Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVENESS 1 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVENESS 9 External and Internal Environments of Twitter KaToya Jones Dr. Wanda Tillman Business Administration Capstone January 28, 2018 Segments of The General Environment That Would Rank Highest in Their Influence of Twitter Twitter, Inc just like all other business organizations have the same general environment. The general environment consists of the technological, economic, socio-cultural and political, and legal trends that influence a business decision. The general the environment is sometimes referred to as the Macro-economic environment. The general environment consists of forces that exist outside the organizational control, which has a potential to either affects the organization positively or negatively. This means that a company like Twitter has to keep constant watch of such an environment for opportunities and threats. The aim of general environment scanning is to help business organizations in decision making and strategic formulation. Technological factors are one of the factors that exists in the general environment that affects Twitter as company. Twitter is among the many companies that totally depends on technology for people to use their services (Fitton, Gruen, & Poston, 2009). Services of Twitter can only be accessed through devices such as phones, and computers among other similar devices. This means as a company they have to ensure that such devices that are produces as capable of allowing access of Twitter services. Twitter as a company also have an application through which the services of the company can be accessed. These have application is always in constant update to ensure it contains the latest technologies to support. This means that the company has to keep on checking on the latest technologies to ensure that it stays in a market that is highly competitive. Socio-cultural and political factors are also part of the factors that exist in the general environment of Twitter as a company. There are certain cultures that are in heavy use of the new technological changes that are being experienced. There are also other societies and cultures that are not much into technology. Twitter as a company has keep on ensuring that these group that is not much is technology such as use of social media is brought on board to increase their market share of on the use of social media. Politics, which also have close relationship with the socio-cultural aspects of the society also affects the general environment of a Twitter. Political campaigns have seen rise in use of social media for such purpose. This means that during political seasons in different countries the use of social media is always increased. This means as a company such have to be taken into consideration. The general environment is dynamic and complex and strategic planning is needed to enable a company such as Twitter adapt to such environmental changes ...

1. Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND
COMPETITIVENESS 1
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVENESS
9
External and Internal Environments of Twitter
KaToya Jones
Dr. Wanda Tillman
Business Administration Capstone
January 28, 2018
Segments of The General Environment That Would Rank
Highest in Their Influence of Twitter
Twitter, Inc just like all other business organizations have the
same general environment. The general environment consists of
the technological, economic, socio-cultural and political, and
legal trends that influence a business decision. The general the
environment is sometimes referred to as the Macro-economic
environment. The general environment consists of forces that
exist outside the organizational control, which has a potential to
either affects the organization positively or negatively. This

2. means that a company like Twitter has to keep constant watch
of such an environment for opportunities and threats. The aim
of general environment scanning is to help business
organizations in decision making and strategic formulation.
Technological factors are one of the factors that exists in the
general environment that affects Twitter as company. Twitter is
among the many companies that totally depends on technology
for people to use their services (Fitton, Gruen, & Poston, 2009).
Services of Twitter can only be accessed through devices such
as phones, and computers among other similar devices. This
means as a company they have to ensure that such devices that
are produces as capable of allowing access of Twitter services.
Twitter as a company also have an application through which
the services of the company can be accessed. These have
application is always in constant update to ensure it contains the
latest technologies to support. This means that the company has
to keep on checking on the latest technologies to ensure that it
stays in a market that is highly competitive.
Socio-cultural and political factors are also part of the factors
that exist in the general environment of Twitter as a company.
There are certain cultures that are in heavy use of the new
technological changes that are being experienced. There are also
other societies and cultures that are not much into technology.
Twitter as a company has keep on ensuring that these group that
is not much is technology such as use of social media is brought
on board to increase their market share of on the use of social
media. Politics, which also have close relationship with the
socio-cultural aspects of the society also affects the general
environment of a Twitter. Political campaigns have seen rise in
use of social media for such purpose. This means that during
political seasons in different countries the use of social media is
always increased. This means as a company such have to be
taken into consideration. The general environment is dynamic
and complex and strategic planning is needed to enable a
company such as Twitter adapt to such environmental changes.
Forces of Competition That Are Most Significant to Twitter

