Top 100 retailer apple inc term paper examples

– Introduction
As with many business establishments attempting to launch, innovative ideas involved promoting a component to an existing product instead of an entirely intact product. When the two Steves (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) had an idea for personal computers, their first intended Apple model was basically designed for computer graphics users. But it was only until the last decade when Apple expanded into various intricate devices, let alone computers. It found its way further into the computer market by becoming a consumer goods company to enhance its branding, rather than keep itself as a computer service provider which is the status it kept for the longest period with the incentive of being unique. However, its growth in customer base has improved with strategically implanting itself on the map with additional services exclusive to Apple users only. Users of other competitive products are still unaware of Apple’s advancement in products, services and customer support. Hence the only method for Apple to expand its customer base at the time was to utilize its existing demographics to reach out to new customers.
Seemingly, Steve Jobs had a private agenda for innovation which he decided not to share publicly explaining why Apple had only recently entered the competitive market. But the mystery remains as to why it evolved ever so slowly as opposed to its competitors, mainly the Microsoft PC market which released new models frequently, beginning in the 1980’s decade when computer products were rushed successively into the market (Irwin, 2013). Why did not Apple after all these years? Somehow, in spite of its slow growth, Apple manages to acquire strong sales because of its ability to spawn the wants and needs of customers within marketable products that customers cannot search elsewhere. It shall be explained why Apple will continue to grow and become more profitable and successful with new products. As stated concisely in its mission statement, Apple is all about assisting people and working above the system, not just about evolving technology.
2. 0 Apple SWOT Analysis
Previously known as the pioneer of the iPod mp3 player, Apple can be considered the most successful electronics company. For a consistently growing company, the SWOT analysis is a remarkable tool to observe its trend in the technology world.
2. 1 Strengths
One of the greatest advantages of Apple Inc. is its unique branding procedure. The brand alone is a reminder of strategic focus on customer emotions, lifestyle and imagination with the promise of making customers’ lives, as well as product use, easier. The logo of a partially eaten apple alone or a biter into a consumable apple automatically link customers’ thoughts with Apple products. This is especially true for long-time Apple customers and users and strengthens loyalty, where most existing customers would continue using Apple products. Apple managed to put forward its mobile devices in the market unexpectedly against its competition bringing itself to the leading innovator status of in mobile technology.
Besides outsourcing its products to general computer retail outlets, Apple Inc. has established a multitude of retail outlets specifically for its products with trained staff readily available for customer service. Providing these added facilities at more convenient locations has encouraged customer growth and raise confidence in Apple products among customers. The staff are frequently updated internally under a mandatory training program to not only familiarize themselves with the latest models, but to also appear fully knowledgeable and presentable to its customer base.
2. 2 Weaknesses
Because Apple products, especially desktop and laptops, contain highly durable hardware, their prices are relatively high compared to other competitors. These are the deciding factors for customers looking to purchase new products. Additionally to the disadvantage, most large companies and corporations are searching for corporate rates and prefer products other than from Apple because of the price differences. Many customers also prefer products prevailing in the market for the longest times as in the case of PC computer systems, making Apple’s stance on the market share on the decline.
Apple products have a unique operating system magnifying product durability, in spite of reports of new product defects. But because of its uniqueness, compatibility with different operating systems is often difficult for upgrading purposes which do not favour with customers. When new users wish to attempt new products, they prefer them to be user-friendly.
2. 3 Opportunities
With the growth of Apple products into specific markets such as tablets and smartphones along with other variable devices, it has the potential of increasing advertising space on the mobile market. Most customers are used to discerning Apple computer models on the market that when Apple suddenly releases its own branded products similar to its competition, this movement revolutionizes the mobile market. With its promotion for the latest technology and its innovative thinking, Apple anticipates a large target audience. For example, the new iLife application allows users to connect to all other Apple Inc. products such as IMac, IMovie, ITunes, and the demand for cloud based services. Additionally these new devices enable users to merge gigabytes of memory into mobile devices instead of depending on the bulkier desktops and laptops. Apple proves to be the most innovative corporation to introduce groundbreaking hardware.
2. 4 Threats
The greatest challenge of any computer electronics corporation is the rapid change of technology which was known to grow at unstoppable rates for many years. The disadvantage in quick technology changes is competing companies race to release their respective technology innovations of the latest designs and capabilities to cater to their customers leading to hardware saturation. This technological disaster can be analogous to the video game console crash in 1983. The difference is technology is replacers every so often that once a popular mobile device is released, it becomes obsolete almost immediately. Microsoft is still Apple’s long time competitor and continues to be Apples main historic rival. Apart from Microsoft, price competition persists from other technology giants such as Dell, Samsung and Hewlett-Packard, which produce lower budget computers.
Apple unfortunately carries products at higher prices because of the durability of the products. The only advantage though, is customers seeking quality over quantity, do not regard the price and prefer to retain loyalty with Apple. But Apple prices are saturated over global markets as well because of higher stock prices and exchange rates in foreign countries. Prices are most affected in growing international markets as in Asia, where the price differences challenge the Apple organization. As the value of the American dollar has depreciated over time, the international market declined directly with the drop in supply and demand.
