Pokémon Go VRIN Analysis

Pokémon Go VRIN Analysis

Every organization and business setup has unique capabilities and resources that make it successful in achieving its set business goals and objectives. The resources and power are responsible for giving an organization a competitive advantage over rival firms. When the capabilities and resources are many and match the needs that a company seeks to meet, an organization can attract a significant market share (Mat, Mohamed, and Mohamad). The resources and capabilities are accessed by VRIN analysis, which involves bringing out the value, rareness, imitability, and non-substitutable characteristics. This paper will reveal the VRIN analysis for Niantic Inc.’s product, Pokémon Go.

Resource Analysis

Both Apple and Android can access the Pokémon Go phone application. It enables the phones to fly and connect to locations with games’ features and attributes. It works in a simulated environment as people move from place to place and interact with the environment (Mattheiss et al.). The game players pass through the stimulating environment. Their phones detect the games automatically and capture the user by acting as if they can be played outside mobile phones. Games integrated with Pokémon ensure the users can successfully train and learn the games as if they are the original copies of Gameboy’s (Huff).

Niantic Labs was started in 2010 and was named after a boat anchored in San Francisco during the 1849 Gold Rush period. An American software developer, John Hanker, founded Niantic Labs. The organization was developed as per Google’s Internal features but was later separated and started functioning independently in 2015. Since its independence, Niantic Labs has faced an excellent percentage growth rate. As per 2015 statistics, the firm made sales of $206.5 million with over 130 million game downloads since 2015, when the firm became an independent game director.

Niantic International company’s previous reputation as the most renounced and famous original video game developer helped it make huge sales across the globe (Simmons). The development of the Pokémon Go application was a spin-off that gained an excellent reputation in history. The game has played a vital role in returning several shared memories of the initial fans. The positive part that favors the Niantic international company’s growth is that the firm currently has enough substantial ability to finance its developments and innovations once it can afford the production of premium games compared to its competitors (Huff). This has made Niantic company realize the number of margins that the firm has used to expand the firm.

Pokémon Go phone application, as developed by Niantic International, enjoys unique artificial intelligence-enabled video games. The application has brought people together by building a community of users who are loyal to the firm. Consequently, this has resulted in a continuous expansion of the market share served by Niantic International in the artificial intelligence technology business (Mattheiss et al.). The Pokémon Go phone application is an immersive gaming application that enhances the users’ social experience. The application has been in the lead in ensuring the target market and the general users are fit. Once, the firm was an autonomous company that ensured other phone ecosystems became available for everyone to access and use (Simmons). The firm does not have enough worldwide glitches and caps; hence, when frustrations occur in the initial servers, they are deployed.

Niantic International has invested a lot in research activities and product development to ensure that the applications are accessible from hackers and cheaters. Cheaters and hackers can mislead those playing the Pokémon Go game, making them fail the game rather than helping them win by directing them in the victory direction. The company’s set strategies to foresee the cash flow cycles are weak. This is because the competitors of Niantic Company took advantage of the game by collecting a lot of revenue at the expense of the Pokémon Go game Niantic Company. The firm had to redesign the game by removing some features to reduce third-party game visibility, a move that disappointed most gamers. The newly developed Pokémon Go game has better features that attract many users since it applies artificial intelligence technology, which sets a unique standard compared to rivalry and substitute games (Simmons). The game’s new features meet most customers’ needs, tastes, and preferences; hence, they meet the game demands and characteristics of the target markets in the gaining sector.

To play the Pokémon Go game, one has to be in the location and site where the game is installed. People will always want to win even when traveling or moving from one place to another; hence, they will always try to find and settle in areas with Pokémon stops. Niantic Inc. has ensured that they have installed as many poke stops as possible (Chacar). They have developed a map within the application to provide the users with a guide of the areas they can access and play the Pokémon Go games. The company has achieved this by integrating the game with Google map characteristics with actual photos of places where one can play the game to meet the growing game demand.

These features have made the game authentic and helped gamers complete their games by finding a perfect place to stop. The firm has ensured active social media platforms to communicate their game catches or failures to the product users. Most customers of Pokémon Go want to share their gaming activities with friends and game competitors; hence, social media integration plays a crucial role in sharing each gaming result. Niantic Company has successfully placed itself on the map, an objective that several companies are struggling to achieve. Accordingly, this has caused the firm to enjoy vast numbers of competitor turnover, primarily through social media networking, a feature that allows gamers to make money.