3. Porter in his Harvard Business Review article wrote,
“Understanding the competitive forces, and their underlying
causes reveals the roots of an industry’s current profitability
while providing a framework for and anticipating and
influencing competition over time” (Porter, 2008). The biggest
threat to a business such as Twitter is competition. There are
five forces of competition that exists and they include:
competitive rivalry, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining
power of customers, threat of new entrants, and threat of
substitute products or services.
Twitter is a social media platform that is used for various
purpose ranging for business communication, marketing and
social networking. There are also other companies such as
Facebook and Instagram that provides almost the same services.
Threat of substitute products or service as one of the forces is
one that can easily affect Twitter as company. It is very easy for
consumers of services of Twitter to switch form their services
to that of the competitors such as Facebook and Instagram. The
threats of substitutes are always informed by switching of costs,
both long-term and immediate, as well as a buyer’s inclination
to change. This means that Twitter has to offer their services in
a manner that it will be difficult for them to be substitute by the
consumers.
Competitive rivalry is another force of competition that affects
Twitter as a company. This force examines how intense the
competition is in the marketplace. This is determined by the
number of existing competitors and what each is capable of
doing. For example, a competition is considered to be high
when there are just a few businesses equally selling a product or
service, when the industry is growing and consumers can easily
switch to a competitor’s offering such services at a lower cost.
Competition rivalry affects advertising and price, which can
sometimes end up hurting a Twitter’s bottom line.
There are many things that Twitter as a company can do to
improve its ability to the threat of substitute products or
services. There are factors that brings about consumers

4. substituting products or services offered by a company to other
products or services from other companies. One of the factors is
the quality of products or services that are produced by the
company. Another factor is the aspect of price for the services
or products that are offered. This means that Twitter to help
avoid their services from being substitutes by those offered by
other companies such as Instagram and Facebook, they have to
improve on the quality of their services, which includes better
client services. The company will also have to look at their
prices when using such services. As there are a group of price
conscious consumers that will go for the service that is offered
at the cheapest price.
In regards to what Twitter, Inc can do to improve effects of
competitive rivalry, such are very many. Competition requires
that a company, in this case Twitter has to remain relevant or it
risk being ousted in the marketplace. One of the ways in which
the company can go about this force of competition is by
increasing their marketing and advertising activities to help
create more awareness. This helps the company to remain
relevant within the industry they operate in. Pricing is also
another factor that has to be taken into consideration when
competitive rivalry as a force of competition is being discussed.
The pricing should be done in a way in which the consumers can
switch to the rivals for similar services as prices in which the
consumers can consider fair and better compared to that of the
company.
Assessment of The External Threats Affecting Twitter and The
Opportunities Available
External threats of a company as those that arise from the
external environment. This are threats that the company has to
deal with by changing to adapt to such threats as they are not
within the control of the company. One of the external threats is
the legal changes that always happen in regards to the use of
social media by companies. As an external challenge Twitter
has only one option of responding to such an external threat.
That is by adjusting to meet the legal requirements as laid down

5. by the authorized body. Changes in legal requirements has
always acted as one of the greatest threats to social media
service provider companies like Twitter among others.
Responding to such changes promptly is very necessary as the
legal consequences of such failure is always severe to the extent
it can lead to the shutting down of such a business as Twitter.
Another external threat is the threat of a new entry into the
marketplace. Twitter as a company has no control of who enters
the marketplace and when they enter. People have the freedom
of coming up with companies to offer services and produce
products that already exists. New entries mean that they will
want to have a market share by taking a portion of the existing
market share of Twitter among other social media companies.
When are there are threats of new entrance in the market, the
greater the risk of a business’s market share being depleted
(Martin, 2017). It is essential that that a company like Twitter
puts up what are known to be barriers of entry so that threats of
new entrants are neutralized. Some of such barriers include
access to inputs, absolute cost advantages, economies of scale,
and creation of well-recognized brands.
Having a well-recognized brand for example, help create about
customer loyalty to the brand and cannot move to new
companies that are offering the same products even if the offers
are so good. Economies of scale ensures that the prices of the
services and products of a company is always keep low in what
cannot be substituted by the new entrant entry price. In most
case, when there is no big difference in pricing, they will
consider staying with the brands they are used to rather than
moving from one brand to another.
Opinion on Twitter’s Greatest Strengths and Most Significant
Weaknesses
There is undoubtedly an information overflow around Twitter
and its related services. However, just like other companies in
the marketplace, Twitter has strengths and weaknesses. Twitter
has many strengths that have made it to be where it is today.
One of the strength of Twitter is the fact that the company has a

