...Apple Incorporated: The Definition of Success Business Policy October 31, 2011 Table of Contents Contents Company Overview 3 Business Model and Scope 3 Primary Strategy 3 Target Market 4 Apple, Inc. Background Investigation 4 Industry and Competitive Analysis 5 External and other pertinent market conditions 6 SWOT Analysis 6 Financial Analysis 7 Action Plan & Recommendations 7 Epilogue 8 Works Cited 9 . Company Overview What is the definition of success? Apple Inc. surpasses this criteria of being a dominate business that's close to perfection. With record high performances, this company proves it is a force to be reckoned with. Along with 300 retail stores worldwide, the company provides a solid product line to keep it thriving. Through their creativity and design, this company continues to prosper while meeting the definition of success head on. One advantage Apple has is its ability to focus on what the customers want. They show this by making unique products that are a "must have" for consumers everywhere. Their product line consists of manufacturing computer software, personal computers, and consumer electronics. Their most well-known products are Macintosh computers, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV. Their most popular software lines include Mac OSX operating system, iTunes, iLife, Aperture, iOS (Apple Inc.) Business Model and Scope Apple’s business model is to make the best products, be the first to introduce...
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...Evidence Based Management and Psychological Contracts: The Success of Apple. Aaron Wood Ottawa University * Introduction For decades, the application of organizational behavior theories to business management has been an ongoing process of discovery and innovative thinking. Concepts like evidence based management (McShane, 2013) and psychological contracts (Braekkan & Tunheim, 2013) are being employed in some of the world’s leading corporations. For the purpose of this paper, the synthesis of material into conceptual application will be applied to a single corporate entity. By choosing a company with global interests who continues to espouse very personal, individual based value perspectives, Apple is a good representational fit. This paper will highlight not only how Apple in some cases is using these concepts successfully in the market place, but also ways in which their former CEO failed miserably in utilization of these concepts while achieving enormous corporate success. This paper will also look to Apple’s future and how study of these theories along with others may be further developed. Multiple references from a wide array of media sources and fields of study have been researched to show the breadth of Apple’s stakeholder and business positioning strategies from the earliest days up to resources compiled as late as November 2013. As the development of information threads lead to fields like manufacturing, education, supply chains, demography, and even...
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...his inability to sing led him to channel his desire by designing hip, rock n’ Roll denim wear. After designing his denim wear collection (as a teenager), he caught the eye of McKeen Jeans. After this first success, Audigier became a young designer and start traveling the globe from a place to another. Then he moved to the big apple, New York City where he opened his first own fashion company in order to pursue the American dream. This opening was followed by a success. Audigier earned the title “King of Jeans”. In addition to designs for his own company, he worked with other famous labels of the denim industry like Guess, American Outfitters, Fiorucci, Bisou Bisou, Levi’s, XOXO and Diesel. Later, after watching a documentary about Bali, he went there to get some inspiration, his journey lasted three years. Then he came back to the United States, in Los Angeles this time, where he decided to live because of Hollywood glitz and media glamour, where his designs sexy and flashy fit perfectly with the LA style. When in LA, Audigier succeeded in catapulting the brand Von Dutch from the depths of obscurity to the forefront of trends. His strategy was to court celebrities to wear his designs, especially the hat with the signature Von Dutch on it. This is what leads to the success of Von Dutch at that time. In 2004, Audigier left Von Dutch. The he began with his venture Ed Hardy (the tattoo-inspired fashion). The collection have been hugely successful and he got the support of all...
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...o In addition to The Entrepreneurial Process, we also read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. In the book, Gladwell explores some of differentiating factors behind success such as family and upbringing. While we tend to focus on the founder, there are many outside influences that give an individual the opportunity to achieve success. For example, in chapter 6, Gladwell mentioned, “cultural legacies are powerful forces.” Lei Jun grew up in an industrial area and his parents were teachers who made around 300 Chinese Yuan a month, which is equivalent to $50 today. As a young child, he was instilled with the values of perseverance and hard work. Furthermore, as teachers, his parents were very involved in his education and pushed him to excel in the classroom....
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...Module: Business Analysis and Assessment Week: 06 Discussion Question Name: Sahr Dauda Date: 18 July 2012 Question: How would you justify spending time and money on a business analysis of your company? Can such an exercise really pay off in ways that make it worth the effort? Analysis, as summed up from my readings, can be regarded as a clinical and structured decomposition of a subject into its constituent parts with the aim of acquiring salient information and deeper understanding of the said subject and to offer robust solutions for improvements. It is thus a process that is inherently iterative and involves, as proffered by Williamson et al., (2004), lots of research to gain deeper insight into the business which encompasses all aspects of the business and its environment. In short, it is a holistic process that unearths the secrets of the business and identifies areas needing attention. It thus seeks to find answers to questions like where is the business now, what does it do and how does it do it, where does it want to go and how can this be achieved (Williamson et al., 2004). Yes, it consumes time and money but insights so garnered from the analytical process leading to formation of strategies will give the business a favourable competitive position and superior profitability. To reduce time and money spent, analytical tools are used to aid in the process, besides bringing structure to it. Note here that only the right necessary tools are used, as a few too...
