M RahmanStakeholders of Facebook (Facebook Stakeholder Analysis)
This article aims to identify and analyse some of the key stakeholders of Facebook. Facebook is a global social networking service, headquartered in California, the USA. It has offices in over 80 cities around the world. It has made unprecedented progress in a very short time.
Internal stakeholders of Facebook
The Management Team, Board of Directors, employees, and shareholders are the main internal stakeholders of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is its founder, chairman and chief executive officer, hence the most important and most powerful stakeholder. His active participation and bold leadership have been a key to the success of the company. Rodriguez (2020) states that Zuckerberg was never worried to go against the wishes of the users, or the executives as reflected in a number of successful acquisition bids (e.g. Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus) made by the company under his leadership.
There are number of positions in the Management Team of Facebook such as Chief Operating Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Product Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and General Counsel (Facebook, 2021). These stakeholders are powerful and play a big role in running and shaping the future of the company.
Facebook has over 58 thousand full-time employees. It is an equal opportunity employer. However, it has been criticised for not having done enough to address diversity challenges (Tankovska, 2021). Most of the key positions are overwhelmingly occupied by men, and ethnic minorities are not represented well either. Facebook was once the best place to work; however not any more as challenges such as long hours and the pressure of meeting business targets have made many employees frustrated.
Shareholders are very important for Facebook. They have the power to block some of its moves that are considered unfeasible. Some of the top shareholders are Mark Zuckerberg, Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock Inc., Fidelity Management & Research, T. Rowe Price Associates, SSgA Funds Management Inc., and Capital Research & Management.
External stakeholders of Facebook
Users, competitors, suppliers, and governments are some of the key external stakeholders of Facebook. According to Tankovska (2021) Facebook has around 2.8 billion monthly active users. Certainly, users are very important, and therefore, making and keeping them satisfied is extremely important for the company.
Facebook is very committed to its suppliers and spent around $515 million with them in 2019 alone. It has recently introduced a supplier diversity program to increase opportunities for those suppliers who operate from outside of the United States (Facebook, 2021).
A number of competitors are vying to take as much market share as possible from Facebook. Its main competitors in social media are Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Vkontakte. Instagram and WhatsApp are not considered here as they are owned by Facebook. The biggest competitor of Facebook in advertising industry is Google.
Government institutions are also powerful and can cause Facebook substantial damages if it is found in breach of their rules. For instance, Canada’s Competition Bureau fined it $6.5 million over claims of ‘false’ privacy (BBC, 2020). Likewise, the US consumer regulator FTC fined it $5 billion over Cambridge Analytica data breach.
We hope the article ‘Stakeholders of Facebook (Facebook Stakeholder Analysis)’ has been a good read. You may also like reading SWOT analysis of Facebook and Competitors of Facebook (Competitor analysis of Facebook). Other relevant articles for you are:
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Last update: 26 February 2021
References/further reading:
BBC (2020) Canada Facebook fined $6.5m over ‘false’ privacy claims, available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52640785 (accessed 25 February 2021)
Facebook (2021) Who we are, available at: https://about.fb.com/company-info/ (accessed 25 February 2021)
Rodriguez, S. (2020) Mark Zuckerberg led Facebook to an all-time high this week — here’s who runs the company with him, available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/23/who-runs-facebook-here-are-the-execs-under-mark-zuckerberg.html (accessed 25 February 2021)
Tankovska, H. (2021) Number of full-time Facebook employees from 2004 to 2020, available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-facebook-employees/ (accessed 25 February 2021)
Author: M Rahman
M Rahman writes extensively online and offline with an emphasis on business management, marketing, and tourism. He is a lecturer in Management and Marketing. He holds an MSc in Tourism & Hospitality from the University of Sunderland. Also, graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University with a BA in Business & Management Studies and completed a DTLLS (Diploma in Teaching in the Life-Long Learning Sector) from London South Bank University.
