Zynga Case Study Strategic Management

Zynga case study
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Introduction
Zynga is a dominant online gaming company that utilizes the social media platform as its gaming field. Zynga has been prominent from its Facebook affiliations, in that in 2012, 12 percent of Facebook`s revenue was attributed from Zynga`s operations in its merchandise sales. The company is located in San Francisco California and it was established by its CEO, Mark Pincus. This case study will focus on Zynga`s internal resources and assets, their competitive advantage and strategy and the company`s strategy implementation and leadership in achieving a competitor advantage.
Findings
Internal resources and assets
The product: The product demand to play the game is high and they have software developers with the ability to create and distribute these products. The product is found to be fun and therapeutic and it invokes the hype emotion. The product falls in the relaxation category for its clients, as it relieves stress at work and after a hard day at work. The virtual games fulfil a relief as one unwinds from work and it does not need one to leave their offices or move around, the products can be logged on to in the same office desk, same screen, and one relaxes while playing the games. The product also integrates with the most used gadget that is the smart phones, and this makes it accessible since it can be used by people of all ages, at any particular time. The game is readily available with a click of a button. This has encouraged much interaction as gives the company at a competitive advantage.
Product diversity: Zynga offers a wide variety of games, five of its games; Farmville, CityVille, Empire and Allies, CastleVille and Texas HoldEm Poker are the most popular games played on Facebook with CityVille having over 54 million active monthly users as of February 2012. This product diversity attracts multiple users which in turn promotes towards Zynga profits
The market size: When one compares Zynga to other game developers whose games are available on Facebook, it is dominant. With market shares of 39 percent and revenue generation of over $500 million, it is ranked the first. 38% of the gamers in Facebook play the games, and it has about 240million monthly users that amounts to about 18% of the users of Facebook in 2012. This does put Zynga at a competitive advantage with the market that it attracts and the users it gets monthly as compared to its competitors. EA Playfish is a competitor to Zynga and it had revenue of $90 million with a 6.5% market share as of 2010. Zynga still leads when compared to its competitors. It has a strong Facebook outreach since it has gained most of its followings from Facebook users and this has led to high profits.
Innovation: The opportunity for Zynga to improve and build up its game, and offering its users virtual goods and services, has definitely increased the gaming experience which ultimately increases profits. These improvement items are purchased using credit cards and this makes Zynga accomplish fast progressions in the games. These improvements are also enticed to the users when they are advertised during the games and they have offers of price cuts when one makes a larger ...