...Abstract This essay will explain the importance of a SWOT analysis for a business. It will research Apple, Inc., and explain their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The paper will show how these aspects impact the company. It will provide methods that management can use to overcome their weaknesses and threats, as well as how to take advantage of opportunities and strengths. The importance of a SWOT analysis A SWOT analysis is important to an organization because it analyzes the climate of the company overall. It provides a candid look at the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This allows management teams to decide how to best use the strengths of the company, and how to improve the weaknesses. When goal setting and long-term planning, these are areas that either can be exploited, or need improvement. When reviewing opportunities and threats, an organization must look at its corporate environment. The opportunities are aspects of the environment that a company can take advantage of such as a way to expand or grow customers. Threats to an organization can come in many forms. A company must make every effort to avoid or minimize threats to its bottom line, or even its mere existence. A SWOT analysis helps to identify what is good and what needs improvement in a company. While strengths and weaknesses are the internal indicators of an organization’s need for improvement, opportunities and threats are the external forces that determine needed...
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...UNIVERSITY OF AGDER | Term Paper - Apple | ORG 409-1, INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT | Ole Erik H. Larsen 25.09.2015 | Innhold 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 2 3 PORTER´S STRATEGIC GROUPS 3 4 SWOT - ANALYSIS 5 5 CONCLUSION/REVIEWS 6 5.1 Future research 7 6 SOURCES 8 6.1 Guidebook 8 6.2 Internet 8 6.3 Pictures: 8 1 INTRODUCTION Apple is an American multinational technology company that constantly designs, develop and sells consumer electronics, online services, computer software and personal computers. Its best known products are the Mac line of computers, the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet computer, and the Apple Watch smartwatch. Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976, to develop and sell personal computers. By revenue Apple is the second-largest information technology company in the world, after Samsung Electronics. On November 25, 2014 in addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization, Apple became the first U.S. company to be valued at over US$700 billion. As of March 2015, Apple employs 98.000 permanent full-time employees, maintains 453 retail stores in sixteen countries, and operates the online Apple store and iTunes Store. ITunes are otherwise the world’s largest music retailer. Apple has in recent years enjoyed an outstanding success in technology, and the company has grown to become one of the most valuable brands in the world...
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...APPLE ANALYSIS REPORT TESLA GROUP Table of Contents PART I: Introduction .............................................................................................................3 PECTS analysis........................................................................................................3-4 Strategy (Step-segmentation, targeting, positioning) analysis) ...............................4-5 Competitor Analysis.................................................................................................5-6 SWOT Analysis........................................................................................................6-8 Product Analysis.......................................................................................................8 Promotion/advertising Analysis................................................................................8-9 Pricing Analysis........................................................................................................9 PART II: Recommendation I: Focus On Product Quality......................................................10-11 Recommendation II: Expand International Trade Market......................................11-12 Recommendation III: Design and Innovation.........................................................12 Work cited...............................................................................................................13...
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...Porter’s Five Forces analysis is a model used for industry analysis. Apple plays a significant role in four businesses, namely the communication equipment industry, the music and video industry, the mobile phones industry, and the personal computer (PC) industry. Because its participation in the overall PC industry is comparatively small compared to its other products, only the first three industries shall be analysed here. Apple’s overall business includes eight product lines: iPhone , its related products and services; iPad and related products and services, Mac portables and other music related products and services, Mac desktops, iPod, software, services and other hardware (Apple, Inc., 2014; GCEIP, 2014). 3.1 Bargaining Power of Buyers Communication Equipment Industry Buyer power is moderate. Apple communications equipment caters to individual buyers, but each buyer has little bargaining power as he/she bargains for him/herself alone. If the company loses just one consumer, the effect on the company will be insignificant. Collectively, however, buyer power may be more significant, as switching costs are low. Fixed line telecommunication devices have a low degree of differentiation and there is little innovation taking place in this area, for which reason buyers are sensitive to price levels and could easily transfer from one supplier to another. Apple’s major competitors in this market include Lenovo, Nokia, and Samsung (GCEIP, 2014; CEIPUK, 2014). Music and Video...
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...Apple Ashley Dr. Allen Barclay Marketing Management: BADM 471 12/14/14 Internal Environment Background Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, both college dropouts, founded the Apple Company on April 1976. Their partnership started several years before they created Apple. Wozniak, a self-taught electronics engineer, built a box that was able to call long-distance for free. They couldn’t simply make enough money with how small their company was, so they decided to expand ("Reference for Business."). To help expand Apple, Jobs hired Mike Markkula. Markkula is a retired engineer who also managed the marketing department for Intel Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor. Markkula bought one third of Apple Company for $250,000. He was a huge help with the business plan ("Reference for Business."). Jobs also hired Regis McKenna. McKenna was the owner of one of the most successful advertising and public relation firms in Silicon Valley. McKenna was hired to create an advertising strategy for the company. Regis’ idea was to put personal computers in consumer magazines. With the professional marketing team, in 1977 Apple 2 reached annual sales of $1 million. Regis created the Apple logo ("Reference for Business."). Refer to appendix A for a basic timeline of apple history. Products Apple products are not like other products. The products are easy to use and they have features that other products don’t have. For instances, the mouse on the macs are unique compared to those...