3. 0 Apple’s Key Competitors (Microsoft)
Although Apple has been on the market for decades, it still races against its competition to gain the leading technological advantage. Microsoft shall be selected as its key historical competitor and because of its creator Bill Gates cofounding one of the world’s largest software manufactures. While both competitors are at the top of leading technology development, there are key significant similarities and differences in their marketing campaigns in which they have each made outstanding contributions to the software and computing industry. Their distinguished success in contributing to the computer world has paralleled them as fierce competitors in the technical and the business world.
3. 1 Similarities
Whenever the names of the cofounders (Steve Jobs and Bill gates) are mentioned or appear on the media, the vision of entrepreneurship immediately becomes heightened, as both are known to contribute to various aspects of computer systems. Their presence in the computing world gained them high influential status also in the business world. Since smartphone and portable media players have become popularized in the mobile industry, Apple and Microsoft added their share of innovations into the technical components (Hooper, 2013).
Each company also overlap in their technological devices as well as their business marketing campaigns to gain competitive advantages. Both devices can hold roughly the same amount of storage capacity and songs with quality sound, and support the same frequency ranges. Virtually branded stores of each company house these devices supporting their logos, let alone stores that market specifically their own products. In other words, their devices perform similar functions but under different brand names. For example, their tablets are labeled based on the popularity among users and the demographics that purchase these devices. Apple’s iPad and Microsoft’s Surface feature almost the same category, dimensions, plus the touchscreens as a user’s favourite application as opposed to push-button activation. Some products are released in response to the competitor’s products depending on whom the user supports (Dediu, 2011).
A renowned fallacy is that Apple does not quite yet number its outlets compared to Microsoft. But Apple has in fact spent many years promoting its products through general categorical outlets before establishing its own outlets specifically for retailing Apple products. Surprisingly Apple has over 200 stores while Microsoft has fewer than 20, which is shocking news to most Apple users; perhaps it is due to the number of Apple users is still considerably smaller, but continues to grow. Each has firsthand customer support for hardware and software features offered by trained specialists. Additionally, each provide in-house classes to enhance customer support and loyalty.
3. 2 Differences
The major differences between Apple and Microsoft are in the products they sell and manufacture. Apple normally promotes hardware components and actual computers. Microsoft is a specialist in software and the production of operating systems for the computers. Historically, when Apple was in the midst of promoting its first tools for computer users, the initial target audience involved graphic designers because of the required hardware usage which remained a constant plateau for Apple for many years. Microsoft possessed a different agenda in reaching out to its targets by magnifying the way in which computers were used.
Apple managed to build up its competitive advantage within the mobile phone industry namely in smartphones drastically shifting Apple in the industry with the introduction of iPhones. Microsoft does not provide mobile phones, but merely sells their software instead, especially for the Windows OS mobile. Currently Microsoft is not involved in the tablet industry but is in the process of formulating a Windows OS tablet. However, the release date is not being revealed. When it comes to distributing their products, each company has embedded its unique trademark when the finished product is sent to end customer. Apple designed easier user interfacing on their devices. Microsoft preferred to improve its mark with software packaging.
4. 0 Recommendations For Apple Inc.’s Improvements
Although the first Apple products were introduced in the late 1970’s, most initial users claimed they were not familiar with Apple until the mid-1980’s, when advertising was also prominent. This time period also spawned the introduction of PC computers for Dell and Hewlett-Packard, and Apple became dormant on the advertising stream. Before the turn of the decade, Apple products suddenly returned to the public eye at the charismatic restructuring of Steve Jobs (Norr, 2012). Jobs brought back Apple’s strategic vision by unforeseeable trends which shall be explained and improved upon to continue Apple Inc. intended vision. Some recommendations to be considered are ranging from short-term strategies to reverse sales losses from the previous years to long-term strategies to maintain Apple’s competitive stance in the market. The following strategies are to be taken as recommendations only and not as canonical or officiating solutions.
4. 1 Short-Term Strategies
The first strategy to execute is to analyze the competitors. By not understanding how the competitors fit into the mobile market, certain failure would result in the future because Apple would not understand the needs of the customers without having any knowledge of competing products. In the last few years, Apple focused for too long on producing superior products instead of customer service. By paying close attention to customer needs only then would Apple extract customer opinions on certain competing companies and products. Making social media available for public opinion instead of merely cloud computing would Apple understand what the market is missing in gadgetry and application, and ultimately show tis customers how to acquire it (Stark & Stewart, 2011). To the layperson supporting a particular developer, improvement is tainted with designing a completely new product to replace an earlier model. Creating new products shall not always be Apple’s answer. By partnering with its competitors with the notion of cooperation rather than competition, Apple will gain the upper competitive end. Each company would develop a base model and acquire the leisure of building upon that model on its own purpose. The partnership strategy can benefit Apple in its short-term forecast because given the rate of technological change, it can stabilize its customer base.
