Spotify: A Comprehensive Analysis (Integrative Group Project, CNAM Paris)

The Integrative Group Project (IGP) is a year-long applied strategy exercise built into the first year of the Master’s in Management program at CNAM Paris. Each group of five or six students is assigned a sector, spends a semester researching one company within it, and delivers three graded outputs: a short sector note, a full strategic report, and a defense in front of a jury of supervisors. My group was assigned the digital music streaming sector, alongside two other groups covering Tidal and Qobuz, and we chose to focus on Spotify.

This entry holds both deliverables. I wrote them together with four groupmates, Abhinay Singh, Badr-Eddine Aissani, Nabeel Gibran, and Zakariya, under the supervision of Alexis Pokrovsky, with Christelle Pezon and Jean-Michel Raicovitch acting as the “consultant” reviewers partway through. Neither document is solo work, and I want that on record here rather than left implicit.

The Sector Note

The first deliverable, due in March, was a three-page synthetic note on the music streaming industry as a whole: market size and growth, the major platforms and their relative share, consumer behavior shifts (the “skipping culture,” passive playlist listening), the range of monetization and royalty-distribution models in use across the industry, and where the sector seemed to be heading with AI, VR, and blockchain-based royalty experiments.

The Analysis

The second deliverable, due in May, went deep on Spotify specifically: its founding story and strategic evolution from anti-piracy tool to the leading global audio platform, a Porter’s Five Forces read on its competitive position, a BCG matrix placing Premium subscriptions, the ad-supported tier, podcasts, and legacy features into their respective quadrants, its business model canvas , governance and people practices, marketing strategy, and a full financial teardown from 2016 through Q1 2025, including the company’s pivot to profitability in 2024 and its public ambition to reach €100 billion in annual revenue by 2032.

Both documents are free to download below, exactly as submitted for grading.