Recommendations development for business model improvement for Gaia Interactive ltd.

<p><strong>Annotation for the thesis paper</strong></p><p>On: Recommendations development for business model improvement for Gaia Interactive ltd.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The aim of this work is to suggest recommendations aim towards improving the business development strategy in the virtual environment and its business model. In order to fulfil this goal a certain set of tasks was selected and resolved on the example of the virtual world Gaia Online, including: analysis of the history and trend development of the virtual communities and social networks; analysis of internal and external factors affecting the development trends of the &nbsp;Gaia Online virtual community using secondary sources of information; field study of customer satisfaction and needs of the participants in the virtual world Gaia Online; SWOT- analysis of the possibilities and directions for harmonization of the current state of business with trends and prospects in the external environment changes, as well as the needs of the community.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The object of the analysis is a virtual community Gaia Online, owned by Gaia Interactive, ltd company. And the subject of analysis - marketing strategies and business model of the company engaged in the business of creation and development of the virtual world.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As for an empirical base, the given study was based upon database statistics, research of marketing agencies, official websites of companies, published results of domestic and foreign applied research on related issues, as well as results of a field study carried out by the author in the virtual community environment.</p><p>The field research was conducted in several stages.</p><p style="margin-left:35.4pt;">1. Qualitative research: in-depth interviews with 38 community members.</p><p style="margin-left:35.4pt;">2. Quantitative research: mass user survey based on the information recovered during qualitative phase and covering 24 thousand respondents.</p><p style="margin-left:35.4pt;">3. Additional research for demographic statistics of the users (117 respondents).</p><p>To evaluate the performance and prospects of development of the community some experts were involved:</p><p style="margin-left:35.4pt;">1. Marketers from IGG company (2 people).</p><p style="margin-left:35.4pt;">2. Programmers engaged for evaluation of the changes implementation costs (3 people).</p><p>Survey of management and administration team was replaced by the analysis of published information, due to the refusal of the company to make contact with anyone other than the official portals, media or potential investors.</p><p>In the current study, methods used included strategic and marketing analysis (SWOT-analysis, ABC- user analysis, content analysis of secondary and primary data). According to the analysis results, a set of recommendations for improving the strategy and business model of Gaia Interactive, ltd., company was developed and proved using economic criteria.</p><p>The final results can be used in the process of business strategies and business models improvement in the similar companies that are aimed to adapt to changes in the environment and needs of the participants of the virtual community.</p>