Introduction
Apple Inc. is a corporation that was started by Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak who were friends in high school. Through innovation by Wozniac and push from Jobs, they sold the first Apple 1 on April 1 1976. However, the company took off in 1977 when the Apple 11 was introduced into the trade show then after its incorporation on January 3 1977 in California. The company has grown in size, technology, modernization and has spread its products all over the world over the many years since its introduction. Some of its current products include the I Pad, I Mac, I Pod, I phone and the I tunes all of which people from all over around the world have come to appreciate and like. The products come with unique features that keep on reinventing themselves so that they remain relevant in the constantly changing technological and IT developed world (Linzmayer, 2004).
Apple Inc. has applied moderate to high level of diversification with related amounts of constrains. The products they offer use similar designs and its majority applications can be used in many devices without altering the formats. They have retail stores all around the world and customers can order for products online. Demonstrating that the company is creating shareholder value in their actions and the initiatives they are involved in and not reaping the benefits they are in charge of remains a challenge. To ensure that value is added to every business in the portfolio of the company and the value must be greater than the cost involved. It must identify in detail the ways in which the various businesses can be helped.
The help must be able to cause an improvement in the performance of the business in the end. These improvements are identified and agreed on through various dialogue processes and systems of business planning. The central managements have the skills necessary to provide the help just in case need arise. This is because of the fact that different improvement needs different forms of help. A portfolio of businesses help to allocate and fit well the skills needed with the present needs. The employees work on constantly appraising their skills of the business keep on changing constantly.
The management is constantly aware of the requirements that are needed for business to succeed and ensure that applying them shall not damage the business. It is a well-documented process on the decision making process that ensures that the company is able to thrive for long, is continuously competitive and that it does not fail. The management ability to deal with problems as they arise and solve them without using many resources to do so in the end helps the company reduce operational costs (Hill & Jones, 2012). The conditions in which the organization operates in, the resources available and their capability to solve problems and the strategic mindset are the key ingredients for a great strategy. Use of a structural approach can help greatly in beating out competition this is because it helps to leverage the core strengthen of the organization to achieve an acceptable level of the risk adjusted returns in the market.
The company’s early entry into the technology industry has enabled it to remain strong throughout the years. It has given the company dominance in the world and ensured the company’s success overtime. The management of the company that has been efficient and organized has also contributed to this success. The well-crafted business strategies however, are the ones that have ensure that the business has remain relevant and continuity over the years. The strategies include cost leadership that involves the company ensuring that the production process of the product and the distribution as well is relative and does not diminish the available resources.
Lowering the production costs and the management costs gives the company a competitive edge to the competitors as then the production process does not cost the company a lot of money and therefore, they are able to provide the products to the customers at a good price. This has made the gross margins more enhanced and maximizing the profit levels of the company. A tight control of the cost of labor and reducing the costs that are input ensures control of costs in the company. Differentiation has been achieved through providing products that are unique and are not copied from the competitors.
Ensuring the products have a good competitive edge to those that have been provided by the competitor makes, the customers come back for some repeat purchase. This has however, caused an increase in production cost of the company but the many customers that purchase the unique products counter the high costs of production. The costs have to be consciously watched to ensure that they do not cause losses to the company. Focus on a particular niche in the market such as the digital music has seen vital in the company’s success. Specialization such as focusing on the young generation because they are the ones who are more interested in technical advancement has brought about success. Focusing on the elite in the society also has some benefit such as in provision of the iMovie, iTunes and the Garage Band (Hill & Jones, 2012). Focus on such products has brought about innovations such as the music editing software and these help to bringing in more customers.
Focusing on a certain market niche use of differentiation and the cost leadership model has enabled the company to remain top notch in technology business. Taking products to the places where other companies have not has enabled the company to establish some footprints in these areas and hence more customers that, culminates into profit for the company. The company’s ability to adapt to the changes in the environment has enabled the company to remain relevant despite the prevailing changes. The company employee’s keeps on learning new skills and technologies that help them compete well with the competitors (Harrison, 2010). Well leveraged core competencies in all the business units and across all the products lines has enabled the company to produce products that are well differentiated and are with produced in a cost efficient way. Establishing analyzing a chain of values on a constant basis helps in relation to the competitors value chain enables show ways of cutting costs and adding value to the customer’s transactions that shall provide a competitive advantage in the end.
The world has however, been going through changes and revolutions witnessed in globalization, changes in technology that are constant and markets becoming liberal which has some significant effects on the company. This has induced a need for change to grow so that the company can stabilize in the market. The company has continuously improved its performance levels and has reached optimum evils of performance overtime. This has therefore called for strategies that shall help enhance performance in its sales, profit levels, the market share it holds, coverage in the market, the product mix and in the variables for accounting. Improving growth thorough enhanced market penetration levels through provision efficient services. Vertical integration helps to beat competition in the market by inputting the activities done by suppliers into its channel of distribution, which helps to cut on cost (Harrison, 2010). Looking for business ventures that have great potential in them help to boost sales levels and operations of the company. Restructuring the management in the company and the organizational model help to keep all employees focused and they are able to understand better the working of the company.
Each company established in the world is bound to have competitors unless it is a monopoly in the market. Healthy competition is unavoidable because it ensures that the company keeps on reinventing itself in the market so that it remains relevant. This is beneficial to the customers as then they are able to get the best of the product that they need and a fair price. Apples major competitor is Samsung and especially in China, which is world highest, populated country although the competition is all over the world especially in the USA.
The devices such as the Samsung, HTC, The Coolpad and many others use the Android operating system hence accounting for over 75% of the world’s smartphone market (Linzmayer, 2004). This poses a big danger for apple especially for the fact that the network effects might be able to deliver more value to customers than the Apples approach. This calls for a need for Apple to venture to blue oceans with innovations and very hard choices in order to maintain the market share. The ability to come up with a new device that defines the market a new is the only sure way for apple to strengthen its hold in the market share. Samsung does not differentiate its products much in the market though it applies the cost analysis in that the company is able to produce products at a cheap price and therefore offer them to the customers at a pocket friendly price. Samsung has been able to take the products to new markets unlike the Apple Inc. In that, the products are available in Africa. This has increased the customer base in these areas. Therefore, Samsung is dominant more in the market currently because the products are cheaper even though the products are not unique and hence are easily accessible by people around the world.
Conclusion
My choice would however differ in a fast market as Apple. Inc. has shown its ability to differentiate its product in the market by producing unique products and hence remaining competitive in relation to its competitors. In a slow market Samsung would win in terms of competition because the products are usually of a lower price and therefore within the reach of its customers. However, each company has its own competitive advantage because Apple focus is on a particular niche and unique has enabled it to capture its market share and Samsung’s low price of the product and then taking the products to new Ares have enabled them to capture a good portion of the market share.
References
Harrison, J. S., & St, J. C. H. (2010). Foundations in strategic management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Hill, C. W. L., & Jones, G. R. (2012). Essentials of strategic management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western/Cengage Learning.
Linzmayer, O. W. (2004). Apple confidential 2.0: The definitive history of the world's most colorful company. San Francisco, Calif: No Starch Press.
