Integrated Business Management - Case Study of Apple Inc

Question: Discuss about the Integrated Business Management Project for A Case Study of Apple In. Answer: Introduction: The primary context of this task is to evaluate the concepts and strategies implemented by Apple Inc. by analyzing their business tools like industry analysis, competitive positioning, and sustainability analysis of the company. In relation to address these issues it is important to understand the strategy formulation in respect to historical context of the company. The recent approach taken by Apple Inc for introducing iWatch is another step taken by the company to increase their profit margin in market. An analysis of the approaches will be done and certain recommendations will also be provide. Historical evidence of Apples competitive advantage: In the early stage of business, Apple was not able to perform best in the market in the early stage in the market. The major competitors were IBM and Microsoft. Both PCs and soft wares of these companies were superior that what Apple had to offer to the consumers (Harrigan 2014). However, certain competitive strategies undertaken by the company has provided some competitive advantages to the company. These are: Horizontal and vertical integration: Apple has their own supply chain management that offers to set a pricing strategy of their without depending on external stake holders. According to the Porters Five Forces, five factors namely, supplier power, buyer power, competitive rivalry, threat of substitution and threat of new entry are the factors that hinders a company to earn maximum profit (Hesterly and Barney 2015). However, first two forces do not prove a threat for the company because they manufacture parts and other accessories for their product. Refused to license to other companies: IBM and Microsoft sold their soft wares to other computer manufacturing companies like Compaq, Dell, Lenovo; Apple did not take this initiative and denied to provide their license to other companies (Arndt et al. 2014). Premium price differentiation policy: One of the reasons behind the expensive rate of Apple products are their Premium Pricing policy. Apple has gained a high brand position in the market. People willingly spend more money for this brand. Loyal customers: Apple product-users get addicted to the exclusive computer soft wares and services like iTune, iStore. This creates a loyal base of customers who prefers to buy Apple products. Analysis of the reasons behind struggling in PCs: Early phase of Apple was not satisfying for the business of the company. Steve Jobs, often referred to as the soul of the company, was ousted from the company due to poor performance. Some of the reasons behind the struggling days of Apple PCs can be stated here: Cannot match with the speed of other computers: Other PC manufacturers like IBM, Dell, Compaq provide greater RAM and memory than that was provided by Apple (Lowers et al. 2015). PCs were shipped from other countries like Korea, China: There had been 56% shipment of PCs from other countries. This reduced the sale of Mac computers in the market. Demand for PCs increased in retail sector: It was seen that the demand for computers increased in the retail sector rather than corporate sector. As a result, companies preferred to buy low range computers for their petty day to day activities. Expensive: Mac computers were most expensive. Computers like Lenovo, Dell came with better features in a less price. Sustainability of Apples competitive advantage: In order to survive in a competitive market, it is indeed required to take initiatives towards sustainability (Barney 2012). Some of the sustainability factors of Apple Inc are: Devotes 9% of profit to Research and development: Unlike other companies that devote much less amount for RD, Apple devotes 9%. Manufacturing low cost computers: Mac mini was an approach made in this respect, selling laptops in $990. Running Mac computers on Intel chips: Steps were also taken to use the speed of the computers by installing Intel processors in Apple laptops. Development of programming soft wares like Adlus: Adobe is one of the important and most successful soft ware made by the company. Evaluation of Apples strategy for Apple Watch: Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple has taken the initiative to mark its presence in developing Apple Watch. The concept behind the creation of the Apple watch is that apart from providing the basic function of showing time, the watch also offers some technical advancement. The Watch supports various functions when connected to an iPhone (Chang 2015). Users of the watch and iPhone simultaneously would be able to measure blood pressure, pulse rate and few other health related things. Another important feature of the watch is that it enables the users to transfer money via Apple wallet. An Apple Watch user can easily transfer his or her money using a credit or a debit card. Only by means of touching each others hand one will be able to transfer the money to others Wallet. Organizations like Starbucks, McDonalds and many others have also agreed on accepting money from Apple Wallet (Rothaermel 2015). Strategies that have been made for Apple iWatch can be stated here: Streamlining the supply chain of Apples product: This has made the company to manufacture its product in a less cost. Selling the product online: This approach is new and has been used for selling other products like iPhone. This has called for consumers around the globe (Dobbs 2014). Closed door policy: Apple never share their policies with other and very few people are trusted for discussion purpose. Recommendations: In case that the iWatch does not turn out to be a dog product for Apple like iTV, certain recommendations can be made to improve the product and the strategy. Product development strategy: The watch can be made battery operated rather than chargeable system. The watch must not hold the provision if connecting it solely to iPhone but must be available to be operated with other OS as well. Pricing strategy: The price of iwatch is $499, which is a high amount compared to other same products offered by Samsung or Xiao me. It is recommended to reduce the price. Conclusion: The task analyzed the competitive advantage and the sustainability factors that play the most vital role in shaping the business of a company. Apples approaches towards making better products have been analyzed. Strategies for iWatch has been evaluated and based on it certain recommendations have been made. Reference list: Arndt, H.K., Dziubaczyk, B. and Mokosch, M., 2014. Impact of Design on the Sustainability of Mobile Applications. InInformation Technology in Environmental Engineering(pp. 13-24). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Barney, J.B., 2012. Purchasing, supply chain management and sustained competitive advantage: The relevance of resource based theory.Journal of Supply Chain Management,48(2), pp.3-6. Chang, V., 2015. Analyzing French and Italian iPhone 4S Mobile Cloud Customer Satisfaction Presented by Organizational Sustainability Modeling.Delivery and Adoption of Cloud Computing Services in Contemporary Organizations, p.81. Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates.Competitiveness Review,24(1), pp.32-45. Harrigan, K.R., 2014. Sustainability of Patent-Based Competitive Advantage.Available at SSRN. Hesterly, W. and Barney, J.B., 2015.Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage Concepts and Cases. Pearson Higher Ed. Lowres, N., Freedman, S.B., Gallagher, R., Kirkness, A., Marshman, D., Orchard, J. and Neubeck, L., 2015. Identifying postoperative atrial fibrillation in cardiac surgical patients posthospital discharge, using iPhone ECG: a study protocol.BMJ open,5(1), p.e006849. Rothaermel, F.T., 2015.Strategic management. McGraw-Hill.