The Main Capabilities That Motivate LinkedIn Case Study

The Main Capabilities That Motivate LinkedIn - Case Study Example In 2011, the company’s revenues stood at $522.2 million making it the world’s largest professional network by 2012 (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 1). The company’s revenues and profits come from marketing solutions, premium subscriptions, and hiring solutions. LinkedIn became the first U.S social networking firm to participate in an IPO where it raised $270.2 million (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 1). LinkedIn has a mission to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 3). Indeed, the company helps the members to access people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that help them to become good entrepreneurs (LinkedIn 2014). The company seeks to link about 640 million knowledge workers across the globe (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 4). LinkedIn has a vision to connect 640 million knowledge workers across the world (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 4). With such a promising mission and vision, the company attracts more than 5,400 full-time employees, 5.7 billion professionally oriented searches in 2012, and 186 million unique visitors in the first quarter of 2014 (LinkedIn Corporation 2014). The company enjoys about 36% of the online advertising market (Fawley 2013, p. 31-32). The company generated revenues from premium subscriptions (20%), marketing solutions (30%), and hiring solutions (50%) in 2011 (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 7-8). Most of its competitors could not match these revenues. LinkedIn adopts (R&D) Innovative product development to produce new products that will address market changes and customer needs. This defines a competitive advantage since other firms like Google + and Facebook are only applicable in specific occasions (Yoffie and Kind 2012, p. 1). This detailed strategic management analysis of LinkedIn Corporation addressed the internal and external environment of the company and identified the strategic challenges for the firm. Consequently, it proposed a set of rational options and derived the best applicable option that the company must adapt to survive in the competitive market.