Nintendo’s Stakeholders
After the closer look at the strength and weaknesses of Nintendo which where mentioned above, the next point regards the main stakeholders of Nintendo. On a first thought you might only come with idea that the consumers of Nintendo are the main players here, however it can be said that there is much more more to it including the following: following: Shareholders, Shareholders, competitors, employees investors, Governments Governments etc. In the following paragraphs Nintendo‟s main stakeholders will be named and elaborated on regarding their importance. i mportance.
Consumers Nintendo‟s main main consumers were always always seen to be the the so called „‟core „‟core--gamers‟‟, people who love the game in the virtual world and sure buy a new games a soon they come out. Those „‟core„‟core-gamers‟‟ represented represented a promising source of revenue. With the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, a console console offering user-friendly user-friendly fun for the the whole family, family, they opened up a completely new target group (casual gamers) at the expense of core gamers. (San Francisco Chronicle, 2010) Another success factor of the Wii was its comparable comparable low price to the Play Station 3. 3. With the introduction of a new system a „‟Nintendo 3DS‟‟ Nintendo is planning to move a bit away from the casual gamers and try to win back and concentrate more on the core-gamers core-gamers again, due to the fact that casual gamers have a tendency of not buying as many games. (San Francisco Chronicle, 2010)
Competitors Nintendo is the same same as every every other company; company; it has to fact fact the competition with with other companies and fight for its survival in the business environment. The Japanese Sony Corporation with its Play Station 3 and the American Microsoft Corporation with its Xbox represent the biggest competitors for Nintendo in gaming console market. Competitors in the gaming industry are very important stakeholders for the following reasons, they don‟t belong to group such as the consumers who you want to satisfy, they are important in the sense of innovation and development. You have to face a fierce competition in the form of revolutionary revolutionary products in order to stay competitive and „‟alive‟‟. With Nintendo being the first of those companies to introduce intr oduce a gaming system, the Wii currently has the biggest market share of a remarkable 46.26%, followed by the PlayStation3 with 31.06% and last but not least Microsoft‟s Xbox with a share of 22.68%. (Gamelosophy, 2010) As already mentioned, to maintain this position Nintendo will have to stay innovative and active in developing revolutionary products to stay competitive with Microsoft and Sony. As we see that Nintendo has no problem in competing with its competitors, when it comes to market share it has to be said that this is not the case anywhere. anywhere. In the earlier section of this paper („‟Nintendo (not) addressing the problems‟‟) it is already made clear that Nintendo was named the worse electronics company. company. Microsoft is not ranked that much better and both of the companies could take Sony as an example, due to the fact that they show an improvement scoring at least a 5.1 out of 10. (Greenpeace, (Greenpeace, 2010)
Shareholders Another important group of Nintendo‟s stakeholders are the shareholders and investors. Currently Nintendo is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Securities Exchange with a total of 141,669,000 shares outstanding and a total 67,835 holders of those shares. (Nintendo IR Information) The importance of those shareholders is of an immense degree as they represent a form of raising funds for new products and innovations. Nintendo states the following announcement on its Investors Relations website “strive “strive to create new and unique forms of entertainment while maintaining maintaining a robust business structure”( structure”(Nintendo IR Information – Business Policy), Policy), the forms of entertainment entertainment here could be seen as a minor importance to the shareholders; however the fact that Nintendo intends to maintain a strong
business structure structure might represent represent their interests interests a bit more. more. The mentioned robust business structure can also be seen in the t he form of Nintendo‟s consolidated dividend payout ratio of 52.0% in 2010 and a projected one of 78.1% in 2011(Nintendo 2011(Nintendo IR Information – Dividends). Dividends). The recurrent discussion about sustainability and protecting the environment environment may be as well in i n the interest of some shareholders in the form of Nintendo‟s reputation, however; if a high dividend payout ratio is in place, this might also become of a lesser importance.
Governments Alike every other company out there, Nintendo, has to follow certain governmental conventions regarding things such as limiting pollution, abiding labour regulations or trade agreements. agreements. Especially the rules regarding the corporate social responsibility towards a sustainable environment environment have become stricter in the last l ast couple of years. As it was mentioned earlier already, Nintendo is trying to adopt new ways of production to reduce their carbon footprint and actually tries to be more „responsible‟ in their means of production.
Employees On the worldwide basis Nintendo employs about 4,100 people and also takes care for them. It has become evident to treat you employees in a good way will also benefit the company itself. Nintendo America America is a good example example here. here. Employees Employees of Nintendo America, America, benefit in the forms of subsidized transportation, health insurance pensions, retirement programs, programs, free access to doctor s and many more. If that wouldn‟t be enough they also have the possibility to contact an employee assistance program program that assists them as well in legal or financial issues and childcare planning. (Nintendo Corporate) In addition to this, in Nintendo‟s CSR Report CSR Report of 2010 certain ideals towards employee satisfaction are mentioned. The company company tries to set it standards towards a more open communication and process of taking the opinions and consideration of their employees more into consideration. (Nintendo CSR Report 2010)
Production Partners Nintendo needs its production partners for one main main and simple reason, reason, the production of their products. These partners are also mentioned in the CSR Report of 2010 describing the expectations of Nintendo described in the following lines. Nintendo expects a hi gh degree in respecting human rights, a practice of fair trade and also that the partners try to conserve the environment. (Nintendo CSR Report 2010) To increase customer satisfaction as well Nintendo insists on a guarantee of of quality and obedience obedience to their promised promised delivery dates. (Nintendo CSR Report 2010)
Bibliography San Francisco Chronicle online http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/01/BU8M1G3LA2.DTL
Gamelosophy 2010 ‘ HOME CONSOLE MARKET SHARE’ http://gameolosophy.com/consoles/wii/home-console-market-share-2010-may-22nd/ Nintendo IR Information http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/information/index.html Nintendo IR Information – Business Policy http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/management/policy.html Nintendo IR Information – Dividends http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/dividend/index.html Nintendo corporate http://www.nintendo.com/corp/csr/index.jsp#welfare Nintendo CSR Report Report 2010 http://www.nintendo.co. http://www.nintendo.co.jp/csr/en/pdf/nintendo jp/csr/en/pdf/nintendo_csr2010e.pdf _csr2010e.pdf
