Question

Choose a Fortune 500 company (Apple)

Competitive Intelligence, Demographics, Porter's 5 Forces, Value Chain Analysis, Resource-

Based View, Balanced Scorecard, Human Capital, and Social Capital.

Write a report applying specific course concepts from the readings,

Competitive Advantage-Porter’s Generic Strategies, The Experience

Curve, Industry Life Cycle Stages, Turnaround Strategies, Vertical Integration, Portfolio

Management and the BCG Matrix, Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures, Competitive

Dynamics, Culture, and Organization Structure.

Choose a Fortune 500 company "APPLE''

Write a report applying specific course concepts. Examples are

Competitive Intelligence, Demographics, Porter's 5 Forces, Value Chain Analysis, Resource-Based View, Balanced Scorecard, Human Capital, and Social Capital.

The research case analysis may draw on items from the online environment—newspapers,

magazines, and websites—to provide current (i.e., within the last year) .

The research case analysis should fully address the following points in this order please

-The organization you have chosen "APPLE''

-Discuss the company utilizing specific course concepts from this week's

reading by citing the name of the concept if possible

(weeks reading are:

Chapter 3: Assessing the Internal Environment of the Firm

Chapter 4: Recognizing a Firm’s Intellectual Assets: Moving Beyond a Firm’s Tangible Resources

-what practical managerial implications the material has

This research case analysis may draw on items from the online environment—newspapers,

magazines, and websites—to provide current (i.e., within the last year) examples of course-

related topics like Business Strategy from this week's reading assignment). Relevance and

probable interest to the class are especially welcome.

The research case analysis should fully address the following points

The organization you have chosen (Apple)

Discuss the Apple utilizing specific course concepts from this week's assigned

reading by citing the name of the concept.

what practical managerial implications the material

references.

for text book, I am using Strategic Management by Gregory Dess.

Thank you .

Answer 1

Apple Inc. is a multinational firm with high recognition in the target markets having a grocery and retail business all around the world. Apple Inc is a market leader by having a competitive advantage and many other strategies that Apple Inc has played well in the past years thus, still being sustainable in this dynamic environment thereof.

There are 2 main Porter Generic Strategies that are used by the Apple Inc to achieve this high platform:

1. Differentiation: Differentiation is the another strategy used by the Apple Inc to gain competitive advantage. Apple Inc has always been very differentiated in all of the aspects of its Marketing. Being it promotion, prices, quality of products etc Apple Inc always tries innovation and brings the best and newest things to offer its customers. For example, the logo of the Apple Inc is so unique that anyone can easily remember the logo and shop from it. By not following the crowd and norms, Apple Inc follows and creates its own techniques to rule the market.

2. Focus Strategy: Apple Inc adopts the focus strategy both in terms of Cost and and Quality. It also focus on some segments of the market snd design the products only for the targeted market, thus helps it to use the focus strategy to perform better effectively and efficiently in the market.

Industry Life Cycle Stages: The Industry Life Cycle denotes the different stages an industry or a company goes through. The different stages of this cycle are:

• Startup: It is a phase where a company starts its operations and the initial phase is begin. Operations are more and profits are the least in this phase.
• Growth: It is a stage when an industry gradually sees itself growing and becoming a better industry and profits starts increasing too.
• Shakeout: It is a time in the market where many companies eliminate and many industries doesn't exists anymore. It is a time when only the strong and better companies withstand.
• Maturity: By going through the stakeout, it is a phase where a company is its peek maturity. Profits are the most and company is enjoying all the benefits.
• Decline: Thus after seeing all the phases, it is a phase where a company tends to decline and profits tends to decrease too due to other competition in the market.

Apple Inc can be seen in the Maturity stage of the Industry Life Cycle.

Turnaround Strategies: Being in the profit, Apple Inc still has a distinctive feature of being competitive ahead of everyone. In 2018, reports have analysed that Apple Inc will employee more than 132,000 employees all around the globe and boost wages to become more profitable company and will always be in the market to compete and turn its loses into more profits.

