...What, historically, have been Apple’s competitive advantages? From the beginning, customer loyalty has been one of Apple’s competitive advantages. Apple owners were much more attached to their Apple computers than PC users. Early on Apple pushed into the publishing and education markets. They were able to grab half the market for education. Their computers were easy to use, had sharp designs, and high quality. Apple also used a plug and play system with all its own peripherals as a major advantage. But with their own hardware and software, Apple’s computers were very slow and came with very few compatible programs. After Steve Jobs came back to the company, he instilled strong teams and leadership. He put the focus back on innovation by increasing R&D. He also establish Apple’s original strategy of premium products and customer service. He then introduces a website to set up direct sales with customers. Jobs partnered with Microsoft and added USB connectors to become more compatible with other applications and software systems. This eliminated a huge disadvantage Apple previously had. Apple products are also harder to duplicate and substitute because of it’s own proprietary design. Industry foresight has been a huge competitive advantage of Apple. Their innovation has shaped the consumer electronics industry. It has also kept competitors on their toes. Apple sets the standards for the industry. With their customer loyalty, Apple has become a strong brand name. They have...
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...| | |CORPORATE LEVEL STRATEGY | |APPLE COMPUTER, INC | | | |PREPARED BY: | |TETY JUANITA MOHD KAMAL | |WONG WAI SIONG | |LAI CHOON HOONG | |WAN HAZIRA WAN MUHAMMAD | |WAN HAMIZA WAN MUHAMMAD | |7/31/2010 ...
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...company has helped to accelerate the blurring of industry boundaries through the spread of devices that offer convergent technologies, and to position itself so that it exerts significant power over both consumers and industry players, with outstanding performance results. Apple became the most valuable listed company, with a market value of US$623 billion in August 2012, and has gathered the highest accumulation of cash reserves ($121 billion in September 2012) of any listed company. It regularly achieves net margins of above 20 percent in industries where most competitors achieve single-digit margins. Its net margin was 26.7 percent during 2012, having increased from 23.9 percent in 2011 and 21.5 percent in 2010. During the same period, Apple’s revenues increased from US$65.2 billion in 2010 to US $108.2 billion in 2011 and to US$156.5 billion in 2012. The chief architect of the business model and value system that led to this exceptional performance is widely acknowledged to be the late Steve Jobs. With Jobs’ passing in October 2011, many have wondered whether the magic at Apple would last, or gradually fizzle out. In this article, I take an in-depth look at the strategy and organization of Apple to argue that the magic will last. This is not only due to clear and consistent strategic choices over time that have served to institutionalize the Apple way; it is also due to the fact that Apple has achieved what might be called Quantum Strategy...
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...INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF INFORMATICS AND MANAGMENT For partial fulfillment of MBA programme 2011-2013 [pic] CONTEMPORARY REPORT ON “ STRATEGY ANALYSIS OF APPLE CORPORATION AND ITS PRODUCTS” [pic] |Submitted to: |Submitted by: | |Mr.Sandeep Vyas | Neha Singh | |Mr.Rahul Sharma |MBA/11/2065 | | | | CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the project work of market research and analysis in the report entitled “Strategy analysis of apple corporation and its product” is a bonafide work carried out by Ms. Neha singh under my supervision and guidance. The project is submitted for the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of Masters of Business Administration. The project is the original work carried out by the Student herself. Date:26/04/2012 Faculty Mentor: Mr.Sandeep Vyas Mr.Rahul Sharma PREFACE This project has been undertaken to understand the strategy of Apple...