6. strong brand name already. This helps the company to get tons
of publicity on a daily basis. Another strength of Twitter is the
fact that it provides authentication for other applications. There
has been an increase in fake things and people using other
peoples name to market themselves or engage in other
activities. The authentication aspect of Twitter makes it good
people who want ensure they use real and true things. Another
strength of Twitter is the fact that it has no ads. Ads is one
thing that is making use of social media platform boring.
Twitter has realized this and have ensured that there are no ads
to its services.
However, with many strengths that Twitter as a company has,
there are relatively good number of weaknesses that Twitter as
company has. One of such weakness is the fact that it is down
more often. There are times when its services cannot be access
because it is down. Another weakness is the aspect of unequal
distribution od tweets, as 10% of the tweets are coming from
the top 10% users of the services. Another weakness is the fact
that Twitter has a low retention rate, with such being at only
40%.
There are many things that the company can do to maintain their
strengths as mentioned above. One is by sticking to some of
their policies as long are such policies are still working. For
example, since the policy of no ads has turned out to be a
strength, such policy should be maintained to ensure that such a
strength of the company never goes away. Apart from
maintaining the strengths of the Twitter, it is also important that
it improves on its weaknesses to make the company even better
in providing of its services. One of the ways in can improves its
weakness is by increasing its horsepower, which will help avoid
situations when the company is down in terms of offering of
services. The company should also increase its retention rate
from 40% to a more reasonable figure owing to the success that
the company has had in regards to the services that it offers to
the public. The distribution of tweets is also another issue that
Twitter should look into to make it almost equal among its

7. users, to avoid some users having the feeling of being
discriminated.
Determination of The Company’s Resources, Capabilities, And
Core Competencies
Twitter can be said to be one the most successfully companies
since it was founded in 2006. One is the things that make it be
classified as one of the most successful companies is the kind of
resources that the company that helps it in provision of its
services. The company has hundreds of applications arounds its
API, that help to supplement and support the main service that
the company provides to the public. Other resources of the
Twitter as a company includes: Twitter logo, social icons, logo
pairing lockups, and tweet treatments. All this are used in the
betterment of the services of the company.
Apart from the resources that Twitter as company has, there are
also capabilities that the company has. One is the aspect that it
has the capability of creating the bluebird craze. With fakeness
being represented in all aspects of society, authenticity is one
that each and every individual looks for when purchasing or
looking for services. Twitter has the capability of providing
authentication for other applications. Twitter also allows for
microblogging as it is a thing on its own. There is almost no
competition for doing microblogging on Twitter. In fact,
bloggers nowadays engage more using Twitter that normal blogs
that are created as websites.
There are also key competencies that the company has. One is
that it is a social marketing tool. Marketing has been taken to
another level with the millennials being their main target owing
to the amount of time this group of generation spend on
technology. It allows for marketing by as business organizations
have accounts that help them market some of their products and
services. Another key competency of Twitter is the aspect of it
being able to allow businesses to communicate with their
customers. Communication with customers for business
organizations is very important for maintain good public
relations. Twitter can also be said to be a search engine as there

8. are certain searches that can be conducted through Twitter.
Analysis of The Company’s Value Chain to Determine Where
They Create Value Using Resources, Capabilities, And Core
Competencies of the Company
Value chain can be defined as a set of activities that a frim
operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a
valuable product or service to the market. The history of Twitter
is similar to other social or search sites like Google and
Facebook in that it was built for web but has matured into a
mobile product making use of contextual and real time functions
like geolocation, messaging and live events. Twitter has used
the “systems thinking” concept to understand how things, such
as animals, objects, and business among others, as part of the
system influence one another within a whole.
A good example, in understanding an eco-system like a
rainforest by analyzing the birds, plants, bugs, and weather
among others, in the forest and how they influence on each
other. In business, it is important to understand the value chain,
the actors in it and the influence they have on one another as
they to aspire to create value. For Twitter, the core parts of the
system, which is social media advertising are businesses and
consumers, social media platforms, third-party developers,
advertisers, and content. Twitter’s move to mobile was on the
black of creations by third-part developers. Since then however,
the pressure has been on the company to monetize and create
shareholder value from its platform. This has led to a strategy
of closing out parts of the system.
Twitter like other social media platforms have a privileged
asset. The company has unique understanding about its users’
identity. It knows what users like and what interest such users.
This is done by analyzing who they follow and what they tweet
about and this is very powerful. For other social media
platforms, this advantage is not there. For example, Facebook
only knows “who you are and who you know” and Google know
“what you are searching for and when”. This means that the
thing that Twitter valuable is its system and not the features on