Pokémon Go has several reasons to face rivalry since it attracts vast numbers of users through gamer engagement, social networking, and winning rewards. The game has exploded all over the areas where it is installed so that users can take it, apply it, and enjoy it to attract more potential customers. More customers feel satisfied since the company directly interacts with the users to ensure they share their gaming experience (Chacar). As a result, this makes the firm attract new customers and retain the old ones. The game is designed so that a player enters a Pokémon trainers club for training activities before finding a Pokémon gym. The Pokémon trainers will help a gamer run various ways of gaming, while the gym is designed specifically for battling with other users (Huff). At the Pokémon gym, users are expected to attack each other and defend themselves.

Strategies for Creating, Maintaining, or Sustaining Competitive Advantage

From the capability and resource analysis, there are some strategies that Niantic Inc. can use to ensure that it gains a competitive advantage over rival firms. Firstly, the organization should invest in social media marketing to capture many people from the target market segment. Most of the target market for the Pokémon product is young people. Social media is advantageous for Niantic Inc. as it will easily access its target customers. Social media will lead to customer satisfaction as customers get to air their concerns and give feedback concerning the product. Social media has millions of users; hence, it will help brand awareness by making the product known to customers globally. It will help the firm understand what customers want. A social media marketing strategy can be disadvantageous since it puts the brand name at stake. Some Pokémon users may discourage others from using the product, resulting in a loss of customers.

Secondly, the firm can use rewards to maintain a significant market share. This will motivate more customers to join and play the games. The winners should be awarded physical gifts. The selected winners should be shared on various social media handles. However, this strategy is disadvantageous as rewards can be expensive. Lastly, the organization can redesign or reintroduce the old attributes of the Pokémon game before the introduction and integration of Google. The changes it made to the initial product resulted in the loss of some customers as they were not pleased with the new product. Also, to redesign itself, the firm could apply artificial intelligence to ensure that it grows the market share of its development through accurate forecasting of the current market demands and needs in the gaming sector (Chacar). This strategy will ensure that Niantic Inc. develops better target market niches to collect data that they could use to ensure that all the applications the firm develops meet the market needs and expectations, hence proper selling and gaining of a significant market share at both the local and international level. Therefore, this will help attract the lost market share, thus achieving a competitive advantage. However, this is disadvantageous as it will take a lot of time. Additionally, reproducing the missing features to gain the lost customers’ trust may be costly.

Recommended Strategy

From the identified strategic options, I’d recommend the social media marketing strategy for gaining a competitive advantage over the rival firm to the CEO. Most people from the target market segment are frequent social media users and will, therefore, see social media posts as they use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, among other platforms. Social media is used globally; hence, marketing through the platform will allow the company to access users at local and international levels. The risk of using social media is that customers may post negative reviews concerning the Pokémon game products, discouraging other potential customers from enjoying the game. In such cases, the company should ensure that any complaints and negative comments get immediate public clarification to avoid a negative brand image.

Conclusion

Niantic Inc. has unique resources, characteristics, and abilities that make it able to produce quality products like the Pokémon Go game. The organization’s resources, such as maps and finances, bring the firm value as they have helped it thrive through the competitive pressure in the gaming sector. The firm’s resources and capabilities are rare as no firm works like Niantic Company, ensuring that it creates unique products compared to competitors. The firms do not imitate and compete with other companies when developing their products; hence, they produce excellent outcomes. The Pokémon Go game product cannot be substituted with other products; therefore, it has fewer competitors considering its uniqueness.

References

Chair, Aya S. “Capitalizing On the Pokémon Go Craze”. 2017, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EwpM7XNLTvRsOfiCLzLRf3eU9pYVQDlRELZ. Accessed 16 Apr 2022.

Huff, T. How to capitalize on the Pokemon GO craze. Social Media Today. 2016, https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/how-capitalize-pokemon-gocraze Accessed 16 Apr 2022.