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...4 Situational Analysis 4 Possible results in case of failure: 5 PESTEL Analysis 6 SWOT Analysis 7 Samsung Marketing Mix 8 Product 8 Price: 8 Place: 8 Promotion: 8 Recommendations 8 References: 9 Introduction Samsung is a based in the South Korea and known as the multinational organization. In Suwon its head office is located. With the brand name of Samsung and company name Samsung Electronics Company limited, it is well recognized brand in the world and in development associations in its high revenue and sales. Its product list that includes mobile phones, TV and second other semiconductor chip creator are well known as recognized in the world (Haslam, Tsitsianis, Andersson, & Yin, 2013). From a long time Samsung is producing and manufacturing electronic components and hardware. These hardware lists include different components like semiconductors, chips, flash memories. Competitors of the Samsung in this field are Apple and HTC. Samsung equipment evacuated Apple Inc as the world's greatest development association in 2011 and is noteworthy bit of South Korean economy. In June 2014 Samsung dispersed the Tizen OS with new Samsung Z (Gaikar & Gaikar, 2014). Samsung’s achieved a great growth and success when it introduced Smartphone in mobile phone industry. This report deals with the Samsung and its product of smart phone under which internal and external factors will be evaluated. It is also known as the situational analysis....
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...FINANCIAL ANALYSIS: Apple, Inc NAME: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Apple Inc. is an American company whose reach is multinational. Apple designs, manufacturers personal computers, consumer electronics, software, as well as services related to each of the primary areas just discussed. Apple’s 2013 10-K reports that “The Company designs, manufacturers, and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computes, and portable digital music players, and sells a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. Despite the MP3 players having already been introduced to the world, it was not until Apple released its version of what it felt an MP3 player should look and feel like that the mass market took notice. Apple released its initial MP2 player, its iPod, in 2001. Since the release of that product, Apple has experienced a ridiculous amount of growth. In fact, Apple has been listed as one of the most successful electronics companies in the world (Apple’s 2013 10-K). With Steve Jobs back in control at Apple, The Company did anything but rest on its laurels. Of these primary areas in which Apple focuses, the most important of these is its communication and media devices division. AS Suman Chatterjee (2013) writers in an article published on SeekingAlpha.com, “With the release of the iPhone 5 and strong ties with Verizon (with a US market share of 31.9%) and AT&T (with a US...
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...Introduction The current global and virtual business environment shapes the business strategy for the aim of competing by knowledge and expertise to win the market share in the long run. Apple Inc. is one of the major leading hardware manufacturers, originates from the United States and is popular among the world. Its long-term direction could be strengthening the research, design, development and manufacturing phases. The success of this company relies its competitive strategy, which integrates its core resources, company structure and business process and stimulates targeted customers effectively as well as attracts more customers. In the meanwhile, the success of Apple Inc. is due to the support from strategic marketing. This report for Apple Inc. will analyze strategically about Apple in terms of its business description first with company profile, financial description and future direction in it. Furthermore, the sustainable business strategies that Apple adopts will be described in detail and the effectiveness of them will also be proposed one by one. The author also makes use of one of the classic tools, SWOT analysis, to give all-around insight of its competiveness strategies in terms of advantages and disadvantages. Some suggestions will appear in the end of this report as well. Business Description Company Profile The business description comes from its financial report: “The Company designs, manufactures, and markets mobile communication and media...
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...flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group, accounting for 70% of the group's revenue. Since the introduction of monochrome television sets in 1971, it has grown on average 38 percent a year, broadening its product range from simple consumer electronics and home appliances to advanced information and communication equipment, computers and peripherals and semiconductors (Renee, 2007) . It is currently the world's largest manufacturer of mobile and smart phones, LCD Panels and televisions and displaced Apple Inc. as the largest technology company in 2011 (Renee, 2007). Industry boundary Samsung electronics has the following divisions * Consumer electronics (CE) : CTV ,visual display appliances ,printers ,washing machines refrigerators and medical devices * IT and mobile communication (IM) :Hand held phones ,network system computer and digital camera, mobile communications * Device solutions(DS) : DRAM,NAMD Flash ,mobile AP,LCD panel, OLED panel and LEDs (Samsung Electronics, 2014) This illustrates the industry boundaries within with it...