4. 2 Intermediate Strategies
More importantly than blindly releasing new products at the demands of critics, Apple shall purposely surprise its customers with products they least expect to find on the market. Evidently, extra products prompt customers to voice their opinions by comparing various products already tried and tested by competitors besides Apple’s own products (Grobart, 2013). A few extra differences are what either catapults or restrains the potential product, and spurn an abundance of demand among the customer base. Sometimes customers only discern dissimilar features and applications to a new product and prefer to solely utilize these new features. The positive outlook of a dissimilar feature is it can spawn potential products Apple may wish to research but keep silent from the customers for a given period.
Apple understands how to prevent the error of releasing new products too early, as sometimes being ahead of the innovation stream shall be retained for future periods. The purpose is being observant of competitive products over a stretch of time to study what these products lack in helpful features. Apple’s tablet for example was designed by the voices of its customers by receiving feedback about its competing products, rendering its own tablet a success. Future products can be designed in a similar manner by receiving feedback from other competing products already in the market. A new product and perhaps even a new market can evolve from existing products not belonging to or initiated by Apple. By corporate and competitive observation can a product be innovated uniquely with financial margins only required to be secondary.
4. 3 Long-term Strategies
Since Apple has developed a natural talent to be innovative, it shall not be required to produce new products on a frequent basis. Merely it can provide additional applications to improve upon the existing products themselves because simply replacing responsive products may not be in favour of the customer base. Regardless, the customer base is a numbers game, and the company shall be in control of its product release and decide the proper timing of their releases in order to build anticipation among its customers. Most corporate analysts would disagree with this tactic, but this can be an expedient test to observe how customers react to the need of new products and promotions. This may prompt some customers to refer to other sources other than those of Apple, but it may be essential to allow these customers to test these products to discover their needs. It shall not be discouraging if the customer base drops in numbers, because in the long-term, the profit margin would increase by stock product innovation.
Product innovation is a tool that Apple shall not perform too hurriedly, but gradually throughout the stages of development (Gruman & Heid, 1994). The purpose is to keep with in the pace with competing products currently on the market to observe their success or failures. By careful observation in this manner, innovations for potentially new products or helpful applications are then dreamed.
5. 0 Conclusion
Net profits, revenues and margins may be essential for company survival, but many other unforeseen factors also play important roles for a successful company. As aforementioned, immediately beginning to build upon the customer base is mandatory, but important in all strategies because each customer possesses variable tastes in Apple products. Yet some of their variable needs are required at different stages of stock and product promotion (Travlos, 2013). Surely, when success and growth are recognized, the expectations of Apple are also anticipated. The future foresees exponential growth in Apple’s financial margin and stockholder sharing.
Innovation has proven to become Apple’s ultimate tool in drawing popularity to its customer base allowing it to stay ahead of its competition. Over a number of years, Apple popularized itself with desktop and laptop computers before suddenly launching its campaign toward the mobile industry which have become prevalent among almost all of its customers, including users of all kinds. More often than not, Apple customers are observed to own both a base computer and a mobile tool as a complement.
The non-traditional practice of advertising campaigns is what brought Apple retail outlets next door to its competition with its brand awareness. Additionally it channelled its way from smaller outlets to national and international chains increasing its number of stores in at least 10 countries. Currently it may not seem to be an immense number, but these retail locations account for almost 20 percent of Apple’s revenue. These retail outlets are arranged and designed similar to learning and tutorial laboratories to make customers feel comfortable as if they already own their potential models; another crafty innovation promoted by Apple not initiated prior by its competitors. For future success, making customers feel as if they already have acquired models they initially observe, the complication of technological jargon becomes eliminated to make customers understand technology efficiently.

Work Cited

Irwin, N. “ Apple Had Record Sales and Awesome Growth. Here’s Why Its Stock is Being Hammered Anyway”. The Washington Post, 24 April 2013.
Grobart, S. “ Apple’s Plan to Make Its iOS Software Look Cool Again”. Businessweek, 06 June 2013.
Travlos, D. “ Apple Cash, Margins, and Innovation: The Obvious Strategy”. Forbes, 24 March 2013.
Norr, H. Apple CEO Finally Drops ‘ Interim’ From Title”. SF Gate, 06 Jul 2012.
Gruman, G, & Heid, J. ” Macintosh Innovation”. MacWorld: 86–98, Feb 1994.
Hooper, B. “ Similarities Between Apple and Microsoft”. Demand Media. Opposing Views, 09 Feb 2013.
Stark, K. & Stewart, B. “ 3 Strategies to Adopt From Apple”. Herding Gazelles, 12 April 2012.
Burne, K. & Cherney, M. “ Apple’s Record Plunge Into Debt Pool”. The Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2013.
Dediu, H. “ Comparing Top Lines: Apple vs. Microsoft”. Asymco, 29 Sept 2011.