Case Questions
Describe Sheryl Sandberg’s strategic leadership. Which qualities stand out to you and why? Is she an effective strategy leader? Why or why not?
When Sheryl was hired as a COO of Facebook in 2008, she began to find ways to make Facebook profitable. She felt that Facebook should advertise on its platform, later, in 2010 this idea became a highly profitable one. She supports team effort and is very much attached with every team she members. She also encourages the female professionals to achieve their dreams. I feel that she is an effective strategy leader because she not only comes up with a plan but also works together with her employees to implement her ideas.
She expands what she does and really makes everything better
She’s a visionary
Inspirational – ted talk, lean in “she made it a real business” She countered Mark’s ideas to make the company better and really ran the company
What “industry” is Facebook competing in and how is this industry changing? Who are Facebook’s most important competitors?
Facebook is competing in the social media industry. In the digital age, social media is constantly growing and developing.
Facebook’s most important competitors include Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Facebook’s most important competitor is Google. Both websites try to maximize advertising space as well as gather user data to show then advertisements that best suit their interests/needs.
What is Facebook’s business model? How is Facebook making money? Concisely evaluate Facebook’s current financial health using metrics. Do you see this changing in the near future?
Facebook's business model is "user-driven" because the website users do most of the work. Facebook gets about 85% of its revenue from advertising. The other 15% comes from commission from virtual goods sale like that of paid credits (coins) for FarmVille. It creates a place for people to “hang out”, upload photos, videos, status updates, etc. as well as posts advertising along the side of that status update/uploads. Facebook sells ads targeted to either the person or the content. Self-serve advertisements are displayed in the sidebar of most pages of the site
Entire revenue line of Facebook depends on self-serve ads being circulated within the timelines of users scrolling through the infinite vertical scroll.
Conduct a thorough SWOT analysis. From there, consider what are Facebook’s resources and capabilities? What is Facebook’s core competency? Can its resources and capabilities form the basis of a competitive advantage?
Facebooks biggest resource is its database of 845 million worldwide users. Competitors such as Google do not have even half of this amount. This makes Facebook’s data base its most valuable resource.
Facebook brought in practicality that provided merchandiser websites to embed Facebook's like button. As users extended to browsing the web and like Web pages or products they liked, Facebook was capable to build up a rare utility to chase product approval and user preference. Though Google has attempted to introduce a similar feature.
Google's user base all around their role of services such as YouTube, Omit and Android gives the company a competitor chance against Facebook's existent information. With the introduction of Google's adaptation of the Facebook ”like”, the company can up their own treasure of user data; never the less, a competitive product alone will not consequence in substituting Facebook's database.
Facebook's Capabilities
Facebook has been working on creating new products and manners for users to communicate in order to keep and build up a competitive advantage. Introduction of characteristics like the Timeline, Subscribe, Spotify consolidation and a new app platform, the company has been capable to accommodate how users use the web. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has explicated how he has modeled the firm's inner organizational culture to keep what he calls as the Hacker Way. The Hacker Way at Facebook allows the company builds new features and fixes problems rapidly and in reiterative process.
Identify the biggest challenges Facebook is currently facing. Provide recommendations for how Sheryl Sandberg should address them.
The biggest challenge that Facebook is facing is a drop in user usage and popularity. Many people who have Facebook do not post/use the app frequently. To some younger people, the app is outdated and serves no purpose to them.
Given your thorough analysis, discuss the future of Facebook. Where should the company be headed and how?
