Strategic Planning of IT Company



Strategic Planning of IT Company

Introduction

Currently, I am serving as a senior manager of Hadrons, which is an IT company. Apple Inc. is one of the key rivals of my organization. I came across a case study about Apple in Harvard Business Review. Since, environmental scanning is the first phase in strategic management therefore, a SWOT analysis of Apple may help me with crafting my own strategies. Initially, I will perform a SWOT analysis by identifying factors responsible for Apple's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. After reviewing the SWOT analysis of Apple, I will propose a strategy and a product to take advantage of vulnerabilities of Apple Inc. to help increase my company's market share.

Discussion

Apple Inc. is the 2nd biggest information technology organization, in terms of revenue after Nokia and Samsung. Apple Inc. is responsible for developing and designing personal computers, consumer electronics and software of computer. Apple Inc. also designs hardware. The hardware designed by Apple Inc. may include music player (iPod), the smart phone (iPhone), tablet computer (iPad), and the Mac line of computer. Apple Inc. also designs and develops software. The software may include operating system of iOS, Operating System X (OS X), media browser (iTunes), web browser (the safari) and iWork and iLife production and creativity suites.

Apple Inc. is considered as the first IT Company, which introduced iPhone series. The organization planned to upgrade the iPhone series by introducing iPhone5. This up gradation led the organization to ultimate failure and eventually affected the reputation of organization in the targeted market. It is because of the reason that, the up gradation eventually affected the performance, features and other applications of iPhone series (Baig and LeVitus, 2012).

SWOT Analysis of Apple Inc.

Strengths

It has a strong brand name and positioning. Many people consider Apple as the leading market brand in the industry in which it is operating. It provides high quality of products, services and software applications that have important features to answer to the needs and requirements of its customers. Its strong brand name and awareness in people give Apple an advantage over its competitors, through increased sales and offers. I phones, I pad and IPods are some valuable products that are current market leaders in the industry. Its brand name and image has created strong barriers of entry in the industry for its competitors, and it also has an advantage of setting premium prices of its products. Apple has left behind many competitors like Sony and IBM.

Its global presence and recognition is yet another very important strong point. It has retail outlets in every continent of the world like Asia, America, Africa and European countries. Its online stores also cater to customers living in different parts of the world. Surprisingly, 50 percent of Apples revenue and sales come from other regions and parts of the world. This shows that it has strong global presence and recognition.

It has a strong position and performance in terms of its financial ...