...Abstract This essay will explain the importance of a SWOT analysis for a business. It will research Apple, Inc., and explain their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The paper will show how these aspects impact the company. It will provide methods that management can use to overcome their weaknesses and threats, as well as how to take advantage of opportunities and strengths. The importance of a SWOT analysis A SWOT analysis is important to an organization because it analyzes the climate of the company overall. It provides a candid look at the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This allows management teams to decide how to best use the strengths of the company, and how to improve the weaknesses. When goal setting and long-term planning, these are areas that either can be exploited, or need improvement. When reviewing opportunities and threats, an organization must look at its corporate environment. The opportunities are aspects of the environment that a company can take advantage of such as a way to expand or grow customers. Threats to an organization can come in many forms. A company must make every effort to avoid or minimize threats to its bottom line, or even its mere existence. A SWOT analysis helps to identify what is good and what needs improvement in a company. While strengths and weaknesses are the internal indicators of an organization’s need for improvement, opportunities and threats are the external forces that determine needed...
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...SWOT analysis of Apple Company background Name | Apple Inc. | Industries served | Computer hardware, Computer software, Consumer electronics, Digital distribution | Geographic areas served | Worldwide | Headquarters | U.S. | Current CEO | Tim Cook | Revenue | $ 156.508 billion (2012) | Profit | $ 41.733 billion (2012) | Employees | 72,800 (2012) | Main Competitors | Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Amazon.com, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Dell Inc., LG Electronics, Lenovo Group Limited, Hewlett-Packard Company, Sony Corporation and many others. | Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation, which designs, manufactures and sells personal computers, consumer electronics and software, and provides related services. The business has experienced a tremendous growth from 2001 when it has introduced its iPod mp3 player. Apple Inc. is considered to be the most successful electronics company in the world. Mission Apple mission statement 2013 | “Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.” | Overview Apple’s mission is one of the poorest statements that can be found...
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...Yolanda Davis Scanning the Environment American InterContinental University Online July 4, 2013 Apple SWOT Analysis Strengths Key Factor-Innovation Apple has been the leader in technological innovation with the release of such products as the MacBook Computers, iPods, iPads, iPhone and more recently the announcement of iTV. According to the 2012 Global Innovation 1000 conducted by Booz & Company, Apple ranked number 1 for the 3rd year in a row. Although many may feel that innovation is about creating new products all the time, Apple’s idea of innovation is about creating quality products (Krasnv, 2013). By building on their strength over the years to create quality products they have also built a foundation as lead innovators and constantly change the technological game with their products. Key Factor-Brand As a leader in innovation, Apple has also secured their brand value by constantly creating products that are well designed but also by understanding that brand is less about the logo and more about aligning the business strategy and employee base with the ability to influence how the consumer felt about the product. This factor is demonstrated by the fact that at least half of every U.S. household own one Apple product minimum despite the price of their products (Gralnick, 2012). Although not infallible, brand power does reflect a company’s marketing ability and Apple has shown the world that they have marketing power by ranking number two behind Coca Cola in 2012...
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...Apple Inc. is a very successful producer of computer software and hardware that leads in its competitive industry. To evaluate the progress, success, and faults of the company, the SWOT analysis is used. SWOT analysis stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat for a particular organization, which can help in formulating a strategy for its business and can also help in analyzing its internal environment (Strengths & Weakness) and external environment (Opportunities & Threats). First of all, according to the article “Apple Inc. : Services - Company Profile, SWOT & Financial Report”, the author states that strong R&D capabilities and great brand image are the biggest strengths of the company. Apple’s strength relies on focusing Research and Development, “In the last three years, the company invested more than $7,592m in research and development. The R&D team of the company executed several projects to enhance and develop various products and technologies.” (“Apple Inc. : Services - Company Profile, SWOT & Financial Report” 19). R&D helps the company to create innovative products and stand out from its competitors. Apple expenditure trend shows that the money spent for R&D increases year after year. Apple’s return of investment on R&D paid off with innovative products and with company’s revenues. Moreover, Apple’s brand image is highly recognizable and holds brand awareness to the majority of consumers. This solid brand image can increase the sales of the new products compared...