9. the Twitter platform. It is the knowledge of its user base.
In particular, it is the Twitter identities and the understanding
that can be gleaned from how those identities are used and how
they interact that matters. With this knowledge and
understanding of user base, Twitter could play to win a much
more open approach o its system. Such an approach would make
Twitter the world largest social media advertiser, with no
advertising on its platform.
References
Fitton, L., Gruen, M. E., & Poston, L. (2009). Twitter for
Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley Publishing.
Martin, M. (2017, June 26). Porter's Five Forces: Analyzing the
Competition. Retrieved from Business News Daily:
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5446-porters-five-
forces.html
Porter, M. E. (2008). The Five Competitive Forces that Shapes
Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 134-145.
Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND
STRATEGIC COMPETITIVENESS
6
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC
COMPETITIVENESS
Strategic Management and Strategic Cmpetitiveness
KaToya Jones
Dr. Wanda Tillman
Business Administration Capstone
January 14, 2018
Introduction

10. Strategic competitiveness is gained when an organization
successfully establishes as well as implements a value-creating
approach. In this perspective, strategy refers to a cohesive and
coordinated combination of commitments and also to mention
actions developed to exploit primary competencies in order to
gain a competitive advantage (Hitt, Ireland, & Artz, 1999). This
occurs when a firm implements a strategy unique from that of
competitors giving them leverage. As a result, the firm is able
to ensure above average returns and satisfy investor’s
expectations from other investments with a common likelihood
of risk. This paper will focus on Twitter, Inc to examine how
globalization and advancement in technology have impacted the
company. Further, applying the industrial organization model
and resource-based model I will explore how the company could
earn more profits, analyze how both the vision and the
statement of the company impact its overall triumph and lastly
investigate how Twitter’s stakeholders impact on the its overall
success.
How globalization and technology changed Twitter Inc.
The modern world is transforming into a time of technological
invention. Existence of new innovations on top of the available
technological resources is such a remarkable achievement. As it
improves, it as well spreads to other parts of the world. In this
case the global spread of innovations it avails vast connections
which consequently creates new markets across the world.
Focusing on social media, it is one of those tools that can easily
be exploited by those who are connected. Basically, as access is
gained on a larger scale, it avails multiple market opportunities
to those outsourcing ideas. In today’s world, the use of social
media has revolutionized out society. Basing this on real life
events various social media platforms have contributed to
activism. This, however, has been criticized by many but the
point is that social media is revolutionizing the world.

11. Therefore, there’s no doubt that the present as well as the future
transformation will still use social media. This is because social
media platforms capture considerable large audience within a
short period of time. In this case, the widespread of social
media platforms such as Twitter; the company growth cannot be
stopped.
Globalization and technology have contributed to the
consistent growth of the company. For instance, according to
Complete the micro-blogging sites recorded 23 million unique
users with an increased growth (Java et al, 2007, August). This
does not include the large number of people that do not visit
Twitter.com but instead use third party service to update.
Focusing on the trend the company hopes to have a consistent
growth in the future. In addition, the company has also gained
approval from multinational corporations. According to a report
by Mashable’s, twitter as a social media platform is used by
many corporations. Generally, the company has continued to
receive growth internationally as people are learning the value
of using Twitter.
How industrial organization model and the resource-based
model are used to increase the company returns
Before deciding which model would best be appropriate for
Twitter in order for them to earn high returns than expected, it
important to understand each model? Starting with the industrial
organizational model, it’s defined as a field of economic
concerned with the strategic behaviors if firms, market
competition, rules and regulations to name a few. The model is
much related to economic theory that focuses on price to
industries. Therefore, the whole idea is linked to understanding
methods by which a firm operates; improve government policy
in relation to these industries. Resource-based model, on the
other hand, is defined as a competitive advantage. As a result,
the model tends to focus on organizational internal resources,
the firm's strengths, weakness, in comparison to the

