Intensive Strategy - Product Development

Adobe has pursued multiple alternative strategies in order to remain a software giant over the past few decades. The text mentions that “organizations cannot excel in too many things because resources and talents get spread thin and competitors gain advantage.” This holds true even for a large firm like Adobe. They have taken advantage of horizontal integration by acquiring companies like Macromedia, retrenchment by reducing staff during the recession of 2008, but more importantly, Adobe has focused on product development. Having your name or one of your products being used as a verb is a pretty good indicator that you have something significant to offer like when referring to modifying a picture, you just say, “Photoshop” it.

The continued advancement of Adobe’s suite of products including Photoshop, is impressive but what’s even more impressive is the how these products are now offered. For years Adobe’s products were sold as standalone, packaged goods. In October 2011, Adobe announced Creative Cloud which was designed to give users access to the same great products via subscription along with some additional cloud services including file storage and backup as well as Adobe managed security features. The path to offering cloud-based services came as a part of the vision of the current CEO, Shantanu Narayen. The announcement came in October 2011 with the transition being complete by May 2013. Looking back at the stock for Adobe, it rose steadily and significantly since the announcement going from $44.02 per share to $375.00 per share today giving Adobe a current market cap of $171.67 billion.