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...Apple SWOT Analysis Purpose of SWOT analysis The main purpose of the SWOT analysis is to identify the most significant factors that affect a company and its market both internally and externally (Hooley, G. 2004). This analysis provides Apple with quick, executive keys by looking at strength and weaknesses alongside opportunities and threats. It’s designed to help the company’s strategy formulation. The company will be able look at which strengths should be developed and best deployed, which weakness will be the most vulnerable to market change and competitor action and which relevant future strategy for building new strengths will be most profitable in the market. Strengths Apple is a company, which manufactures a variety of products including computers, operational software, mobile phones, portable digital music and related accessories. The brand is well known for high quality products, which help differentiate them from competitors. The company owns one of the top brand names in technology worldwide with 54% of their profits coming from foreign markets (Apple Annual Report, 2006). As highlighted by Everett M. Rogers, customers are always interested in trying the latest and up to date pieces of technology. By understanding customers and knowing how to fulfil their wants, Apple’s products are created with a unique design with hi-tech capabilities, attracting the attention of their target audience. As a result, market share is continually increasing. The company...
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...Apple SWOT Analysis II MGT/521 Management October 31, 2011 Erick Espinosa Abstract Apple is a company that concerned of the environment and has been working for more than 20 years to minimize the impact their products have on the environment. Apple has developed and formulate an environmental policy in 1990 and since then, Apple has continue making their products more energy efficient, eliminating toxic substances. Apple is also the only organization that all the products they sell not only meets but exceeds the firm energy guidelines of the ENERGY STAR specification. In 2009 become the first company to report their total carbon footprint giving the opportunity to their clients to see Apple progress and efforts. Studying the financial statements of Apple investors and also costumers can determinate the health of the company, with the statements investors can decide if is a good investment risk by studying them in depth because the financial statements inform all of the business assets and liabilities and also include information about how much shareholders would receive as dividends from each share of stock. Companies calculate the earnings per share by dividing their net income by the total number of outstanding stock. Apple SWOT Analysis The environment of Apple is unique in this type of industry, because they focus on all the steps that their products pass through, Apple calculate their carbon footprint establishing the impact the company has in the planet...
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...1. Swot analysis Strengths: Apple is a successful company with a well known brand. They have longevity in the market place and are a very profitable company. In the quarter ended September 2011, Apple had its all time record high sales of Macintosh and iPhones, ever. They posted a quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and a quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue, according to a press release on their website announcing their financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter. Apple has a very loyal set of customers and the company continues to provide new products to its customers due to its easy to use product range. Startup costs are extremely high so the probability of new entrants is low. The existing companies have capitalized on the distribution channels and have created strong branding awareness that makes it difficult for new comers to compete. The probability of success is so low that competitors pursue niche markets rather than trying to compete with the bigger companies. Apple positioned itself years before so it has created its space in the computer industry just as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway and Dell. Weaknesses: Pricing is high on many of their products. Proprietary operating system. Opportunities: Loyal customers, successful iPad and iPhone product lines, good reputation. A new version of Apple TV could leverage the web, and capitalize on the issues that Netflix has recently...
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...SWOT Analysis Apple Strengths Apple is considered a successful company. Due to the good profits of the iPod music player, it was a booster for Apply to bring up a whole new series of products that form up the Apple brand. Apple is one of the established IT brands in the world. They have enthusiastic and loyal customers. In 2011, they came up with iCloud. This enables the users to store their things remotely on a computer and it will automatically synchronize with your iPhone, iPad and other apple products when it is connected to Wi-Fi and is charging. When you change or upgrade to a new iPhone model or product, you can download the contents stored previously on the new gadget. It is also known as the remote storage. iMessaging is made available in 2011 for Apple products. It is a free messaging system from Apple to Apple product using the 3G network. This is a big boost and many said that it is due to the already available Blackberry Messenger. Weaknesses There was a report that the Apple iPod Nano might have a faulty screen. Apple has also commented that the batch of its product has screens that comes to impact would break. Apple replaced all the faulty items. In addition, early iPods had faulty batteries. Thus the customers were offered free battery cases. The music industry has also added pressure on Apple to increase the price of its music download file. Many of those companies make more money from iTunes (the downloadable music files) than the original CD sales...
