Businesses need to be competitive in order to ensure growth and profitability in the future. Businesses must focus on their core business function and develop operational strategies to ensure they are competitive within their market. Operational strategies such as setting performance objectives and developing new products and designs are integral to businesses in achieving cost leadership and product differentiation. Ultimately, ensuring businesses like Apple remain competitive.
Apple is a multinational cooperation renowned for designing, developing and selling consumer electronics and software. Apple is one of the largest revenue making companies in the world. Apple has a competitive advantage over companies such as Samsung, Blackberry and Sony in mobile phones and tablet markets. Apple gains its competitive advantage through differentiating their products and services as well as achieving cost leadership.
Apple positions their products as high-end innovative technology (as seen in figure 1). As a way of differentiating themselves from competitors like Samsung, Apple implement operational strategies such as performance objectives, new product or service design and development, supply chain management, inventory management, technology, outsourcing, quality control, overcoming resistance to change and global factors. The main objective of Apples operational strategies is to achieve cost leadership in their production giving Apple an advantage even before they promote and market their products.
Based on Apple’s position in comparison with its competitors the following operational strategies could be implemented to sustain a competitive advantage:
Apple places a high emphasis on setting its performance objec...
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...ghest quality good/service. Apple’s suppliers must understand this dynamic and apply ongoing improvement and be flexible in responding to changing business conditions. In order to for the product to remain consistent and reliable Apple conducts regular internal checks to see whether there are any production or quality issues. Apple conducts regular quality control checks through their Supplier information database, which enables Apple procurement professionals to access key information about present and potential suppliers including their capabilities, supplier Diversity certifications and contact information. Whilst Apple did receive complaints that the iPhone 5 had scratches on them before they used it, to combat this issue Apple had a quality control check at their Foxconn factory where they told the employees that standards had to be significantly increased.
Since 2010, Apple has been one of the most valuable companies in the world. Apple has owned the top slot on an annual basis from 2012 onwards. Apple is an American multinational corporation that designed, manufactured and marketed a range of personal computers, mobile communication and media devices and portable digital music players and sold a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions and third party digital content and applications. The company’s best known hardware products include Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes iTunes media browser, the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software, the iWork suite of productivity software and Aperture, a professional photography
Cutting costs by competitors is the most logical way for competitors to be more competitive in the market. By cutting costs, there are more profits to be made and to gain market share by offering lower cost substitute products. The industry is flooded by competition, but no other competitor of Apple really focuses on creating great technical upport or brand loyalty. (Elliot, 2014)Apple’s primary focus is to develop innovative products and create a unique product that consumers can depend on the being the most highly anticipated technological device while offering great service and support for these new products. Apple uses business model innovation which introduces new products that are compatible with each other such as iTunes and the iPhone or ipod. This has proven to be a very effective business model and competitors are trying to replicate the same model to their advantage. (Jakab, 2015) By being an innovator and first mover on this type of technology, it gave Apple the competitive advantage in the market. In order for competitors to be more effective in the industry, they must attempt to gain customer loyalty and offer a simliar business strategy to that of Apple if they are to be the industry
“Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.”
The company not only produces the number of highly technological devices, but also has a great brand ideology lying behind. The following chapters would review each of factors determining Apple`s success.
Apple has made reasonable management of its human and material resources since its innovational approach demands effective strategic allocation of its resources to the development and utilization of its productive resources to support its innovative investment strategies. Effective strategic control brings power to Apple’s decision-makers to allocate its resources to confront the technological, market, and competitive uncertainties which are inherent in the innovation
According to Ideavist (2011), due to the increase in competition as rival companies try to capture a piece of the market share leads businesses to employ various tactics to handle such situations. Some of the strategies used by companies and that Apple could find very constructive could include the below marketing strategies to be used for future success.
Apple Inc, founded in 1976 by Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Jobs, headquartered in California, is a multinational technology giant. Developing, designing, creating consumer electronics, computer software, online services. Well-known for the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers, Siri and the IOS operating systems transfer and sync on all Apple devices with just one click. Consumers like myself are fascinated with all things Apple. Apple fashioned an assortment of devices and programs that are not only visually cool but also easy to use and makes my life easier.
Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who were determined to change the way people were utilizing the computer. From then Apple has been able to grow its business into one of the most prominent company in the world. Apple Inc. is an American company that creates software, cellular phones, computers and consumer electronic products as well. Some of the Apple products most recognized products are the iPod, iPhone, Mac, and the recently new iPad. They have established over 300 retail stores in about 10 countries around the world. Many people do not know this, but also service numerous of computer software, such as Mac OS X operating system, Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio, iOS, which is a mobile operating system that hosts
of a firm to attain new forms of competitive advantage (Müller, 2011). It is due to these
Plan of Action: Apple’ main philosophy is to continue to have creative ways of thinking, have a business model of direct sales, provide customer services, and provide Apple named products (Jinjin, 2013). The business is dedicated to bringing about the most excellent user involvement to its clients via its ingenious software, hardware, and service delivery. Apple’s plan of action advantage is that it has a par...
From 1980 to 1996, Apple’s competitive range in the PC industry was rocky. Although Apples products were unique and well built, they were overpriced compared to competing products from IBM and others. As competitor prices dropped, Apple prices stayed the same and the company saw a decline in sales as customers opted to purchase from its competitors. John Sculley, former CEO of Apple, took many steps to improve the company’s competitive advantage. One of those steps was to compete with price by producing a low-cost computers that appealed to a mass-market. The second step was to form an alliance with rivals IBM and Novel in order to create new operating systems and applications...
Apple Inc. was established by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak on April 1, 1976 as a computer designer, developer and seller company. However, the company shifted its focus from only personal computer to include other consumer electronics such as portable media player and mobile phone in 2007. Apple Inc becomes one of the most popular makers in its field since it seems that its popularity has increased according to a report on www.statista.com that Apple Inc’s products sales was generally increasing throughout the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2014. On the one hand, it has increased its revenue from about 14 billion US dollars to more than 170 billion US dollars in 2013. All in all, the company is highly successful corresponding to its products’ development and their sales growth in world’s market.
Apple keeps product SKUs simple, the salespeople inside the stores have the in depth knowledge of the products. Just think that when you enter an Apple store and one of the sales staff greets you, you’re not asked, “How can I help you?” Rather they ask, “What would you like to do today?” They satisfy you by going to the heart of any technology user’s question, any question related to the technologyand the user is interested in.
Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker. “Fortune” magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.
Introduction and Background Apple, Inc is a well known name in the computer technology world; Apple, Inc leads the computer industry in innovation thanks to the award winning desktop and notebook computer known as OS X operating system (Yoffie & Slind, 2008). This paper will focus on Apple Inc., strategic management and why is it critical to the success of the organization in meeting its goals and mission. It is therefore important to define strategic management, according to Certo, Peter & Ottensmeyer, (2005), strategic management is a continuous process that directs an organization to be appropriately suited to its internal and external environment. Strategic management benefits organizations by providing personnel, capital, helps to set standards and most importantly activates people. For an organization to have a successful strategic management plan, the mangers must learn to think strategically and have the ability to evaluate their environment and develop new ideas.