Case study “Zynga Wins with Business Intelligence”

1. It is said that Zynga is “an analytics company masquerading as a games company.” Discuss the implications of this statement.

Many companies have been disrupted by the Zynga’s success. The traditional video game developers develop the game and launched it while the developers at Zynga develop the game based on the interest and patterns of the video gamers and how they prefer to play. The gamers’ online patterns of game playing and the preferences of their gaming develop the game further. The type of players who are most active, the players buy and take most interests as well as the pattern of buying these features are all assessed. The data helps develop a gem that players play for longer time and remain active. These players share their game with their friends and buy more goods. The successful strategy of the game has led to more players in short time and more features being bought by the players. The other companies of the online game developers may suffer from the strategy used by Zynga because they cannot keep pace and remain successful in the competition with Zynga. The Zynga prefers to provide game that player play for longer despite the fact that some of the developers at Zynga think that the creativity is not being related and date data analysis sis being preferred.

2. What role does business intelligence play in Zynga’s business model?

Zynga has a social graph related data that is streamed and updated every day to dedicate the vertical cluster generated on daily basis. The models that are developed from the use patterns are fed into the system for the game players the next day. The business intelligence solution the company is improving the game for players and targeting the items of gifts and features that help increase the interaction between the players. The other advantage is that the spam players are reduced since the game players are more inclined in increasing their game success. The Zynga is able to identify the users with same patterns of behaviors or common interests in playing the game that can be categorized and treated with the same strategies along with activities. Such data helps targeting player precisely with promotions and features.

The analysis of data with such high level of data enables the Zynga to identify the features that are working and not working in the game each section. The future that is not being used of performing anymore is triggered and tested to perform up to the expectations. The features are tweaked through the data analysis and improved with the game overall experiences. The features that are preferred by the players are also highlighted and the enables the developers to make sure these features are already and more available to the players. The game improvement and new features is not based on guess but on actual data analysis conducted through the game.

3. Give examples of three kinds of decisions supported by business intelligence at Zynga.

Using the using Vertical software Zynga can access and treat the large set of data quickly and precisely. The software also allows the developer to use the social graph analysis much more effectively. The free games are provided and offers based on the analysis of the mangers on data in games by Zynga product managers. The revenue is developed through ales of the features and the new players are attracted to the market and the gaming world. The virtual good become the prominent source of the revenue when the game is played and liked by many. The Facebook becomes the platform for the gaming for the Facebook users and allows the developers a Zynga to have strong data base of uses as well as more sales. The data collected through Facebook includes the profile information of (gender, age, interests, and friends) the users that is transferred to the Zynga data base when they install the Zynga application.

The day to day analytics graph is developed by the system at Zynga that is able to interpret the terabytes of data. The users and players preferences are studied and determine more accurately to provide them with the accurate product and feature in the future. Also the virtual goods are developed in the same pattern to aid in the revenue generation.

The players profile can be accessed by the Zynga so the players all data is visible to the company and that data can be used to develop patterns in the game most preferred. Their background and interests form the Facebook aid in the process and help develop features that complement their interests.

Zynga prefers the active members and do not waste time on the less active members through offer of newest editions and features in the games. The promotional activities and the new features are this ways detected by the players.

4. How much of a competitive advantage does business intelligence provide for Zynga? Explain.

The product generated by Zynga in 2010 was $91 million dollar with revenue of $600 that was increased from the level of $121 in 2009. The strategies of Zynga led it to used different tracks to business than one traditions business model. The new strategies used by Zynga were different from the running and some other start up games industries. The revenue generated by the Zynga is not form, the player number of the game itself but form the features and the virtual goods being sold in the game.

5. What problems can business intelligence solve for Zynga? What problems cannot it solve?

The use of can promote the interaction activities between the active players and reduce the level of spam. The good and bad product information and data can be collected to help improve the features offered by the company. The company can also use the same strategy to clean up the trash in their system. The changes brought into the game can be used to help sustain the game and its interaction with the players. The daily updates can help improve the game and upgrade its system.

The success is based on good strategy and creativity both. If Zynga will rely more on the data analysis and ignore the importance of the creativity the business may fail and cause more disrupt in the industry. Hence the strategy and the system along with creativity are important to achieve the target of the revenues and game promotions.