The SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces analysis revealed that the primary challenges are related to the inability to maintain the customer’s interest due to the increasing competition, the necessity to pay for the membership, and questionable reputation. In this instance, LinkedIn has to expand its activities and contribute to sharing the data between the other networks. Nonetheless, it remains evident that finding the solution is highly significant due to the necessity of the company to sustain itself on the market while the features and market shares of competitors continue to increase.
Nonetheless, LinkedIn will face external influences and obstacles while operation on the market in the future due to the potential threats and the increasing competition in the industry. In this instance, the key issues are related to the maintenance of API’s policy and the presence of the nature of PNS or a hybrid SNS. In case, the critical issue includes rapid technological development, which might require the company to modify policies rapidly due to the cultivation of the policies by the competitors. Another critical external factor is the dominance of the competitors due to the recession in the economy, as the users would not be able to afford the fee membership for the coherent maintenance of their network. Lastly, the restriction of the legislation might be one of the political forces as a similar situation recently occurred in Turkey by blocking Twitter after the prime minister attacks (Rawlinson, 2014). Additionally, the ban and restrictions on LinkedIn’s operations might occur due to its ability to hack the user emails, as a similar situation recently occurred (Bouc, 2013).
As for the predictability and uncertainty, the political forces cannot be predicted, and the uncertainty of its avoidance remains on a low level due to the inability to predict the political situation in the world. Technological changes and a potential ban for hacking can be predicted and avoided, since, in this case, the future of the company is dependent on its actions. Lastly, the desire to switch to competitors can also be highly predicted due to the repeating nature of the economic cycles. Unpredictable political and economic changes remain of high importance to the company’s success. The primary scenario logic will include the economic and political sides.
One of the narratives implies that due to the rapid technological changes the new viruses were developed. Social networks are the primary targets for the virus attacks (Stone, 2009). LinkedIn was not able to adapt to protect its space and was banned by the legal authorities to avoid the lack of important information from the individual users and companies. Another narrative combines economic and political axis, in this instance, the government contributes to the establishment of the complete fee membership and increases the fees due to the experience of the economic downturn and desire to generate income from the social networks. In this instance, the company might lose a significant share of customers due to the increased prices.
These potential scenarios can be avoided by the implementation of the continuous innovation and development program to avoid viruses. In this instance, the movement towards the negative situation will be portrayed by the increasing competition and the presence of malfunction in the system. As for the second aspect, the company should monitor the changes in the economy and changes in legislation. The following signposts have to be communicated to the departments inside the company and while analyzing the external data and press releases.
References
Bouc, A. (2013). LinkedIn sued for email hacking of user accounts. Liberty Voice. Web.
Rawlinson, K. (2014). Turkey blocks the use of Twitter after the prime minister attacks social media sites. The Guardian. Web.
Stone, B. (2009) Viruses that leave victims red on Facebook. The New York Times. Web.