the organisation is to perceive how the customers react to the products and/or
product features of Snapchat (Verzuh 2015). After analysis Imran Khan advocated in his
press release that 150 million Customers flicker through the contents of Snapchat in US and
Canada. However, 110 million new contents are put up on the application of Snapchat from
the UK. The perceived notion of Khan was that Snapchat have been generating more value to
customers, definitely much more than being only an application. That is why he facilitated
the process to rebrand the company to Snap, Inc. and projected it as a camera company (Ang,
2015). He gave the company a global perspective and packaged it in such a way so that the
customers perceive that the application have a prolific space in their lives and high level of
intervention in their living and communication.
After this rebranding, the customary usage of Snapchat have increased by 25 to 30
minutes per day. In fact, Imran Khan sends the same message to the internal stakeholders
(Johnson 2016). He wants the employees to believe that they work for a social faceted
corporation, that helps people to live their moments better. He have also worked in
collaboration with the technological engineering team of the company to suggest
developments for the application that would give a competitive advantage to Snapchat. On
his advice, the round faced camera was introduced by Snapchat.

13MBA ASSIGNMENT
Providers: Mark Randall, the current Vice President of the Technology and
Engineering division
Another important stakeholder who deserves mention is Mark Randall, the current
Vice President of the Technology and Engineering division. The Video-recording sunglass
known as Spectacles is entirely an improvisation of this division. However, in this context,
there is immense contribution of Horowitz, who previously occupied this position. Although
this Spectacle of Snap, Inc. have not been able to earn major revenue for the company, Van
Klyton, Arrieta Paredes and Soomaree (2018), opines that the innovation and hardware have
been highly praised by various Tech corporations (Bayer et al. 2016). Randall have shown
active interest in taking innovation to the newest level with his proposed drone technology
which would give users further liberty to show their camera-skills.
After the advent of Randall, in place of Horowitz in the company, some major
changes in the core Technology innovations team have taken place. However, the expansion
of Snap Inc. on different platforms have increased the importance of the Technology and
Innovations department of the company. This team is a unique division of Snap, Inc. have
implantations in the Silicon Valley also (Utz, Muscanell and Khalid 2015). Snap, Inc. under
the technical guidance of Randall, is now focusing on making major market acquisitions of
software companies and innovate few newer up gradations of their applications with reloaded
graphics.
Functional Management: Tim Stone, Chief Financial Officer
Snapchat have appointed Tim Stone, the former from Amazon Inc. as the Chief
Financial Officer. As opined by Cho and Auger (2017), it is acclaimed that Vollero who
served in the position of the Stone was not able to finance the Spectacle project properly.
Owing to financial dismay, the company was not able to cope up with the needs of the fans

14MBA ASSIGNMENT
and advisers. Owing to that they had to cancel contracts with 5 potential organisations and
stall few updates that were proposed much earlier. Snap, Inc. also lost 24% value of their
shares in this financial turmoil when Vollero left. Within one week of joining, the shares of
Snap, Inc. increased by 1.6% and trading extended at $10.91 since the next Monday. In fact
Tim Stone have been hired by Spiegel and company for the multiple project funding process
which he had successfully handled at Amazon. The company was able to gather 2 more
advertisements from popular companies after Time Stone joined the firm.
Governance: Michael Lynton, Chairman of Snap, Inc.
Another significant stakeholder of the company is Michael Lynton, the chairman of
Snap, Inc. He is not internally involved in the executive aspects of the company. Rather his
role is at a superficial level. He is responsible for the maintenance of the brand value of the
company in the corporate market. His significant contribution in the organisation involves
clearance of stocks worth $933,419, which allowed the company the opportunity to gather
investors for $30 billion USD fresh investments (Vaterlaus et al. 2016). He is personally
liable for the manoeuvring of 2.96 million stock shares of the company. However, in case of
Lynton, a question of clash of interest have been raised since he is serving as the outgoing
CEO Sony Inc. also.
C. Stakeholder category identification and generic strategic programs for each of the
four selected stakeholders
The first identified stakeholder that is Michael Lynton falls in to the category of
stakeholders concerned with Governance. This category of stakeholders are concerned with
the general good of the company. They perform the role of maintaining effective
communication between the various internal and external stakeholders (Billings et al. 2017).
The decision responsibility matrix is to be maintained by him.

15MBA ASSIGNMENT
Secondly, Imran T. Khan falls in to the category of influencers. He influences the
course of direction of the company’s other departments through his strategic decisions. Hence
he should maintain the Organisational Political Map Technique for stakeholder management
(Charteris, Gregory and Masters 2014).
Mark Randall occupies the categorised position of providers. He creates the blue-print
for the latest technological innovations which are developed as the latest market products. His
provisions paves the way for the company. He should follow the secondary stakeholder
mapping strategy for working with the various departments.
The CFO Tim Stone falls in to the stakeholder category of Functional Management.
Functioning managers have advisory authority and discretionary power over almost all
departments (Nor Aini 2014). His expertise helps the company to run commendably in the
liquid market. The other stakeholders should follow up his decision trail in order to ensure
effective stakeholder management.
D. Recommended strategic program for each of the four selected stakeholder groups
including reasons for recommendations
In this section the generic management policy of the decision responsibility matrix
would be discussed in detail. In the first case, there can always be confusion among the
higher stakeholders of a company regarding the domain up to which they have their
discretionary power. With every project, the dominion and importance of the various
stakeholders might vary.
Recommendation 1: Financial Roadmap of Tim Stone
This matrix aligns the names of the stakeholders in the context of individual
responsibilities to be performed during any business project. For evidence, the Spectacle
project could not have been successful without the financial roadmap of Tim Stone, the CFO

