CASE STUDY: APPLE

Case Study: Apple



Case Study: Apple

Executive Summary

Apple Inc. is one of the most dominant technology companies of the early 21st century. Apple achieved high record revenue and growing figures in all types of customers, products and services in APJ & EMEA area. The company continues to grow faster than industry in all categories. New manufactory plants and sales offices are continually introduced to regions in order to save time and cost. The direct relationship model provides the powerful differentiator for the company to deliver satisfaction to customers of all sizes and types. These examples show success of Apple's customer-focused direct model that can be applied to all regions. It provides competitive advantage and opportunity for company's growth. Apple has focused most of the resources to support large commercial and institutional organisations segment to sustain its growth by delivering superior services over competitors. In fact, Apple sells more computer systems to business organisations than any other company in the world.

The company reported revenues of (U.S. Dollars) USD 108,249.00 million during the fiscal year ended September 2011, an increase of 65.96% over 2010. The operating profit of the company was USD 33,790.00 million during the fiscal year 2011, an increase of 83.79% over 2010. The net profit of the company was USD 25,922.00 million during the fiscal year 2011, an increase of 84.99% over 2010.

Analysis Of The Competitive Forces

It is observed that the two most important factors for the success of Apple, is to respond to the customers' demands and learning from the past mistakes. Offering quality products and put local people first in the way they conduct their business is the key strategy of Apple to beat the competitors like Dell and IBM in this competitive era. The relative positioning of Apple's market share with esteem to Dell and IBM in the market has showed as pursues. (Lashinsky 2012, 12-25)

According to the previous studies, it is observed and proved that the organisational behaviors influenced by various factors. It is important for Apple to work on its strategy process for meeting the customers' demand. It is necessary for Apple to focus on the changing needs and wants of the customers. For this, delivery time, product quality, distribution network, customer service, online sales and promotion are the deciding and underlying factors. Apple should know that the strategic planning which is a long term planning that takes into account the internal and external variables and identifies sectors and market segments and targeted method of competition. Apple's strategic planning is the process of rolling updated every year to study the external and internal developments. Planning of activities is the most important function of management.

In appendix figure 1 representation shows that the six decisive factors are considered for the comparison of Apple's products with Dell and IBM. The six factors include delivery time, product quality, distribution network, customer service, online sales and promotion, which are taken as the vital factors that determine the satisfactions of the customers which ultimately affect the overall ...