Merger, Acquisition, and International Strategies (Essay Sample)

Merger, Acquisition, and International Strategies Name:
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Facebook acquires Whatsapp Inc.
The acquisition of WhatsApp Inc. by Facebook Inc. was a timely and strategic move, aimed at solidifying the market share of the emerging company in the social media market. According to Failte Ireland (2012), the rising prominence of social media was viewed as the next frontier in competitive advantage across organizations, primarily in public relations, word of mouth marketing and brand related strategies. Facebook had achieved global prominence and success through provision of connectivity for businesses and persons, thus creating an impetus for viral marketing and expanding the orientations and horizons in audio visual components of online messaging. In addition, the company has broached the avenues towards free online instant message and sharing of information, which was cultivated to promote products, business ideas, social relationships, brand positions, value propositions as well as other economically viable elements. The phenomenal rise of Facebook Inc. drove the rise of hand held mobile devices running on internet and presenting an online presence to a wide range of individuals across the globe.
WhatsApp on the other hand established a following from individuals who were seeking to send instant messaging across networks. The suitability of Whatsapp is that it provided the users with the ability to send free and unlimited instant messages through online clients and onto the regular mobile phone carrier networks. The ability to share statuses and audio-visual messages presented a novel approach to doing business and sharing social aspects.
The acquisition is viewed as strategic due to the following reasons (Haddad, 2010). First, Whatsapp and Facebook were the giants in social media marketing services. Although face was a fully dedicated and established social media platform, Whatsapp rose to prominence owing to the suitability of the value proposition, and became an attractive option for merger due to the rapid growth rate. At the time of its acquisition, WhatsApp has an annual growth of over 450 million people, making it a viable source of direct and alternate market share.
Second, Whatsapp gained its prominence and financial success through the provision of a viable product. Social media works on the principle of connecting people, and establishing approaches through which the social meeting places can be exploited for profit. As a result, the growing prominence of Whatsapp was a alternative to Facebook’s social media approach, although Facebook was the market leader. The acquisition was a pre-emptive approach to prevent other companies from tapping into the benefits of Whatsapp.
Third, Facebook had achieved significant growth in the social media industry, so much that it was starting to stagnate in growth. Owing to the limitations in diversification across its platform, Facebook required to establish a new stream of revenue, which could only be achieved through acquisition. As a result, Facebook has become a stronger competitors in the market, with significant growth and a multiplicity of options for growth and expansion.
New York Times Merges with Naspers.
New York Times missed a major opportunity to merge with Naspers Inc., which is a South African Media giant. The South African company has grown significantly over the past four decade, rising to a highly respectable and successful media company, with reach across Europe. As a highly specialized print media and online news company, Naspers Inc. presents a big opportunity for the New York Times, as a frontier for entry into the untapped market in Africa and a range of developing countries (Cooperstein, 2013). Naspers Inc. is a perfect for New York Times due to the similarity in products on offer. In addition to the increased market share from the acquisition, New York Times would get an avenue towards the global market. The synergistic outcomes of such a merger would be as follows.
First, the merger would provide access to new markets in the US and in Africa, considering the reach of the two companies. Currently, Naspers Inc. spearheads online media in the highly lucrative and growing market in Africa, and has succeeded in providing the market with highly required news. The novel access to searching and listening to customers will expand the horizons for the company, as well as introducing new market segments into the supply chain. Secondly, New York Times would provide Naspers with the necessary credibility and global access to optimize shareholders wealth through publication of content across a wider network and multiple media. Through the merger, Naspers would reap the benefits of professional media related conduct, and overcome its long history of association with colonial and apartheid culture and subcultures, which paint a grim picture for its long term success (NYT, 2014).
The resultant company would benefit from the online and social media presence, by creating a special media vehicle to enlighten Africa, in addition to providing a voice to the continent across the globe (NYT, 2014). Currently, Africa is the fastest developing continent, requiring visibility and a voice for amplification of democracy and free press, connectivity and information for personal and corporate benefit. In addition to creating visibility for the continent, the merger would provide a global channel through which the daily happenings of the continent would be reflected across the globe.
Lastly, in addition to increased access to media and timely information, both companies would cut down on operation costs and avoid duplication of functions and roles. The increased revenue efficiency would benefit both companies through expansion of their operations across both continents and other continents, this creating the impetus and a trajectory for global dominance.
Facebook’s international business-level strategy and international corporate-level strategy
Facebook attained global prominence through its expansion strategy which focused on increased interconnectivity and access through social media (Haddad, 2010). By focusing on social relationships to create value propositions across all types of needs, services and products, Facebook has successfully implemented international business-level and corporate level strategies as discussed here under. Currently, the company operates in over 200 countries across the globe, with a subscription of over 1 billion users.
First, the universal availability of the platform has propelled its growth across the globe. At the forefront of universal availability is the adoption of cultural and social tenets which are acceptable across the globe, including language, control over content, and control over interactions to limit abuse and online misconduct (Failte Ireland, 2012). As a result, most countries across the globe find this level of security acceptable to their standards, and have adopted the platform as suitable for use in their country.
Second, the platform has been designed and availed free of charge, thus making individuals across the globe to use most of its features without any charge across their lives. According to Bakos and Tacy, (1986), the free availability of Facebook eliminates the financial challenges associated with paid-for services. As a result, its usage has been uniform across all socio-economic categories, thereby providing all individuals with the opportunity to interact for social and financial gains.
Third, Facebook is easy to use, and offers a universal product and service which is highly sought after. Before Facebook hit the market, most individuals were in need of a suitable communication platform where keeping in touch at all times was affordable, with the ability to share a multiplicity of messages, written, audio and visual elements. In addition, people could express themselves in groups and seek out lost friends and relatives and reconnect outside the national borders. The powerful search engines provided users with the ability to locate and reconnect with people across the globe, and decide what to share to the public and what to share privately.
Fourth, social media prominence became an aspect with social and economic value, through the business-level strategies from Facebook (Failte Ireland, 2012). By targeting to connect customers and potential market segments, Facebook provided the market with a tool towards social media, through guiding people towards segmentation and amalgamation into highly organized and harmonized groups, which could rely on certain aspects of information’s for benefits to sellers and industries across the globe (Haddad, 2010). By so doing, that information was useful in identifying needs and wants in the market, and providing an avenue to targeted marketing, with viral marketing capabilities. Essentially, the social media aperture was an entry point to big data strategies, through which companies and advertisers could reach consumers, and rely on those consumers to directly and indirectly influence other consumers for economic benefits.
Corporate level strategies include global presence through a centralized and highly organized management approach, run by individuals who understood the core functions of the business. Although the company achieved success as a privately owned company, the IPO provided the company with necessary financial and social capital to venture into advertising and mega data usage to provide customers with the necessary information on...