12. environmental structures of competitive benefits on
opportunities and threats. Therefore, after examining the two
models, I prefer the resource-based model because it could
allow twitter the greater chances to expand their returns and in
that regard gain, high returns because of its main concentration
on the corporation’s strengths as well as weaknesses.
How both the vision and mission statement of the company
influences its overall performance?
Both statements are critical elements of a corporation
organizational strategy. In most cases, most established
companies create organizational mission as well as vision
statements, which serve as a foundational guide to the
establishment of company goals and objectives. Before
assessing how these elements have influenced Twitter Inc, a
company mission serves as a guide to an organization’s decision
making (Ingenhoff, & Fuhrer, 2010). In this case stakeholders
(shareholders, leaders, and employees) are the target of the
mission. Vision, on the other hand, directs and gives the
corporation a clear perspective of its values. To give everyone
the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly,
without barriers is the company’s mission. I think Twitter’s
statement is a pretty good on the core purpose. A vision
statement should give people a clear picture of what the
company wants to be. Twitter’s vision is for it to become a
premiere micro-sharing platform. These two statements have
and will continue to be the reason for consistent growth for the
company because stakeholders are part of the inspiration that
the company seeks in the future. As a result of Twitter’s
employees remain loyal, while fostering an atmosphere of
success, as Twitter makes it known as their stakeholders
succeed, so does it.
How stakeholders impact the overall success of Twitter Inc
The success of any company is gifted by stakeholders. In this
case, success tends to come from a combination of two factors.

13. To begin with the ability of a company to deliver real value to
the stakeholders while the other one is the ability of
stakeholders recognizes the value and appreciates it (Hitt et al.,
1999). In addition, another important factor in achieving the
success of an organization is the meeting of the stakeholder’s
expectations. Twitter is owned by a few investors that supply a
firm’s capital. They expect Twitter to preserve growth the
health they have invested in the company. Satisfied stakeholders
reinvest back into the company, while others even invite other
new investors, while those who feel the company is not meeting
their expectations sell their stock. The company engaged
stakeholders in various ways because it believes that the path of
business sustainability is a process. Literally, experiences is
what makes up a journey, thus the company is promoting
sustainability through;
• Branding- the fundamental strategy of corporate
sustainability is how a company communicates with its
stakeholders. As an emerging role of social media, the company
is engaging stakeholders to share their broader corporate
responsibility agenda.
• Prospecting- by using the Twitter search function, it’s
possible to find prospective buyers and vice-versa with who you
can do deals, just to mention.
• Networking in today’s world, networking has evolved as an
important aspect of life. Using Twitter as a tool it is possible to
foster relationships.
References
Hitt, M., Ireland, R., & Artz, K. (1999). Strategic management
and strategic competitiveness. Strategic management:
competitiveness and globalization.
Pfeffer, J., & Veiga, J. F. (1999). Putting people first for

14. organizational success. The Academy of Management
Executive, 13(2), 37-48.
Ingenhoff, D., & Fuhrer, T. (2010). Positioning and
differentiation by using brand personality attributes: Do mission
and vision statements contribute to building a unique corporate
identity?. Corporate Communications: An International
Journal, 15(1), 83-101.
Java, A., Song, X., Finin, T., & Tseng, B. (2007, August). Why
we twitter: understanding microblogging usage and
communities. In Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and 1st SNA-
KDD 2007 workshop on Web mining and social network
analysis (pp. 56-65). ACM.
Assignment 3: Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies
Using the same industry from Assignment 2, and one your
chosen publicly traded corporation within that industry from
Assignment 1. Research the company on its own Website, the
public filings on the Securities and Exchange Commission
EDGAR database (http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml), in the
University's online databases, and any other sources you can
find. The annual report will often provide insights that can help
address some of these questions.
Write a six (6) page paper in which you:
1. Analyze the business-level strategies for the corporation you
chose to determine the business-level strategy you think is most
important to the long-term success of the firm and whether or
not you judge this to be a good choice. Justify your opinion.
2. Analyze the corporate-level strategies for the corporation you
chose to determine the corporate-level strategy you think is
most important to the long-term success of the firm and whether
or not you judge this to be a good choice. Justify your opinion.
3. Analyze the competitive environment to determine the
corporation's most significant competitor. Compare their
strategies at each level and evaluate which company you think

15. is most likely to be successful in the long term. Justify your
choice.
4. Determine whether your choice from Question 3 would differ
in slow-cycle and fast-cycle markets.
5. Use at least three (3) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and
other Websites do not quality as academic resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
· Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size
12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow
APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for
any additional instructions.
· Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the
student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the
date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in
the required page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this
assignment are:
· Identify various levels and types of strategy in a firm.
· Use technology and information resources to research issues in
business administration.
· Write clearly and concisely about b