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...Business 200W – Business Research and Communication Individual Case Analysis Apple Inc. SWOT Analysis Company Overview Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation which focuses on designing and manufacturing technology products such as consumer electronics, personal computers and software. Apple Computer, Inc. was established in Cupertino, California on April 1, 1976 and incorporated on January 3, 1977 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The company used this name for the first 30 years until it removed the word “Computer” on January 9, 2007 to reflect its expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to its original computer market. Apple designs, manufactures and markets personal computers, servers, network solutions, peripherals, mobile communication devices, portable digital music players, and related accessories, software and services. The company’s product portfolio comprises Mac computer systems, iPod portable digital music and video players, iPhone mobile phones, iPad portable multimedia, and Xsan and Mac OS servers. The company’s applications include Mac OS, iTunes, iLife, iWork, iClould, Safari, QuickTime, MobileMe and others. Apple mainly operates in the United State and manages its business primarily on geographic structure. It develops global market through five operating segments: the Americas, Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific and retails. The company sells its products through online...
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...SWOT Analysis Apple Strengths ?Apple is a very successful company. Sales of its iPod music player had increased its second quarter profits to $320 (June 2005). The favourable brand perception had also increased sales of Macintosh computers. So iPod gives the company access to a whole new series of segments that buy into other parts of the Apple brand. Sales of its notebooks products is also very strong, and represents a huge contribution to income for Apple. ?Brand is all-important. Apple is one of the most established and healthy IT brands in the World, and has a very loyal set of enthusiastic customers that advocate the brand. Such a powerful loyalty means that Ample not only recruits new customers, it retains them i.e. they come back for more products and services from Apple, and the company also has the opportunity to extend new products to them, for example the iPod. Weaknesses ?It is reported that the Apple iPod Nano may have a faulty screen. The company has commented that a batch of its product has screens that break under impact, and the company is replacing all faulty items. This is in addition to problems with early iPods that had faulty batteries, whereby the company offered customers free battery cases ?There is pressure on Apple to increase the price of its music download file, from the music industry itself. Many of these companies make more money from iTunes (i.e. downloadable music files) than from their original CD sales. Apple has sold about 22 million...
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...Abstract This individual project is a SWOT analysis on Apple. We will analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Once the analysis is completed, we will propose a strategy and a product to take advantage of their vulnerabilities to increase the company’s market share. The strategies will be used to make sure the highest benefit to the company will be looked at with great detail. The evaluation would suggest the need to extend with the strategy or to redefine them. SWOT Analysis of Apple Apple Incorporated is managed by CEO Tim Cook. Apple manufacturers’ computers, computer software, computer hardware, electronics. Apple has grown since 2001 when they launched the iPod mp3 player. Apple is the most prosperous electronics company in the world and has $156.508 billion in revenue and has profited $41.733 billion all in the year 2012 (DataMonitor, 2006). SWOT ANALYSIS Strengths 1. Strategic Alliances: Apple has been thriving in increasing and improving strategic alliances with lateral manufacturers and intermediate connection giants like Verizon, Comcast, Disney, and TBS. Strategic alliances have been a source of comparable benefit as the association can focus on making innovative products like iPod, iTunes, and iPad. 2. Creativity: Creativity is apples well renowned strength in the entire industry. Apple has continued to be creative, an example of which is the creativity it conveyed to the OS and hardware conceive...