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...| Entrepreneurial Growth | | Fall Semester, 2013 Man 385.24 Unique #04780 | Professor John N. Doggett Class Days Monday and Wednesdays from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Class Room UTC 4.104 Office CBA 5.124k Office Hours Wednesdays, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. or by appointment Phone 512-232-7671 E-Mail john.doggett@mccombs.utexas.edu Course Web Page via Canvas ------------------------------------------------- Teaching Assistants Grant Garlinghouse (grant.garlinghouse@mba14.mccombs.utexas.edu) Course Objectives I have taught this course since late in the last century. Today, as we approach a second global recession, helping people learn how to grow firms as astutely as possible will play a role in speeding the beginning of a new recovery. When companies like Cisco and HP abandon major market segments, it is even more important to think critically about how to grow a firm’s products. Given the chaotic period that we are entering, I have made several significant changes to this course. First, I have done away with the individual midterm. The “next” recovery will be a group effort. So will your midterm. Second, I have assigned three books. These are some of the best books out there on how to think about innovation, competition and how to grow a business. They will become “let me read that again” go-to books that you will use long after you graduate from UT. To compensate for the heavy reading load, I have eliminated...
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...HBR.ORG In a world of constant change, the spoils go to the nimble. by Martin Reeves and Mike Deimler ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN STAUFFER Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage July–August 2011 Harvard Business Review 135 ADAPTABILITY: THE NEW COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE We live in an era of risk and instability. Globalization, new technologies, and greater transparency have combined to upend the business environment and give many CEOs a deep sense of unease. Just look at the numbers. Since 1980 the volatility of business operating margins, largely static since the 1950s, has more than doubled, as has the size of the gap between winners (companies with high operating margins) and losers (those with low ones). Market leadership is even more precarious. The percentage of companies falling out of the top three rankings in their industry increased from 2% in 1960 to 14% in 2008. What’s more, market leadership is proving to be an increasingly dubious prize: The once strong correlation between profitability and industry share is now almost nonexistent in some sectors. According to our calculation, the probability that the market share leader is also the profitability leader declined from 34% in 1950 to just 7% in 2007. And it has become virtually impossible for some ex- ecutives even to clearly identify in what industry and with which companies they’re competing. All this uncertainty poses a tremendous challenge for strategy making. That’s because traditional approaches...
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...several years spanning the mid 1990’s to the mid 2000’s. This was mainly due to their prowess in customizing products as per customer requirements, coupled with effective manufacturing and supply chain processes. The Company encourages little or no intervention from distributors and middlemen, and majority of all sales are based on a direct customer relationship business model. The firm’s resources focused on supply chain capabilities, with frequent inventory turnover and direct delivery emerging as Dell’s core competencies. At the time when Dell established these core competencies, they were valuable, rare and were not easy to imitate, therefore allowing the Company to build a sustainable competitive advantage. More recently, industry dynamics have rapidly changed and competitive rivalry has also intensified to a very large extent. The external environment has changed significantly and demographic factors, coupled with economic indicators such as large disposable incomes that is now...
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...transforming the company. In just three years, the iPod/iTunes combination became a nearly $10 billion product, accounting for almost 50% of Apple’s revenue. Apple’s market capitalization catapulted from around $1 billion in early 2003 to over $150 billion by late 2007. This success story is well known; what’s less well known is that Apple was not the first to bring digital music players to market. A company called Diamond Multimedia introduced the Rio in 1998. Another firm, Best Data, introduced the Cabo 64 in 2000. Both products worked well and were portable and hbr.org 1711 Johnson.indd 51 | December 2008 | Harvard Business Review 51 10/30/08 2:02:12 PM Reinventing Your Business Model IDEA panies understand their existing busistylish. So why did the iPod, rather than IN BRIEF ness model well enough – the premise the Rio or Cabo, succeed? behind its development, its natural inApple did something far smarter » Breakthrough, game-changing terdependencies, and its strengths and than take a good technology and wrap products rarely emerge from establimitations. So they don’t know when it in a snazzy design. It took a good lished businesses. they can leverage their core business technology and wrapped it in a great » That’s because a radically new and when success requires a new busibusiness model. Apple’s true innovaproduct usually needs a new business...
