Spotify Mission Statement | Vision | Values | Strategy (2024 Analysis)

Company: Spotify
CEO: Daniel Ek
Founders: Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon
Headquarter: Stockholm, Sweden
Number of Employees (2021): 6617
Type: Public
Ticker Symbol: SPOT
Annual Revenue (Dec 2021): $9.67 Billion
Profit |Net income (Dec 2021): -$34 Million

Products & Services: Online music
Competitors: Apple iTunes Store | Amazon Music | Google Play | Pandora

Did You Know – As of November 2020, Spotify has 320 million monthly active users

Introduction

Spotify’s mission, vision and core values have established the global image of the organization along with an emphasis towards the effectiveness of their operation. Thus, through its vision and statements, Spotify has obtained and identified a path to command and strategize a large following as a network of online music streaming.

From its early days in 2006, both Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, who are the founders of the company, incorporated this element in the operational activities of the business. This allowed the company to grow rapidly with 232 million monthly active users. In 2020, Spotify has over 320 million active monthly users and 144 million paid users. Its active monthly users grew by 29% in Q4 of 2020, while paid users jumped 27%. [1].

In spite of solid growth, Spotify reported a quarterly loss of around $118 million — a big shift since making a quarterly profit in Q3. Among the key drivers the company cited is its on-going decision to offer discounted plans in order to attract new users to the service.

Spotify’s Vision Statement

The vision of Spotify is :

“We envision a cultural platform where professional creators can break free of their medium’s constraints and where everyone can enjoy an immersive artistic experience that enables us to empathize with each other and to feel part of a greater whole.”

In this regard, the vision of Spotify is based on its objective to ensure that its services result in a win-win situation for the fans as well as the artists. This allows them to feel a sense of belonging to the vision and bigger picture of the company, along with the feeling of being appreciated.

The vision statement of Spotify is based upon the following points:

• Stimulating Harmony and Empathy: Spotify emphases on acquiring a more significant role rather than merely identifying itself as a service provider. The focus of the company seeks to perform a socially rooted role in society, instead of only fulfilling the needs and requirements of the industry by providing on-demand music. 

The idea of Spotify lies in the fact of weaving and developing a sense of linkage and connection between people in everything that it does, which is highlighted from the incorporation of culturalism within the platform of the company.

• Breaking from Medium Restrictions and Constraints: The application of medium barriers have significantly hindered the progress of the artists over the long term. However, the model utilized by Spotify within the music industry addresses and identifies this critical element.

To resolve this issue and offer better and improved opportunities for growth, Spotify identified and adopted a well-regulated, yet an open option that allowed the artists to test their creativity. As Spotify monitored this element, therefore, it was adequately taken care of without placing any pressure on the artists. In November 2020, Spotify began testing a new service that will help artists and labels control how their music is discovered on the platform. They can identify music that they wish to prioritize for the system to surface it to listeners using its personalization algorithms. [2]

Spotify’s Mission Statement

The mission statement of Spotify is based upon the idea, which is as follows: 

“Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity – by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.”

Spotify’s mission statement focuses on the transformation of these goals into reality and directed towards the achievement of the goals of the company from a broader perspective. In this regard, these are the key features of their mission statement:

• Improving Lives of the General Public: To ensure that the feature is satisfied, Spotify ensures that its platform is up-to-date and interactive. In this regard, the need to create sustainable livelihoods and providing a critical digital space is for its target audience is acknowledged by the company significantly.

Artists have a better chance to access and reach out to their broader fan base more efficiently by utilizing the respective platform of Spotify.

Furthermore, to make sure that the digital content produced by the artists reaches the appropriate audience through its criteria of targeting, hence making it profitable for individuals. As a result, the idea of enabling the artist “to live off their art” is echoed in the mission statement.

• Global Presence: The management of Spotify implemented a strategic approach that reaches out to as many users as possible so that the needs of the users can be satisfied at a global level. The principle idea of this approach is to ensure that their limitation for anyone, regardless of being a fan or an artist upon using the app. 

Regardless of genre, culture, or any other boundary, the company focuses upon ensuring connectivity with everyone. This can be identified from the fact that Spotify is proud of having coverage for accessing billions of fans and millions of artists, which allows it to reach its users on a global level. Spotify has been widening its lead as the largest music streaming service globally. It has 144 million paid users, which is more than double the users of second-placed Apple at around 60 million and third-placed Amazon Music at 55 million. [3]

Spotify’s Core Values

The core values of Spotify are: 

• Innovation: Spotify is always innovating new products and solutions to enhance the experience. In 2020, it rolled out a video feature that allows select podcasts like “Book of Basketball 2.0” and “The Morning Toast” to create and stream both audio and video content on its app. [4]

• Passion: The founders’ passion for music is the reason why Spotify was established. Since its launch in 2008, it has delivered over 60 million tracks to music lovers globally and redefined the way users experience music. [5]

• Collaboration: Spotify values collaboration and has recently partnered with big names like Joe Rogan, Michelle Obama, and Kim Kardashian West. It continues to experiment with new collaborative solutions and products, like the Group Session feature that allows users to collaborate on playlists. [6]

• Transparency: Spotify’s pricing model is transparent, which is divided into tiers like Student for $5/month, Individual for $10/month, Duo for $12/month, and Family for $15/month. 60% of users start as non-paying users. [7]

• Fairness: The streaming platform was created to provide equal and fair opportunities for content creators to benefit from their hard work. Spotify criticized Apple’s anti-competitive behavior after the rival rolled out the Apple One package, which bundles streaming music service with other services such as television or video games for $15 per month. The bundle disadvantages rival like Spotify that charges $10 a month for streaming music service only. [8]

As a result, everything is under check and in place in accordance with the expectations of management as these guiding principles are taken into consideration. Thus, Spotify’s management seeks to attain alignment with the objectives and goals of the company for the overall success of the vision and mission statement.

Spotify recognizes the fact that people do best upon their engagement with what they admire the most.

As a result, new approaches and designs are developed from the emergence of creativity according to the core values of the organization.

In addition, the emphasis on respect and sincerity is a significant reflection on the success of Spotify as the company promotes a culture of appropriate playfulness in its settings to avert boredom, while simultaneously interactive with everyone.

References & more information

1. Heater, B. (2020, October 29). Spotify hits 320 million monthly active users | Tech Crunch
2. Perez, S. (2020, November 2). Spotify will now allow artists and labels to promote tracks in your recommendations | Tech Crunch
3. Solsman, J. (2020, Oct. 29). Spotify soars to 320 million listeners, with 144 million paid members. | CNET
4. Rana, A. (2020, July 21). Spotify launches video feature for podcasts | Reuters
5. Newsroom, (2020, October). Company Info | Spotify
6. Perez, S. (2020, May 11). Spotify officially launches a shared-queue feature called Group Session | Tech Crunch
7. Martinez, G. (2020, Sep 2). Twitter Might Join LinkedIn and Spotify and Start Charging for a ‘Premium’ Service | Money
8. Nellis, S. (2020, Sep 15). Spotify criticizes the new Apple services bundle on antitrust grounds | Reuters

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