Corporate and Business Level Strategies

Corporate and Business Level Strategies

Introduction

This paper intends to explore the strategies of Apple Inc. The main focus of the paper is on corporate level strategies and business level strategies of Apple Inc. Further, to deeply analyze strategies and growth of a competitor of same industry IBM has also been analyzed briefly. In addition to this, US Securities and Exchange Commission filing of Apple Inc is discussed briefly.

Discussion

Securities and Exchange Commission

Apple Inc announced in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission of US that Tim Cook, Chief executive after late Steve Jobs, have said to exclude him from a recent formulated program of the firm where the staff shall be able to accumulate dividends on their restricted stick unit, which is still vesting (Gupta, 2012).

The securities and exchange commission of US disclosed that Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 third quarter ended June 30, 2012. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $35.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.8 billion, or $9.32 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.6 billion and net profit of $7.3 billion, or $7.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 42.8 percent compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter's revenue.

Corporate Level Strategies

Apple today is a company which is vertically forward integrated by operating its own distribution channels such as the criticized expensive retail stores. If Apple wants to stay vertically integrated it has to start controlling costs and for instance enter into lease agreements for its stores, which are less expensive. To experience cost reduction effects, Apple has to continue its policy of outsourcing major parts of the products and getting more suppliers to provide them with key components in order to be independent of a particular supplier. The outsourcing efforts should include more value chain activities and as suppliers with their superior efficiency in producing components at lower costs can pass on these savings to the company, Apple can benefit greatly through outsourcing and likewise concentrate on its core competencies design and innovation. The last choice would be the horizontal integration, expected to yield cost savings through M&A, but reality shows us that often these actions fail to realize these anticipated gains. To sum it up the key to a better performance for Apple is to reduce its cost structure through a reduction in marketing expenses, a multifaceted supply chain, and a combination of differentiation and cost leadership strategies bringing together the important elements from both, resulting in a lower C (cost) and a higher V (value) for the customer due to the now made possible price reduction.

Uniqueness of Macintosh

It can be observed that Apple is in an exclusive position. No other company in the computing sector than Apple has survived producing both, hardware and software. Thus, Apple can't and shouldn't be analyzed only as a PC manufacturing enterprise, but also as software programmer, server producer, peripherals fabricator, and online content ...