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... IV. Assess efficiency of techniques used when developing strategic business plans V. CONCLUSION REFERENCE VI. I. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, business strategy is core element of all firms in over the world. Before building a business, participating in a new sector or new market, successful firms always deliberately research market, trends of customer, their strength and their weakness to create an appropriate strategy. Especially vision, mission, objectives and core competence are important factors in business strategy. This study will show you the analyses and evaluations about different aspects of business strategy and focus on vision, mission, objectives and competences. It will demonstrate for us about the function of SWOT, PESTEL and Porter 5 forces on the business. II. Assess how business missions, visions, objectives, goals and core competencies inform strategic planning 1. Mission Mission statement is a function or commitment that an organization desires to meet expectations of stakeholders. It describes how organizations run their business; identify their customer, identify range of their products/services and how businesses serve their customer. For example: The mission statement of FPT * Maintain the leading position of producer and integrator in I.T service and producing software in Vietnam. * Expand market share of FPT to overseas. * Bringing sufficient material and happy life for each employee of FPT. * FPT desire to bring...
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...Apple Inc. in 2012 case study Executive Summary According to the case “Apple Inc. in 2012”, it was clearly illustrate that Apple Inc. is one the largest computer manufacturer in the world. The Apple company has a perfect concept and operating systems of manufacturing new products in which launch to the customers. Also, there are some other companies try to imitate the Apple Inc., but some of them were failed. The main purpose of this report is to seek the problems of the Apple Inc. and give an efficient recommendation for the company to help them get better development in the future. 1. Introduction Apple company began as “Apple Computer” and best known for sell Macintosh personal computers in the 1980s and 1990s. (David B, Y, Rossano, P 2012) When Steve Jobs became CEO of Apple Inc. in 1997, the company had changed from near bankruptcy to one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Also there are a number of challenges while Jobs need to face his successor. After that, Tim Cook became the new CEO of Apple Inc., he was decided to choose different approach in which distinguish with Steve Jobs to develop the company perform well in the future. However, with the different period, Apple Inc. to change their management very often in these years, such as Sculley, or Spindler, Amelio were served in the company in different period. The liquid management should be an issue in which connected with Apple Inc.. Furthermore, Apple Inc. was using the market...
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............................................................................ 8 Slow to Innovate ................................................................................................................................................. 8 PC Market in Decline ........................................................................................................................................ 8 Mobile Device’s Poor Performance ............................................................................................................ 9 The External Environment .................................................................................... 10 PESTEL Analysis ............................................................................................................................................... 10 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Porters Five Forces...
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...Date: 5-8-2015 I. Company Background On April 1976, the Apple Computer was formed by a 25-year-old then Steve Wozniak and a 21-year-old then Steve Jobs who were both college dropouts . It had its humble beginnings tracing its first location of where they started to build computers in Job’s family’s garage. The years that came after became witnesses of how such first creation led to one of the biggest names in the industry now. The ideas and early innovation techniques that emerged from this location would set the foundation for building one of the most important and globally effective technology companies the world has ever seen. In fact, some diehard Apple fans come from all over the globe just to pose for pictures in front of this now-famous garage. Wozniak, the true technical mind behind the building process of Apple’s early computers, spent the summer of 1976 building the company’s very first computer. Figure 1 first apple computer Meanwhile, Jobs began creating advertisements and found a buyer for the computer. The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, proved to be Apple’s first major customer, and coincidentally the first retail computer store chain in the world. The two Steve were able to build and sell fifty Apple computers that summer, all from within the confined space of the Jobs family’s single-car garage. This would mark the first of many successful products to come from the company. Apple Computer stands out from similar companies with their unconventional...
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...Introduction Under the innovation and leadership of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. was transformed from a company that was at one point on the verge of bankruptcy, to the technology juggernaut that it is today. At the end of 2014, Apple recorded the most profitable quarter of any firm in history, and its market capitalization topped $700 billion shortly after (Exhibit 1). The challenge for the company now is whether or not it can maintain this torrid growth pace in the years to come. iPod sales have been declining for over 7 years now and the iPad has not fared much better, with sales down a substantial 22% year over year from 2013. The success of the company has had a lot to do with its flagship product, the iPhone, which continues to shatter sales records and accounts for almost 70% of Apple’s overall revenue stream (Apple Inc., Form 10-Q, for the Fiscal Quarter Ended December 27, 2014). Despite this success, many are still worried that the company has become overly dependent on the iPhone and that product stagnancy in the pipeline may hinder growth going forward. Furthermore, competition in the smartphone field is fierce, with many imitation products having the potential to encroach on Apple’s territory. CEO Tim Cook has attempted to address these issues head on by introducing new innovative product lines such as the Apple Watch and Apple Pay. In order to determine the sustainability of Apple’s competitive position in the smartphone industry and the tech market in general, it is important...
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