Snapchat's Business Strategy & Stakeholders

This assignment requires you to analyze Snapchat's business strategy, focusing on its three core areas: camera, communication, and spectacles. You'll need to examine how they cater to different stakeholders within each area using various strategies like the hold, swing, and fence strategies. The analysis should also consider ethical implications and incorporate relevant academic literature on stakeholder theory.

Running head: SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
Stakeholders Analysis
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1SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
1. Snap Inc. Stakeholders view of the organisation model..........................................................3
2. Stakeholder’s analysis of four selected stakeholders group.....................................................6
3. Stakeholders category identification and generic strategy programs for the selected
stakeholders.....................................................................................................................................8
4. Recommendation of strategic programs for the stakeholders group and reasons for
recommending the strategy..............................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................11

2SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
1. Snap Inc. Stakeholders view of the organisation model
Figure: Snap Inc. Stakeholder’s Model
Source: Created by author
Snap
Inc .
Active users
Employers
Government
Suppliers
Owners
and
Partners
Disintereste
d public and
Media
Communi
ties
Investors,
financiers,
shareholders,
Creditors

3SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
Stakeholders of Snap Inc are
 Active users who are customers of the application of selfie camera, geo-filters, snap
story, discover (YouTube 2018). These also are the most millennial friendly features for
the application’s customers. Snap Inc has also invested in featuring a product called
spectacles, which can record like a camera from the smart glasses. The bitstrips is a
mobile application of Snap Inc. too. It is comic internet platform for Snap users
(Snap.com 2018).
 Government bodies of Los Angles Angeles is the authority of the state that Snap’s
headquarter is situated. The government has an instrumental value in the company. The
neighbourhood of councils in LA is the protector of the communities residing in the city.
 Employees in Snap Inc.
The number of employees in Snap over different branches of the company is over 1800.
The company affects the employees by the policies of work, culture, and profit and job
security of the company.
 Suppliers of the products of the company
The company’s revenue comes from the lenses, application users, spectacles, Looksery
Lenses and from broadcasting the content generated by Snap Inc. The suppliers are the
web development teams (Snap.com 2018)
 Owners and Partners of Snap Inc - Evan Spiegel and his partner Bobby Murphy own the
company. Bobby Murphy is the chief Technical officer and Michael Linton is the
chairperson (Snap.com. 2018).
 Investors, financiers, shareholders, Creditors of the company

4SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
The investors are the shareholders of Snap Inc, at NYSE, The financial institutions
investing on a huge amount for the company. The asset management company of
Fidelity, Blackrock Inc., have invested in the company. Bobby Murphy is also one of
major shareholders of Snap. The largest shareholder of Snap is Imran Khan, T. Rowe
Associates Inc. and others including 22 million shares. BenchMark and Lightspeed
Venture capitalist is also an important investor in the company.
 Communities – the communities of LA can be considered as excluded stakeholders of the
company. Mainly the community is affected by the employment rate, job culture, revenue
and Snap’s contribution to corporate social responsibilities as well as environmental
regulation of the company (Snap.com 2018).
 Disinterested public and Media – the media and public are affected by the company’s
profitability. The media channels will be preoccupied with the company’s prospect and
profitability.

5SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
2. Stakeholder’s analysis of four selected stakeholders group
The four selected stakeholders are
 Customers – the customers are one of the essential parts of a company. They are
in the centre of the business’s revenue model. The customers are the point where
they are the focus of the business model too. The product purchaser has the most
important stake in the business (Donaldson and Preston 2011). The main concerns
that a business must rely on the price of the products. Customers want the value of
money they are investing in their product. Therefore, the value proposition to the
customers must be the main objective of the company. The products must satisfy
the need of the customers. Snap Inc (Snap.com 2018). has different revenue
stream, one of them is the smart glass spectacles, which is a major revenue
generator and the tech savvy people in all over the world buys the product online.
The other services that the company sells are camera lenses. The snap chat is has
become the most important communication app after face book and Twitter. The
comic internet content is also a revenue generator whose customers are the
enthusiastic app savvy youth. The application and tech savvy millennial are the
main customers of the company.
 Investors
The venture capitalists that have invested in the company comes under the
internal stakeholders. Their main motive is to double their invested capital by the
end of the contract. The financial performance of the company is their main
interest. Simultaneously the shareholders of the company are also the one that
invest to rip profit from the investment. Evan Spiegel is the owner of Snap Inc.

6SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
and the co owner is the Robert Murphy. They have acquired the many businesses
over the years and became public in the year 2016. The major stockholders are
the two of the co owners with 45% stock. Secondly, BenchMark and Lightspeed
Venture collaborates. The Other major institutional investors are T. Rowe. Coatue
Management and LLC who has 22 million shares. Vanguard is also a stock
market Index fund (Beauchamp et al. 2014).
 Employees
The employees are the major stakeholders of a company. It is of highest priority if
the company wants to thrive. Managing the employees, as they are the developer
of the company’s products and services. Making the decisions which is of interest
of the business is one of the most important part of the individual employee’s job.
The concerning aspects of the company are the salary, job security, Job culture
and the profits they make according the pay structure (Harrison et al. 2015). The
Payment or the salary is the only motivation for the employees. The compensation
structure of the company is also a major component of the company. The job
security is also a major motivator for the employee. If the business belongs to a
risky situation or the shareholders suspects the volatility in the business, then the
long term employees would prefer to change the job (Crane and Matten 2016).
 Owners and partners
Evan Spiegel is the founder of the company being only 26 years old and an
innovator of the world known app. The co founder and the recent chief technical
officer is also a major partner in the business. Both of them started Snap chat and

7SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
own 45% of the stock in the business. Other important personnel in the business is
Michael Lynton the chairman.
3. Stakeholders category identification and generic strategy programs for the selected
stakeholders
The stakeholders of Snap Inc. are the interested parties of the organisation. Snap’s
stakeholders can be divided in two broad categories that are internal stakeholders and external
stakeholders. The internal stakeholders who are directly related to the company and the externals
are that related but indirectly to Snap Inc. The internal or primary stakeholders who are related to
the company with a economic transaction (Crane and Matten 2016). For example, customers,
suppliers, creditors and employees. The secondary stakeholders who are not engaged in a
economic transaction. For example, the communities, activists group, business support groups
and media (Mansell 2015). Other part of the stakeholders is excluded stakeholders, who does not
have vested interest in the company.
According the stakeholders theory, anyone who are directly or indirectly affected by the
business objectives then they can be identified as the stakeholders. The stakeholders influence in
the business strategy depends on the level of stake they have in the business. The stakeholder’s
relationship management decides the level of power they have in the business. The managers in
this function are the key persons to manage and satisfy the business. The three approaches to
stakeholder’s management are normative, descriptive, and instrumental (Beauchamp et al.,
2014). The Normative approach relies on identifying the philosophical guidelines to activities
related to management of corporation. The Descriptive approach is how the managers should
deal with the managers and instrumental is depended on studying the consequence of

8SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
management. The offensive strategy of the companies engages in the competition. This strategy
is also depended on aggressive takeover of market share of the company. According the author
Freeman (2014), the offensive strategy is in support of the internal stakeholders like customers,
employers, suppliers and managers. This treatment is to influence the stakeholder’s decision or
influence the decisions according to get them cooperate with stakeholders. Defensive strategy
considers regarding the reinforcement of the current beliefs in the stakeholder’s as well as letting
the stakeholders drive the integration process (Beauchamp et al. 2014). Swing strategy suggested
the cooperative or threatening stakeholders are one of the swing categories that can either help or
hinder the organisational activities. Hold strategies take into account the stakeholder’s
engagement process should be of less important and the company should hold on to the current
strategy that they want to apply. They should stick to it.
4. Recommendation of strategic programs for the stakeholders group and reasons for
recommending the strategy
Snap chat has gone through a rather tough phase regarding the stockholders equity. They
reported a 2.2 billion loss in the quarterly. The organisation should try to go for positively
influence the stakeholders to minimize the threat. Fending off the potential competitors and
encirclement strategy is taken to minimize the negative outcomes. This strategy can retain the
present shareholders after the report of huge loss. They also have faced a rather complicated
situation from the former marketing officer Reggie, accusing them to steal his idea of Picaboo.
They also faced the complicated situation in the lawsuit because of the allegation by them.

9SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
Integrating the process as well as consolidating all the existing process is function of the
stakeholder managers. Therefore, they should also consider consolidating all the process to
defend them from negative outcome. As Snap reported that the occurrence of loss in the business
and devalue of 20% of its stock value the company faced tremendous loss in the shareholders
society. This value degradation of the company reputation among the shareholders and
institutional investors affected the organisation. Therefore, the defensive strategy can be
suggested for the company. Being defensive will fend off the competitors like Facebook, Twitter
and other messaging app. As the CEO’s plan is also to service people on the basic functions of
messaging and communication they should also use the hold strategy to enhance and retain the
current customers of the company. The CEO’s plan is also to service their 20 million of customer
base in music too, here they can also use the swing strategy for the cooperative stakeholders in
US as well as in UK. For the threatening stakeholders can also eliminate during the process.
Three part of the business are camera, communication and spectacles. They stakeholders
comes from that part of the business therefore they may categorise each stake of the business and
proceed to satisfy them in their related stakes. For Example, if the camera gives more feature, the
selfie-obsessed millennial may be more than happy to use the feature.

10SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
Reference
Beauchamp, T.L., Bowie, N.E. and Arnold, D.G. eds., 2014. Ethical theory and business.
Blowfield, M. and Murray, A., 2014. Corporate responsibility. Oxford University Press.
Bobby Banerjee, S., 2014. A critical perspective on corporate social responsibility: Towards a
global governance framework. Critical perspectives on international business, 10(1/2), pp.84-95.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Donaldson, T. and Preston, L.E., 2011. The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts,
evidence, and implications. Academy of management Review, 20(1), pp.65-91.
Ferrero, I., Michael Hoffman, W. and McNulty, R.E., 2014. Must Milton Friedman embrace
stakeholder theory?. Business and Society Review, 119(1), pp.37-59.
Freeman, R.E., 2012. A stakeholder theory of the modern corporation. Perspectives in Business
Ethics Sie, 3, p.144.
Freeman, R.E., Wicks, A.C. and Parmar, B., 2014. Stakeholder theory and “the corporate
objective revisited”. Organization science, 15(3), pp.364-369.
Harrison, J.S., Freeman, R.E. and de Abreu, M.C.S., 2015. Stakeholder theory as an ethical
approach to effective management: Applying the theory to multiple contexts. Revista Brasileira
de Gestão de Negócios, 17(55), p.858.

11SNAP INC. STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
Mansell, S., 2015. Book Review: Rejoinder to Veldman’s review of Capitalism, Corporations
and the Social Contract: A Critique of Stakeholder Theory (Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 271-275). Sage
UK: London, England: Sage Publications.
Snap.com. (2018). Snap Inc.. [online] Available at: https://www.snap.com/en-US/ [Accessed 6
Jan. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Snapchat's three-part business model with CEO Evan Spiegel (2015 Code
Conference, Day 1). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqPHordzhdw
[Accessed 6 Jan. 2018].