Case study

4.Analzyze your findings
According to the above research about the weakness and strengths of Apple, and the external environment of Apple Company. We can evaluate the outline of Apple including the opportunity and threats it is facing. Because of the high level creativity that Apple has, it will have lots of opportunity, while at the same time, it also face lots of challenges. Creativity is one of most powerful strengths of Apple, for example, it change the traditional way that people using cellphone, listening to music and using personal computer. Recently, Apple brings us a brand new concept---ipad. It totally changes the way people surfing the Internet, playing games and watching movies. I think Apple needs to continue to develop its creative ideas to meet people’s improving demands. Another advantage that makes Apple different from other company is its customer service. I am very sure that maybe you can’t find any other company that can provide better customer service than Apple can. The team of Apple’s customer service always keeps working on satisfying every customer’s demand. Because of its good fame of customer service, apple gets excellent feedback from its customers. Moreover, it gets huge users group.
On the other hand, apple also faces lots of competitive pressure and challenges. For example, Google Company. As we all known, Android cellphone and pad computer are the most dangerous competitor of Apple’s. Android has more than half share of the mobile device market. It also can attract lots of software developers to help them develop applications.
I think apple should devote more energy to accelerate its pace to seize a larger market. At the same time, apple should keep the high quality of its products and service. Only apple can keep their competitiveness, it can keep its leadership in IT field.
5.identify corporate/business level strategy.
To identify apple’s corporate level strategy, we need to know apple’s mission, goals and corporate strategy.
Apple concentrates on making the best products. Apple never compromise to the quality of product. They are a company that focuses on innovation, and by that I mean with new products, but also improvements on their existing products. They use the focused differentiation strategy, by making products that are exclusive, and pretty expensive. Not everyone can afford an Apple product.
The focus on adjusting their business strategy and their marketing strategy with product development are something that they do much better than their competitors, and this is a huge advantage for them.
Apple's target market is people who are willing to pay more for products with better user experience, people who likes to have fun with technology, music enthusiasts and people who work with media and design professional. They have done a good job by finding out which customer needs to satisfy. They have found out that these customers wants a nice, beautiful and simple design and user input, and they have focused on applications that help you to take pictures, applications that edit both pictures and videos, and good music applications, both to listen, and to make music. To make these applications, they have to have to focus on innovation and creativity, and have developers and designers that can make applications like this, that are both easy to use, beautiful, and can do everything you can expect from applications like these.
I totally agree with apple’s idea. They grasp the most important point to get successful. According to the idea of marketing, customer is the most important element. As long as apple insists on this principle, it can become more successful.
6.analyze the role of the CEO and other upper managers.
As we all known, Steve Jobs was the most successful CEO in the world. He was not only a successful CEO, but also an inventor, designer. He led apple to the way to success. Jobs not only designed lots of excellent products, such us iPhone, ipad and iPod, he but also help apple to establish many new idea and concepts. He was indispensable to apple’s success. He was a "high-maintenance co-worker" who demanded excellence from his staff and was known for his blunt delivery of criticism. Jobs establish the basic principle to be a client of Apple Company.
Apple’s management style can be illustrate to 8 points:
1. Apple Company should be managed by engineers rather than managers. Because apple company is an IT company, manager who are expert can run the company better and they can understand deeply how it should be managed.
2. Build a culture of respect between managers and employees.
Because most of employees and managers have background knowledge of engineering more or less, employees and managers can communicate and cooperate with each other better.
3. Give employees the freedom to improve the products
At apple, any employee can provide suggestions to improve the quality and performance of apple products.
4. Deadlines are crucial
Apple required absolute deadlines, and they never missed them. The sense of time is very important to a company. Agarwal noted that "In terms of quality, one of the things I learned was that you don’t ship things that aren’t of 'Apple quality...”
5. Hire people who are insanely passionate about your product.
Apple only hire employees who love the products that apple produce. Only when they like them, they will devote lots of endeavor to improve the products.
Apple Company’s organization structure is similar to other companies. Simply, it's organized based on functions: Finance, Legal Affairs, Operations, Hardware Engineering, and Software Engineering, iOS Software, Design, Marketing and Retail. Apple put more focus on its retail system and tries to devote more resource on it to provide customers the best purchase experience in the world.

Based on analysis of Apple’s practices, policies, and procedures the firm’s strategy for its portable personal computer business is one of broad differentiation targeting a range of customers from sophisticated power users to inexperienced new users and from individual buyers to bulk purchasers like schools and businesses. The firm differentiates on exceptional design, consistent quality, and outstanding customer service.
The real evidence of Apple’s strategy reveals that their commitments are directly in line with their stated goals and strategy. Apple’s goal is to provide customers with the “best personal computing…experience” by offering products with “superior ease-of-use, seamless integration, and innovative industrial design” and a “high-quality sales and post-sales support experience.”

While Apple has been successful in implementing its strategy in the marketplace, some of the firm’s practices could be seen as risks and potential liabilities threatening future success. Most of Apple’s risk center around the firm’s near absolute dependence on OEMs and foreign factories for manufacturing and assembling their products. Although Apple gives their OEM partners guidelines for sourcing materials to be used in production they do not have direct control over procurement. The OEMs that derive profit from high volume with low margins will continually seek to reduce the costs of inputs to reduce pressure on their margins. Gradual slips in quality will adversely affect Apple if the low quality inputs begin to show in the final products. Customers who begin to notice reduced quality will not be able to justify the premium prices that Apple commands for its products. Similarly, quality control slips during the manufacturing processes carried out by OEMs can negatively affect Apple. More defective products making it through to end-users will hurt Apple’s image as a supplier of premium lifestyle products.
Selective hiring process–Apple follows selective hiring practices to recruit and hire talented individuals.
Generous employee benefits program–Apple offers a variety of attractive employee benefits to complement direct wages. The benefits system is used to entice, and retainindustry-leading talent to benefit Apple.
Recommendation:
Despite working closely with OEM partners, Apple must always protect its image of quality. Implementing random quality check sampling and ‘quality audits’ in OEM facilities will ensure issues are caughtearly and that Apple’s OEM partners stay honest with their own quality control processes.
Continue a wise expansion of Apple Stores: Apple’s retail stores have been massively successful, that success can be furthered in new locations within the United States andabroad. During the expansion process Apple must practice extreme caution to avoidover-saturation, the Starbucks effect, to retain the halo surrounding the stores andmaintain their status as a destination.
Emphasize the integrated system in advertisements: Apple’s integrated system holds a significant advantage over other industry systems relying on Microsoft Windows, yetsome customers have not experienced the seamless interoperability of all Appleproducts. This marketing angle will result in cross selling of more products to new andexisting customers.
Seek exclusivity arrangements with OEM partners:Continue to build relationships withthe closed Asian OEM partners and enter into exclusivity arrangements to lock outcompetitors and gain favorable business deals.