Introduction
Innovation and technology are the major factors that enhance the development of a company or an organization. The innovation process starts with a new idea, an invention, or rather a technical conception. Innovation is a major player and a competitive advantage for organizations and companies in all industries and enables higher productivity, efficiency, and variation to fill a wide selection of needs. On the other hand, technology often acts as a powerful control force in innovative capacity, especially related to transforming innovations and how they thrive. Facebook is one of the companies that have been greatly transformed by innovation and technology to be a great social network globally.
Facebook has developed to be the globally largest social network company due to a culture of innovation. Employers are encouraged to be innovative and entrepreneurial and embrace new ideas and perspectives. Facebook Company often holds a program known as "hack a thons," whereby programmers are given a chance to focus on establishing something that is outside of their daily scope of work and determined (Helmond et al., 2019). The Facebook attitude in innovation entails employing new changes with n involvement of their users (Helmond et al., 2019). These developments occasionally have led to some criticisms from the users. However, this approach and several others have enabled the rapid development of innovations in the company.
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Strategy
For a company to maintain its relevance in the market, it needs. The Facebook company maintains two strategies: intensive growth strategies and generic strategies (Shukaev, 2019). These strategies help keep up a competitive advantage centered on accessibility and efficiency of online social media services (Shukaev, 2019). Facebook's generic strategy, which is more of the porter's model, supports the company through operational competence and easy access to the customers (Shukaev, 2019). Under the generic strategy, Facebook practices cost leadership, limiting the cost incurred in the undertaking business. Minimizing cost encourages Facebook Company to moderate its prices as a competitive strategy (Shukaev, 2019). Therefore, this strategy, by far, results in expanding the social network user base.
For intensive strategy, the company mostly emphasizes market penetration usage for its growth (Shukaev, 2019). This method helps achieve maximum present market share, for instance, by starting coalitions with telecommunication companies to raise the users who access services through the Facebook Mobile App (Shukaev, 2019). The market development method is also used by Facebook, which entails organizing with governments to permit citizens to access the social network (Shukaev, 2019). On the other hand, the diversification method is used by the company to start new businesses to develop in market reach and revenue (Shukaev, 2019). Product development entails presenting new products that attract new advertisers and users hence more revenues (Shukaev, 2019). These strategies, therefore, highly impacts the company's achievements comparatively to the worldwide industry.
Organizational Structure
Different companies have different organizational structures. Facebook has a corporate structure resulting from the global response on the online social media market (Sullivan, 2019). The company's needs are somehow dictated by the characteristics and nature of the social networking apps and website and the company's goals (Sullivan, 2019). The company's organizational structure assists in the development and growth and helps the business diversify and expand. The corporate structure greatly gives the company a competitive advantage, making it tough to compete (Sullivan, 2019).
Facebook exercises a matrix organizational structure that addresses the company's needs, particularly in innovation and creativity (Sullivan, 2019). The matrix structure entails the Corporate Function-based teams, Geographic Divisions, and product-based Divisions (Sullivan, 2019). Corporate function based teams main duty is to manage the operational activities all through the organizational structure. The company uses geographical divisions to show the differences in online advertising and social networking market dynamics. While product-based divisions are entitled to management of operations involving specific products (Sullivan, 2019).
Culture
The culture of a company greatly impacts employee behavior. This also reflects on how the company solves emerging problems as social network services advance. Facebook also uses organizational culture to encourage innovation and creativity in the company. Facebook's corporate culture is defined as a "hacker culture," which encourages the employees to make every effort to improve (Helmond et al., 2019). As a competition tool, the company uses organizational culture to support business competitiveness and resilience (Helmond et al., 2019). Facebook's most distinguished organizational culture includes creative problem solving and decision-making, boldness, openness, speed, and continuous improvement (Sullivan, 2019). The company must retain its adaptation to the corporate culture to improve its success in addressing different challenges associated with online market dynamics.
Partnerships
Facebook has partnered with very many companies and organizations globally. Facebook partnership team is on the forefront to ensure that the partners successfully use Facebook's services and tools for what they intended to do (Helmond et al., 2019). Various teams involved within Facebook partnership include workplaces, whose main focus is to transform how people communicate, collaborate, and connect at work using Facebook. Facebook's financial services team is mandated to develop and grow a relationship with payment networks, financial institutions, banks, and schemes (Helmond et al., 2019). They handle a long-term approach to development and value with a target of offering great products to people. The marketplace also enables Facebook users to sell and buy items listed on Facebook from their locality (Shukeav, 2019).
Media partnerships teams enable Facebook to collaborate and partner with exciting and largest media organizations, influencers, high-profile people, and product prospects. The team ensures quality content that results in a determinate business outcome (Shukaev, 2019). Publisher solution team, on the other hand, collaborates with app developers and media publishers intending to bring the influence of Facebook advertisers to their apps and websites (Helmond et al., 2019). The gaming partnerships team also works with exciting publishers, game developers, and creators to foster and strengthen the gaming communities (Helmond et al., 2019). Platform partnership teams that focus on mentoring beginner developers and also aggregate feedbacks. Facebook also partners with the community by establishing relationships with the world's largest organizations and leaders (Helmond et al., 2019). Mobile partnerships also build ties with mobile manufacturers to enable a good reputation.
Strengths and Weakness
Innovation and technology have both impacted Facebook positively and negatively hence strength and weakness. Facebook grew its popularity rapidly due to Facebook's strengths, which led to being ranked as the 5 th most valuable brand in 2019. Facebook also provides a diverse portfolio; its spread in its services enables it to maintain its stability (Gupta, 2020). The company also has a strong market position, whereby it has about 2.89 billion monthly active users (Gupta, 2020). Loyal users of about 40 percent of the world population (Gupta, 2020). Facebook has also invested a lot in research and development, greatly influencing its innovation and technology improvement (Gupta, 2020).
Despite its strengths, the company is faced with several weaknesses. These include privacy issues, whereby Facebook has been negatively impacted by the problem (Gupta, 2020). Facebook highly depends on advertisements for its earning of approximately 98 percent (Gupta, 2020). Improper management is also a major weakness for Facebook.
Conclusion
Technology and innovation stand as the major factors to the growth of Facebook. Furthermore, it has impacted its popularity hence making it one of the most influential social networking companies. This is also evident through its organizational culture, strategies, and corporate structure that promote creativity and innovative thinking. However, the Hack-a-Thons program has also positively impacted the company, resulting in improvement and problem-solving in the company. Nevertheless, development in technology and innovation has widely transformed the company.
References
Gupta, K. (2020). Facebook SWOT Analysis. Business Strategy Hub . https://bstrategyhub.com
Helmond, A., Nieborg, D. & Fernando, N. (2019). Facebook’s Evolution: development of a Platform-as-infrastructure. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2019.1593667
Shukaev, A. (2019). Facebook Inc. Strategic Analysis and Recommendation. Business commons . 139-142. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/honourstheses
Sullivan, J. (2019). Four Basic Elements of Organizational Structure. Business Models & Organization. https://smallbusiness.chron.com