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...$200 billion (Efrati, 2012). It will also further build on the expansive Google acquisition model strategy and use of capital (Rosoff, 2012). Google enjoys proven success and market dominance in online advertising. With its graphical and video advertising successes through its YouTube platform and thousands of other sites, the company has established a significant competitive advantage in the market of display-advertising. With Netflix, Google would leverage its ad expertise to pair advertisements with video search requests and video themes/genres. This acquisition will continue the Google growth model of winning loyalty across every facet of the internet experience which translates into "overall time spent on Google services,[...]more time (for consumers to be) exposed to ads, [and] increased brand loyalty (Young, 2011). The acquisition would provide a diversified monetization model of membership/fee based service which provides strong direct customer and revenue competition to Hulu (streaming video currently offered only to users in Japan and the USA and its overseas territories), Amazon Prime Streaming and Apple's iTunes in the global market (Wikipedia, 2012). If leveraged by Google in the manner explained in the following report, Netflix’s current base of 21.5M subscribers paying $8 per month per contract will add significant profitability. This strategic revenues diversification -- in combination with a Hulu-like streaming advertisement model –...
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...how managers develop strategy • To examine industry structure, firm strategy, and value creation • To profile the features and functions of the value chain framework • To assess how managers configure and coordinate a value chain • To explain global integration and local responsiveness • To profile the types of strategies firms use in international business Chapter Overview Chapter Eleven presents tools and concepts used in analyzing and formulating international business strategy. First, the relationship between industry structure and competition in global industries is examined. Next, value chain analysis is used to identify the internal capabilities of the firm that can be leveraged to create competitive advantage. Effective international strategy depends greatly on the proper configuration and management of a company’s global value chain. The sometimes conflicting demands of global integration versus local responsiveness are examined. Finally, a typology of strategic alternatives including multidomestic, international, global, and transnational strategies is presented. CHAPTER OUTLINE OPENING CASE: Value Creation in the Global Apparel Industry [See Fig 11.1 and Map 11.1.] Zara, a large clothing retailer headquartered in northwest Spain, has used an innovative strategy to power its global expansion. The company has grown to more than 1,292 stores in 72 countries since its founding in 1975. Zara has made extensive use...
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...[CHAPTER 2] Case Study: Collaboration and Innovation at Procter and Gamble 1. What is Procter & Gamble's business strategy? What is the relationship of collaboration and innovation to that business strategy? P&G’s business operations are divided into three main units: Beauty Care, Household Care, and Health and Well-Being, each of which are further subdivided into more specific units. In each of these divisions, P&G has three main focuses as a business: * maintain the popularity of its existing brands, via advertising and marketing; * extend its brands to related products by developing new products under those brands; * innovate and create new brands entirely from scratch. Having R&D teams spread throughout 30 sites globally, P&G is in strong need of collaboration tools that allow researchers, marketers, and managers to easily gather, store, and share knowledge and information. At 3.4 percent of revenue, P&G spends more than twice the industry average on innovation to support its business strategies. 2. How is P&G using collaboration systems to execute its business model and business strategy? List and describe the collaboration systems and technologies it is using and the benefits of each. To support the business strategy of innovating and creating new brands entirely from scratch, P&G must find the right tools to support collaboration and innovation. Some of the collaboration system the company's employees and partners...
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...retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu, or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163. ISBN: 978-1-4221-6059-6 By his example, Arthur Rosin, my uncle, taught me the pleasures of understanding and explaining. This book is dedicated to him, to Betty Rosin, and to my parents, Cyrille and Eugene Gorin. Contents Copyright Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: What Is Competition? 1. Competition: The Right Mind-Set 2. The Five Forces: Competing for Profits 3. Competitive Advantage: The Value Chain and Your P&L Part Two: What Is Strategy? 4. Creating Value: The Core 5. Trade-offs: The Linchpin 6. Fit: The Amplifier 7. Continuity: The Enabler Epilogue: A Short List of Implications FAQs: An Interview with Michael Porter A Porter Glossary: Key Concepts Chapter Notes and Sources About the Author Acknowledgments The Michael Porter I know is first and foremost a gifted teacher. If this book succeeds in helping readers understand Porter’s ideas in their full richness, it is thanks in large measure to his encouragement, his guidance, and his patience in explaining those ideas to me. As this book progressed, he carefully reviewed every chapter, giving generously both his time and his laser-sharp attention...