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...Jeremy White Kaplan University Dr. Sjuib May 17, 2012 Executive Summary: Apple Inc, is an American multinational organization which deals in manufacturing, designing and marketing computers, computer software and different consumer electronics. The company has been listed in NASDAQ exchange under ‘AAPL’ ticker symbol. The company is headed by Mr. Bill Campbell. The present CEO of Apple Inc. is Mr. Steve Jobs, who has a strong focus on innovation. The company works strongly on innovation and technology, so as to have a competitive edge in the market, with a strong focus on innovation, the company is able to makes differentiated products which makes Apple Inc. one of the most successful company. Company overview: ‘Apple Inc, is one of the biggest manufacturer of personal PC’s , mobile communication devices and portable music and video players. The Company’s products and services include the Mac line of desktop and portable computers, iPhone, the iPod line of portable digital music and video players, Apple TV, Xserve, a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications, the Mac OS X operating system, third-party digital content and applications through the iTunes Store, and a variety of accessory, service and support offerings. The Company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, and third-party wholesalers, retailers, and value-added resellers. In addition, the Company sells a variety of third-party...
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...SWOT analysis for Apple Inc. Cornelius Morgan Kaplan University GB 540, Section 04N Professor Fahlino Sjuib August 27, 2013 SWOT analysis for Apple Inc. A SWOT analysis takes a look at the internal and external factors that affect a given company. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors. Opportunities and Threats are the external factors. The SWOT analysis provides an easy to look at set of information that shows how a company can best match its resources and abilities to be competitive in a given market. (Bradford & Duncan, 2011) A SWOT analysis is an important resource to have for any company. James Higgins once said, “Innovation is the secret to competitive advantage in today’s rapidly changing environment.” (Higgins, 1995) Having been around since the mid- 1970s, Apple has been a leader in innovation in the electronics and computing industry for quite a while. Their products; Mac Computers, iPods, iPads, the iPad mini, iPhones and other innovations are highly sought after all over the globe. There is no concrete way to determine what will happen to Apple in the future, especially after the death of its visionary and founder, Steve Jobs, in late 2011. A SWOT analysis, when done properly, can help the company formulate the proper strategy to move forward and make the best use of its resources and increase the overall market share that the company owns. Apple is a brand name...
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...RUNNING HEAD: Apple, Inc. SWOT Analysis Apple, Inc. SWOT Analysis AIU – MGT680 Abstract As a senior manager of a computer company, this paper will discuss the company’s competitor, Apple, Inc. This paper will include five factors of strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for Apple, Inc. It will explain why those factors are important for this company to know. The paper will also propose a strategy and product that will take advantage of Apple, Inc. vulnerabilities which will increase this company’s market share. Apple, Inc. SWOT Analysis Introduction Apple, Inc. is a major competitor for our company and by doing a SWOT analysis of Apple, Inc. means we can help our own strategies. A SWOT analysis looks at strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats factors of Apple, Inc. By knowing these factors about Apple, Inc. will be important to our company because it takes a look at our competitor. A strategy and product will also be proposed that will take advantage of Apple, Inc. vulnerabilities which will increase this company’s market share. SWOT Analysis Strengths Apple, Inc. has five great strengths that include innovation, brand, customer loyalty, retail stores and marketing, and cash flow abundance. Apple, Inc. innovation includes being the leader in technological innovation with the release of products such as the iPods, iPhone and more. The 2012 Global Innovation 1000 ranked Apple, Inc. number 1 for the 3rd year in a row. Apple, Inc.’s...
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...Management SWOT – An Analysis of Apple Incorporated 09 March, 2014 Abstract The advanced technology that is available today has not only allowed Apple to produce the innovative products that are available to their customers today, this same technology is used by others to remain a competitor in the market place today. Most business analyses would agree that Apple is a good strong organization. Most would also agree that Apple is strong because of its ability to accomplish the short and long term goals that have been established through its strategic plan and the SWOT analysis of the organization. Although Apple is a power house in the market place; the organization does have its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that will have to be addressed or Apple could eventually experience a decline in its market share. A SWOT analysis not only can help an organization realize it strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats it can also help the organization capitalize on the weaknesses that may exist with other organizations. Introduction Apple Inc. was founded 1976 and was the brain child of Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak. Although the organization was actually born on April Fool’s Day many will agree that Jobs and Wozniak’s vision for the future of computers was much bigger than a foolish dream or prank. Wozniak had a love for developing computers and while working for Hewlett-Packard he developed what would become the first Apple Computer (Apple, n.d.)...
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