16MBA ASSIGNMENT
of the company. Hence his role in the project would be raising funds from potential sponsors
who would power this project.
Recommendation 2: Role of Michael Lynton
Again, Michael Lynton played the part of corporate rebranding. His role in the project
was retained to external supervision of the corporeal plausibility of the project only.
Recommendation 3: Role of Mark Randall and Imran I. Khan
Thirdly, Mark Randall had a more crucial role to play in this project. He had to work
in close quarters with the Chief Strategy officer. Hence the Vice president of the technology
team Randall would share the domain with Imran I. Khan. Based on the strategic needs of the
company and the customer market, the company’s technology and engineering department
would operate.
Conclusion
The stakeholder analysis perception of this report requires an in depth scrutiny of the
organisational structure. After analysing the most important four internal stakeholders have
been specified here. The company is still in its tender stage and that is why the significance of
the internal management and core body of directors is so important. Analysing the
importance of the stakeholders, it can also be concluded that the stakeholder relationship
matrix would be really helpful in ensuring smooth performance of the stakeholders for
meeting the organisational outcomes.

17MBA ASSIGNMENT
Reference List
Ang, X.P., 2015. The challenges of managing stakeholders in multiple types of event
management projects.
Antonopoulos, A., Kartsakli, E., Perillo, C. and Verikoukis, C., 2017. Shedding Light on the
Internet: Stakeholders and Network Neutrality. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(7),
pp.216-223.
Bayer, J.B., Ellison, N.B., Schoenebeck, S.Y. and Falk, E.B., 2016. Sharing the small
moments: ephemeral social interaction on Snapchat. Information, Communication &
Society, 19(7), pp.956-977.
Billings, A.C., Qiao, F., Conlin, L. and Nie, T., 2017. Permanently desiring the temporary?
Snapchat, social media, and the shifting motivations of sports fans. Communication &
Sport, 5(1), pp.10-26.
Charteris, J., Gregory, S. and Masters, Y., 2014. Snapchat ‘selfies’: The case of disappearing
data. Rhetoric and Reality: Critical perspectives on educational technology, pp.389-393.
Cho, M. and Auger, G.A., 2017. Extrovert and engaged? Exploring the connection between
personality and involvement of stakeholders and the perceived relationship investment of
nonprofit organizations. Public Relations Review, 43(4), pp.729-737.
Fenwick, M. and Vermeulen, E.P., 2017. How the Sharing Economy Is
Transforming'Corporate Governance', 14(2), pp. 1-15.
Johnson, L. 2016. CSO Imran Khan Explains Snapchat’s Rebrand to Snap Inc. Adweek.com.
Available at: https://www.adweek.com/digital/cso-imran-khan-explains-snapchat-s-rebrand-
snap-inc-173719/ [Accessed: 06 September 2018]

18MBA ASSIGNMENT
Kelly, L.L., 2018. A snapchat story: how black girls develop strategies for critical resistance
in school. Learning, Media and Technology, pp.1-16.
Nor Aini, A., 2014. Malaysian building information modelling (BIM) implementation
roadmap: identifying stakeholder’s interest.
Spangler, T. 2018. Michael Lynton Sells Nearly $1 Million in Snap Stock, Retains 3 Million
Shares. Variety: Digital. (Variety.com). Available at:
https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/snapchat-ipo-michael-lynton-3-million-shares-
1202001674/ [Accessed: 06 September 2018]
Utz, S., Muscanell, N. and Khalid, C., 2015. Snapchat elicits more jealousy than Facebook: A
comparison of Snapchat and Facebook use. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social
Networking, 18(3), pp.141-146.
Van Klyton, A., Arrieta Paredes, M.P. and Soomaree, A., 2018. Participatory evangelism,
Internet governance and the business stakeholders-practices of hegemonic power. Policy &
Internet.
Vaterlaus, J.M., Barnett, K., Roche, C. and Young, J.A., 2016. “Snapchat is more personal”:
An exploratory study on Snapchat behaviors and young adult interpersonal
relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, pp.594-601.
Verzuh, E. 2015. Stakeholder management strategies: applying risk management to people.
Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2005—North America, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Wagner, K. 2017. Snap is shuffling the top executives inside its secret hardware division.
Recode. (Recode.net). Available at: https://www.recode.net/2017/9/21/16346862/snap-
spectacles-hardware-division-layoffs-steve-horowitz [Accessed: 06 September 2018]

19MBA ASSIGNMENT
Snap.com, 2018. Snap Inc. is a camera company. Available at: https://www.snap.com/en-US/
[Accessed: 07 September 2018]