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...ChapterCase “Consider This” Questions: Questions (1), (2), and (4). (1) Explain Apple’s success over the last decade. Think about which industries it has disrupted and how. Apple has been successful because they have been willing to tackle every competitive challenge they have faced head on. They spent the time they needed to look at the situation they were in and see where they weren’t measuring up and where their competitors were better and also what they had that they could use. They realized that they couldn’t compete in the market they were in because the other companies were better, so they decided to focus in that market to get really good products. Plus, because they knew they couldn’t rely on that crowded market, they decided they had to come up with something new. By innovating over and over again in ways that made customers happy in ways that their competitors just didn’t seem able to do. For every big innovation they did, they also kept adding small innovations to get more profit out of them. Every big innovation moved them into new industries. So they disrupted music players, cell phones, tablets, and record stores. (2) Is Apple’s success attributable to industry effects or firm effects, or a combination of both? Explain. I think they mostly succeeded from firm effects. The industries they were in looked like there wasn’t must profit to be had and not much room for them to make money. But because they kept innovating and changing the types of...
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...In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: A Story of Success, Gladwell challenges a reader’s perception of, well…success. In the book, he shifts the reader’s prior basic understanding of success and focuses instead on all the hidden, underlying biases and correlations of success. He proposed the notion that the month one was born in can separate the great athletes from the average, that how high your IQ is may not actually matter as much as many people are lead to believe it does, and that a number can be put on the amount of time one would need to practice in order to become proficient in a particular skill. Yet another example to add to the previously mentioned list of unfair advantages in the road to success, it has been found in numerous studies that even one's name can affect things ranging from your salary to how others can perceive you in general. When going after a job or promotion in any professional American setting, not only would one have to fulfill the asked of requirements, one must look the part and even sound the part. According to a study conducted by TheLadders, an online job matching site, every extra letter in a person’s first name may lead to a reduction in that person’s annual salary by $3,600. In the grand scheme of things, that’s a lot of lost money just for having a few extra letters in one's name. By this logic, there’s no wonder why many people in the business field opt to go by nicknames such as a William to a Bill or even just from a...
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...Business Failure Analysis LDR 531/Organizational Leadership Business Failure Analysis Businesses are created with the intention to be successful, achieve goals, and create profits. The continuity of business success depends on the capability to forecast changes on markets and economies, and create a plan to adapt to change, if management failure to forecast changes, the business welfare will be unstable. Blockbuster was a leader on the movies rental business, and failure to reinvent as company, leading to failure. Business Failure Analysis determined Blockbuster’s vision and mission, indicators of the business failure and success from research, how organizational behaviors lead company’s failure, and how the role of leadership, management and culture of the organization in business failure. Business Failure Analysis explained techniques that Blockbuster must used to prevent the impending failure, identified potential barriers during the change process, evaluated the power and political issues within the organization, and described the steps followed to implement the organizational change based on John Kotter’s 8-step plan for implementing change. BUSINESS FAILURE ANALYSIS Blockbuster Inc. was an American-based home movie rental provider, and at its peak in the 2000’s had up to 60,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores. Companies objectives were achieved, become number one movie rental provider in United States of America, and spread their branch thru the world with...
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...Success of the British Heart Foundation CPR advertisement including Vinnie Jones To: CEO of Prestigious Promotions From: Harry Anderson Terms of Reference: Within this report I will look at success of the BHF campaign looking at the variety of media they used and how successful each form of media was. Procedure: I will do this by looking at evidence gathered from the internet, look at the facts and figures of the campaign and come to an overall conclusion on the success of the campaign. The British Heart Foundation is the UK’s number one heart charity, founded in 1961. The charity was founded by a group of scientists concerned with the rising death rates from cardio vascular disease. The money raised from its 700 shops nationwide and donations go directly to scientists for research and development in cardio vascular diseases. Last year over £84 million pounds was given to scientists for research. A few of the promotional mix were used to achieve their goals and help them achieve a successful campaign. Firstly advertising was used in various ways for the campaign the advert launched on twitter and was a success with 53,000 shares within the first week. The advert was also launched on YouTube before it debuted. Furthermore the advert has over 4 million views on YouTube. To create Publicity for the campaign they used a celebrity in Vinnie Jones this creates excitement about the advert a draws people into watching it: creating publicity. Finally from the advert there...
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...Everyone on this planet all probably one thing in common. We all love money, and what it can do for us. If we have money we can get whatever we need or want. The word money means a lot to some people in this world, but what about the word success. What does success truly mean? How do we know if we have succeeded in our life? Does having plenty money makes you successful? These are all good questions to ask yourself. In The Great Gatsby, it shows how the characters may have mixed success and having tons of money together. Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby were important characters in this story because they each portray average people handling money. Handling money can be a very hard thing too because it can influence people and what they do. Do...