Mat, N. H. N., Mohamed, S., and Mohamad, A. S. Dealing with Uncertainty: An Analysis of VRIN Resources for SME’s Business Survival. International Journal of Business and Society, 23(1), (2022):542-559.

Mattheiss, E., Hochleitner, C., Busch, M., Orji, R., and Tscheligi, M. Deconstructing Pokémon Go–An empirical study on player personality characteristics. In International Conference on Persuasive Technology (pp. 83-94). Springer, Cham. (2017).

Simmons, M. Top 5 ways to capitalize on the Pokemon GO craze. Business 2 Community. 2016, https://www.business2community.com/small-business/top-5-wayscapitalize-pokemon-go-craze-01615874 Accessed 16 Apr 2022.

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Reread your chapter on internal analysis and view the video linked below.
List ALL the resources and capabilities of Niantic Inc. [The company AFTER it became independent from Google- and not before]. I have not counted them, but there may be up to TWO dozen. Think of which resources and capabilities the firm owns and which it borrows/gets suitable to use via its partnerships but that it does not own or cannot guarantee perpetual use or need to pay for. DO NOT LOOK ON THE WEB for information about the company. It will only confuse you as I base my grade on YOU FINDING THE Resources and Capabilities IN THE CASE.

Pokémon Go VRIN Analysis

Then follow the guidelines in this lecture (https://youtu.be/3tQTTUnhFKs), Which gives you guidance on how to use VRIN to value resources.
Read the Niantic case (PDF) and identify each of the dozens of resources and capabilities identified.
Make sure to do a VRIN analysis on EACH of the resources or capabilities identified. Your first step will be to explain WHY this resource or capacity is valuable:
Remember here that some may be very valuable and others less so.
Pay attention to which resources are OWNED by the company and which are borrowed/rented.
Make sure to pay attention to what will remain valuable in the future.
Remember that the RIN part of the VRIN requires using a lot of personal judgment and an understanding of gaming. If you don’t play video games, ask your friends who do what makes a video game company (A) and a video game (B) successful (i) and prosperous in the long run (ii). So that is four answers you are seeking: Ai, Aii, Bi, Bii. You can also do research on this part in the press or analyst’s reports.
Here is an example: For example, one of FIU’s College of Business has a high level of competence in international business (a capability). This is evident in the high level of faculty research publications in top international business journals. It is also apparent in the high level of involvement of faculty in the profession (many are famous and do prominent activities..). The school also offers lots of courses with international and global content. All this culminates in the college’s high ranking in international business. This is valuable because it increases the knowledge of students in it and also the value of their degree in the marketplace… It is rare and hard to imitate because not many schools have been able to achieve a top 5/10 ranking or stay there, but it could be substituted with other schools attracting students and employers by being the best in different fields, such as entrepreneurship. For example, Babson specializes in being one of the best in entrepreneurship. Columbia is one of the best in finance. Note that in the RIN part, you are benchmarking to competitors. Another resource is its global reputation in IB. While the importance is valuable, the problem is that not everyone, even in Miami, knows how terrific and highly ranked the school is. So, the value of the reputation is not as high as it could be.
Based on the above, identify THREE possible strategies that the firm could use to create, maintain, or sustain competitive advantage. Make sure to tie these strategies to the resources and capabilities analysis you just did. Talk about the PROS and CONS of each of these strategies. For example, FIU can remain focused on IB but advertise to increase the general and global population’s interest in IB and make sure its reputation for excellence in IB is well known locally and globally. This would capitalize on its excellence in IB (a capability) and improve one of its weaker resources: its global reputation in IB. The pros could be an increase in its reputational capital that would attract more resources and students to the school and increase the value of their degree. The con would be the cost of marketing. Global marketing is in an era where budgets are cut, and many universities are cutting out faculty and staff to survive. ANOTHER option would be to develop new expertise in entrepreneurship. The pros would be to build an important skill local entrepreneurs could benefit from…. the cons would be that it diverts the limited college resources away from its current core competency, which is IB…
CHOOSE one of the three strategic options you identified to recommend to the CEO. SAY WHY this is better than the other two you proposed. Tell the CEO about the risks associated with the strategy and how they could be dealt with if they arise.
You can submit up to 4 pages with as many attachments/graphs/figures as you want. You can use bullet points for your arguments and tables for your VRIN analysis.