Zynga's Strategy to Recapture Mobile Gaming Market Share
This paper examines Zynga's business situation as a publicly traded mobile gaming company struggling to maintain market share against competitors such as King Digital and Supercell. It evaluates macro- and micro-environmental conditions, including rising competition and high operating costs, before presenting strategic alternatives: pursuing innovation in mobile gaming, reducing costs through staff restructuring, or replacing leadership. The paper recommends retaining CEO Mark Pincus and focusing on interactive mobile gaming experiences similar to Nintendo's Pokémon Go. A SWOT analysis and Six Sigma-based tracking metrics are provided to support the recommended strategy and measure its effectiveness over time.
- Introduction: Zynga's Current Business Situation: Zynga's competitive challenges and strategic context
- Strategic Alternatives for Reclaiming Market Share: Innovation, cost-cutting, and leadership change options
- Recommended Strategy: Retain Pincus and pursue interactive mobile gaming
- Tracking Metrics and Performance Measurement: Six Sigma and milestone-based evaluation methods
- SWOT Analysis: Zynga's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
- Conclusion: Strategic outlook and path forward for Zynga
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies recognizable business frameworks — SWOT analysis and Six Sigma metrics — to a real-world company case, grounding the recommendations in structured analytical tools.
- It clearly distinguishes between macro-environmental factors (competitor innovation, global talent) and micro-environmental factors (internal costs, leadership), showing layered situational awareness.
- The recommendation section is decisive and directly justified by the analysis, avoiding vague hedging and connecting back to the industry trend identified earlier.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the use of a SWOT framework integrated with strategic recommendation — a core business analysis technique. Rather than listing SWOT elements in isolation, the author uses them to support a specific course of action, showing how analytical tools should drive, not merely decorate, business decisions.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a situational overview of Zynga's competitive and financial position, then moves through strategic alternatives (innovation focus, cost-cutting, leadership change), a concrete recommendation, a metrics section for tracking success, a formal SWOT matrix, and a brief conclusion. This mirrors a standard business case report structure: diagnosis → options → recommendation → evaluation → summary.
Introduction: Zynga's Current Business Situation
As a publicly traded company, Zynga is currently perceived as a sub-par investment. Its business model is based on innovative tech design for the mobile phone gaming sector, but according to analysts, the company could be better served by going private, transferring its staff overseas, cutting costs, and deploying its capital in acquisitions rather than development. These moves could give the company the opportunity to reinvent itself as a leader in the sector. However, under CEO Mark Pincus, Zynga is adhering to the in-house development model and, in turn, is losing market share to more innovative companies such as King Digital and Supercell.
The macro-environmental conditions facing the firm include competitors' ability to harness talent from around the world and develop more consumer-friendly games. The micro-environmental conditions facing the company are its high costs of operation — an over-bloated staff and large payouts to outbound executives.
The opportunity for Zynga exists as Pincus looks to develop the next major mobile phone gaming hit. By taking a page out of Nintendo's playbook and designing an interactive mobile gaming product similar to Pokémon Go, Pincus could deliver a hit that catapults the company's stock back to all-time highs — just as Pokémon Go did for Nintendo's stock (Mochizuki, Needleman). In fact, a positive momentum shift may already be underway for Zynga, as the rollout of a new line of games such as CSR Racing 2 helped propel the company's stock up 23% in a single week (Munarriz). This paper discusses the opportunity that exists for Zynga to recapture market share and implement a new strategy to embrace that opportunity.
Works Cited
Meola, Andrew. "Mobile gaming is about to become the undisputed king of the jungle." Business Insider, 28 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 July 2016.
Mochizuki, Takashi, and Sarah Needleman. "Pokemon-Chasing Investors Send Nintendo Shares Soaring." The Wall Street Journal, 11 July 2016. Web. 12 July 2016.
Munarriz, Rick. "Can Zynga Keep Going After Last Week's 12% Pop?" Motley Fool, 11 July 2016. Web. 12 July 2016.
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