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...An Integrated Approach to Strategy Running Case Featuring Wal-Mart Wal-Mart’s Competitive Advantage (Chapter 1) ● Working Conditions at Wal-Mart (Chapter 2) ● Wal-Mart’s Bargaining Power over Suppliers (Chapter 3) ● Human Resource Strategy and Productivity at Wal-Mart (Chapter 4) ● How Wal-Mart Became a Cost Leader (Chapter 5) ● Wal-Mart’s Global Expansion (Chapter 6) ● WalMart Internally Ventures a New Kind of Retail Store (Chapter 8) ● Sam Walton’s Approach to Implementing Wal-Mart’s Strategy (Chapter 9) Strategy in Action Features A Strategic Shift at Microsoft (Chapter 1) ● The Agency Problem at Tyco (Chapter 2) ● Circumventing Entry Barriers into the Soft Drink Industry (Chapter 3) ● Learning Effects in Cardiac Surgery (Chapter 4) ● How to Make Money in the Vacuum Tube Business (Chapter 5) ● The Evolution of Strategy at Procter & Gamble (Chapter 6) ● Diversification at 3M: Leveraging Technology (Chapter 7) ● News Corp’s Successful Acquisition Strategy (Chapter 8) ● How to Flatten and Decentralize Structure (Chapter 9) Practicing Strategic Management Application-based activities intended to get your students thinking beyond the book. Small-Group Exercises Short experiential exercises that ask students to coordinate and collaborate on group work focused on an aspect of strategic management. Exploring the Web Internet exercises that require students to explore company websites and answer chapter-related questions. Designing a Planning System (Chapter 1) Evaluating...
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...Leadership styles CONTENT Abstract 2 Introduction 2 1 The differences in leadership styles 1.1 Steve Ballmer 3 1.2 Satya Nadella 5 2 Different leadership styles motivate employees 6 3 The importance of charisma 7 4 Examples of leadership style 8 5 Change management 9 6 Corporate communication 11 7 Change management affects team 12 8 Needs assessments 13 Conclusion 15 Bibliography 16 Abstract The purpose of the following paper is to illustrate different leadership styles have different effects on a company, as an example of Microsoft and an analysis on how managers change management. The overall approach takes the collection of primary data (specifically from a corporate website) as a fundamental step in the research process. Introduction Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. The history of Microsoft...
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...An Integrated Approach to Strategy Running Case Featuring Wal-Mart Wal-Mart’s Competitive Advantage (Chapter 1) ● Working Conditions at Wal-Mart (Chapter 2) ● Wal-Mart’s Bargaining Power over Suppliers (Chapter 3) ● Human Resource Strategy and Productivity at Wal-Mart (Chapter 4) ● How Wal-Mart Became a Cost Leader (Chapter 5) ● Wal-Mart’s Global Expansion (Chapter 6) ● WalMart Internally Ventures a New Kind of Retail Store (Chapter 8) ● Sam Walton’s Approach to Implementing Wal-Mart’s Strategy (Chapter 9) Strategy in Action Features A Strategic Shift at Microsoft (Chapter 1) ● The Agency Problem at Tyco (Chapter 2) ● Circumventing Entry Barriers into the Soft Drink Industry (Chapter 3) ● Learning Effects in Cardiac Surgery (Chapter 4) ● How to Make Money in the Vacuum Tube Business (Chapter 5) ● The Evolution of Strategy at Procter & Gamble (Chapter 6) ● Diversification at 3M: Leveraging Technology (Chapter 7) ● News Corp’s Successful Acquisition Strategy (Chapter 8) ● How to Flatten and Decentralize Structure (Chapter 9) Practicing Strategic Management Application-based activities intended to get your students thinking beyond the book. Small-Group Exercises Short experiential exercises that ask students to coordinate and collaborate on group work focused on an aspect of strategic management. Exploring the Web Internet exercises that require students to explore company websites and answer chapter-related questions. Designing a Planning System (Chapter 1) Evaluating...
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