Vertical Integration: Bringing the development of chips in-house means Apple will be controlling the component parts as well as the end product leading to lower overheads, therefore reduced costs, as well as bolstering Apple’s efforts to create its own solutions, enabling it to generate more efficient power-management chips to improve products such as AirPods and Apple Watch. Vertical integration has been the key to Apple’s success for a long time and, while the likes of Google, Microsoft and Samsung also employ this strategy, e.g. Samsung makes its own displays, there are also areas where they are reliant on other suppliers, e.g. Android smartphone makers rely on Qualcomm for their core processors. While vertical integration is prevalent across these types of companies, Apple is difficult to compete with because it sells hardware, software, services and has its own retail space and this recent acquisition of Dialog helps Apple to vertically integrate even further. To secure a competitive edge themselves, other smartphone providers may look at ways to further vertically integrate, and the fact that Samsung has recently moved away from Qualcomm to develop processor chips in-house could be evidence of this.

BCG Matrix is a matrix which shows various results of the company performance by the virtue of its product line and how much cost it is asserting on different products.

Stars show high growth and high market share.

Question Mark should high growth and low market share.

Big cash cows have low growth and high market share.

Dogs have low growth and low market shares.

CASH COWS:

There are two products of Apple that fall under the Cash Cow category of BCG Matrix of Apple, the first being Apple iTunes and the second being Apple MacBook and iMac’s.

Over the years iTunes, MacBook and iMac’s have attained the position of being a Cash Cow for the company.

The company has carved a niche for itself and has its own base of loyalists who prefer Apple products only.

But since the computing industry is slowly becoming portable and mobile, the need to have laptops and desktops are also decreasing, hence we can add Apple iMac and MacBooks in Dogs category as well.

STARS:

The business units that represent the star of an organization also share the feature of having a high market share, but what makes them different from cash cows is that their respective industry can still expand further.

For Apple, their iPhones are undoubtedly are the Stars for them. With every new launch of Apple iPhone, the company manages to set new sales records.

Know for its design and technology prowess, Apple iPhones have its own set of loyalists thanks to which it easily manages to stride off the competition available in the market.

Apple iPad and Apple Smartwatch are also regarded as the Stars for the company and are currently in the transition to become the Cash Cows for the company.

QUESTION MARK:

Apple TV makes a bit of money, but it’s not reaching its true potential.

If Apple can solve a few ecosystem problems, they could really own the TV space. There are tons of rumors of an Apple TV product that might just maybe dominate like the iPod/iPhone/i Pad

DOGS:

Dogs are those products that were perceived to have the potential to grow but however failed to create magic due to the slow market growth.

Failure to deliver the expected results makes the product a source of loss for the organization, propelling the management to withdraw future investment in the venture. Since the product is not expected to bring in any significant capital, future investment is seen as a wastage of company resources, which could be invested in a Question mark or Star category instead.

Apple iPods were considered the next big thing when they were introduced in the market but eventually failed to create a significant impact due to high competition and low customer demand.

In BCG Matrix of Apple, Apple iPods can easily be placed in the Dogs category.

Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures are the partnerships that can be done among various existing companies to earn more profits and sustain in the market. Apple Inc and Beats announced the strategic partnership. Apple Inc will open 35 Express outlays in the Beats location across the world.

Competitive Dynamics, culture and Organisation Structure: By maintaining all the above mentioned facts, Apple Inc already has a huge Competitive advantage and dynamics that can be seen and felt by its employees and customers all around. The 3 basic factors that company works upon to maintain its culture and name are:

Transparency: Prioritise transparency in your organisation. Let the information flow and everybody should know what is going on around in the company.

Hire for Culture Fit: Hire people according to the culture you have maintained in the organisation. By this, greater jobs, satisfaction and dignity of the employees can be maintained.

Make people feel like they belong: At last, Love and Respect is the most important part. Make people believe like they belong in the organisation. Inclusion and Diversity are the biggest factors of contributors.

International Strategy Creating Values for the global market: The only value that Apple Inc follows is by providing authentic and healthy food items with trust all around the globe. By being more than 44 Years in the Market, Apple Inc has won the trust of millions to share and be a brand where the authenticity and quality can be achieved through customer satisfaction and trust and by providing bundle of values for your money.