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...(1) Explain Apple’s success over the last decade. Think about which industries it has disrupted and how. Apple has been successful because they have been willing to tackle every competitive challenge they have faced head on. They spent the time they needed to look at the situation they were in and see where they weren’t measuring up and where their competitors were better and also what they had that they could use. They realized that they couldn’t compete in the market they were in because the other companies were better, so they decided to focus in that market to get really good products. Plus, because they knew they couldn’t rely on that crowded market, they decided they had to come up with something new. By innovating over and over again in ways that made customers happy in ways that their competitors just didn’t seem able to do. For every big innovation they did, they also kept adding small innovations to get more profit out of them. Every big innovation moved them into new industries. So they disrupted music players, cell phones, tablets, and record stores. (2) Is Apple’s success attributable to industry effects or firm effects, or a combination of both? Explain. I think they mostly succeeded from firm effects. The industries they were in looked like there wasn’t must profit to be had and not much room for them to make money. But because they kept innovating and changing the types of products available in the industries they entered, it seemed...
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...To have a future after high school one must learn to be successful. When discussing success, there are three major points. First is learning from your failures, second is grit, and third is courage. So we've all probably seen those motivational commercials, where they wake up at five a.m., lace up there nikes, go for an eight million mile run, and by the time they get back to their house they are already leaving for the gym. While you're feeling pretty bad about the giant bag of chips in your lap, and you are probably thinking about turning the tv off. Yeah, we've all been there. But this one time I was watching a show and one of these nike commercials came on. Just before I changed the channel, Michael Jordan started to ramble on about failure and success. He said, “Ive failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” At first I was like “ okay that makes no sense at all” so I turned off the tv and went about my day, and then later on I was thinking about what he said and it just occurred to me, “ The only reason anyone succeeds at anything is because they have tried it before and most likely failed. So I did a little more research on what makes someone become a successful person. I found that grit was one of the key points you need to succeed in anything. As I was watching a TED Talk, Angela Lee was talking a lot about grit and how you need a lot of it. Just like me I'm sure you were all wondering what this meant. She explained grit as a, “ … passion...
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...game, the relationship/family game, the money game, the lifestyle game, the health game and the spiritual/moral game. Many people believe that it is almost impossible to win at every game. You can win some and have to lose some of them. However, the author of this book Adam Khoo has written the ways to win in all the aspects of our life. It is not impossible as there are many success stories despite of so many struggles and obstacles. All you have to believe in yourself and follow the set principles and strategies continuously. The book “Winning the Game Of Life” contains some of the key elements that those successful people use to practice in their lives. You cannot only sit and see what is happening around you and cursing your luck why these happened to you. There are so many hidden issues that these successful people have to went through. This set of principles can lead anyone to the desired goal and bring success in every phase of the life. 1. Success is a Journey Success cannot be gained instantly. Someone cannot say I am a successful person by just establishing or reaching one goal. Success is not a destination but a journey....
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...Case analysis reflection Appendix 5 The “Reflection on case analysis” (1 single-spaced page minimum) 1. What was the most useful or meaningful thing you learned, or insight you gained, during this session? There are always arguments you can find to defend one position and it is easy to stick with it. Why I learnt from the session is the importance of being open to different opinions. This doesn’t mean necessarily change your mind but think about it more and be critical. Furthermore, think of the whole picture, not just focus on one single success or failure. Criticize it by its whole. 2. What were the major points, lessons, concepts, etc. in the class? How useful the CAGE framework can be to analyze a company. It gives a whole perspective. Determining if a company is globally successful we might think of geographical distance as the main criteria of being global. But it is actually more complicated than that, is about the culture, administration and economy too. This is why the CAGE framework gives you a complete scenario and it is important to always think of it when concerning an international company. 3. What was the muddiest point in this session? (In other words, what was least clear to you?) Wal-Mart made mistakes, especially with China and Germany. But what did Wal-Mart actually learnt from those mistakes and how did it used that experience in other business cases. Because it was clear Wal-Mart was a failure...
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...called, success. Success means achievement, accomplishment, victory, and triumph. The dictionary states that success is “The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted; the gaining of fame or prosperity” (The Dictionary.com n.pag.) and “The favorable or prosperous termination of anything attempted; the attainment of a proposed object; prosperous issue” (Hypertext Webster Gateway n.pag.). These are just dictionary definitions, though. One needs examples and instances in order to fully understand the meaning of success. Our Service Can Write a Custom Essay on Success for You! Over the years, many people have viewed success as the gaining of fame and fortune. While this is true, success encompasses all kinds of prosperity. Fame and fortune is just one form. The reason why most people view fame and fortune as the prototype of success is because these two things usually come to people who have worked long and hard. For the most part, in order to be and feel successful, one needs to have worked at it. Bob Brown once declared, “Behind every successful man there's a lot of unsuccessful years” (Cyber Quotations n.pag.). Colin Powell also stated, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure” (Cyber Quotations n.pag.). Success is something that usually takes a lot of effort to get, but is worth it in the end. Success is also something that is viewed differently in the eyes of everyone. This is because success means...
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