Business Studies Apple Research Business Report Essay

Revenues are recognized in a net basis and only commissions they retain from each sale are reflected under the company’s financial statements.

The provision and use of personal protective equipment could include using gloves, glasses, earmuffs, aprons, safety footwear, dust masks.

Apple uses a very own made image that can be apart from the other companies that share the same market. That images helps the target people to differentiate the products, for example, there are many kinds of media player, but the apples’ media player are known as one of the best, with a sound resolution that exceed the competition, making that product wanted by a large slice of the market. That same differentiation can also be seen in every Apple’s products. Apple is one of the best examples when talking about differentiation of products.

Apple is a global company represented in many parts of the world, but born in the United States by computer wizards by the names of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who founded the company back in 1976 (Capon, 2008). The organization deals with the design and sale of computer hardware, software and offers tech support to its customers. Examples of the hardware the company manufactures and sells include mobile phones, personal computers, iPads, tablets and iTunes with associated brands, like the MacBook and iPhones that represent Apple’s driving force towards its success. It is recognized as a brand leader in consumer electronics by the world in terms of quality and customer satisfaction and despite the wide product range, Apple manages each product in a distinct way that is a single business unit (Mittan, 2010).

Apple Inc. commonly known as Apple has effectively managed to be a successful company in a very competitive consumer electronics industry by been innovative and differentiating the company’s products with similar products in the markets by offering high quality products and good customer service while the actual manufacturing of the products is outsourced to trusted third party suppliers. On a wider perspective, the company has set high standards that even the company itself has to be on its level best to maintain the standards that it has set. Over the last few years, the consumer electronics market has

Apple corporate culture has played a major role in its success; the corporate culture is founded on values, traits, morals, principles and standards that are believed to be crucial in assisting it and its employees to succeed. The corporate culture is the foundation for what is done in Apple and how it is done. Cumulatively, the distinctive values make Apple a unique company. Apple’s core corporate culture is founded on innovation and nurturing talents of creative people. The company strives to build highly innovative products that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of the customer. Apple’s products embody outstanding designs and styles that attract consumers across the world. Since its inception, Apple has always been associated with cutting edge technology; the company boasts of the most

In relation to Apple’s internal environment, the company encourages an innovative culture, involving staff creativity and open-mindedness to novel ideas. In addition, Apple stresses the use of environmentally friendly practices, and protection of employees’ safety and health at work (Schneider, 1995, p. 70). Apple’s external environment poses a challenge to the company in terms of emerging firms in the technology business line, competitors selling substitute products, charging lower prices that entice customers because of their affordability, in comparison to the high quality and pricing of similar items from Apple (Apple, 2012, p.1).

Apple Inc. has been dedicated to innovation ever since the company was first formed. Apple's recent breakthroughs were a result of a new technologies convergence upon the "digital hub" strategy (Mortensen, 2010). This strategy has served Apple well; especially during the last few years. The iPad, iPod, and iPhone were all born from this strategy. Furthermore, producing these innovative, user friendly, and design oriented products has earned them a considerable amount of customer loyalty.

Apple is committed to maintaining the highest standards, for both environmental responsibility and ethical conducts. They follow strict

Apple Incorporated understands that climate change is a huge global issue that the world faces and knows that change has to start somewhere, so they are taking rigorous steps to measure their environmental impact. For more than two decades, Apple has gone to great lengths to try and minimize their impact that they and their products have on the environment. Apple measures their carbon footprint using a comprehensive product life cycle analysis (Jackson, 2014). Apple computes this analysis report with the help of a digital media resource, the World Resource Institute (WRI)/World Business Council for Sustainable Developments (WBCSD) Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which provides various calculation tools and a database for a wide range of professional companies just like Apple (Jackson, 2014). Apple would not successfully be able to acquire such a detailed calculations report of their carbon emissions without the assistance of the digital media database of the World Resource Institute (WRI)/World Business Council for Sustainable Developments

Apple, Inc. (APPL) operates under a fiscal year accounting period. This period consists of the 52 (or 53) week period that ends on the last Saturday of September. September 25 was the specific date observed as the end of the annual reporting period for 2009 and 2010. Every six years Apple adds an additional week in its first fiscal quarter in an effort to realign its fiscal quarters with calendar quarter.

Even though Apple has encountered many setbacks, it continues to bring new and improve products to the market. Apple’s competitive strategy has been innovation. They have made an extraordinary effort developing, implementing, and executing its very unique strategy through innovation which has resulted in new product, and the enrichment of the existing ones. More specifically, Apple attempts to meet and supply the needs of a global market, by offering eager and enthusiastic consumers with innovated and high-quality products and services. Apple has employed a differentiation strategy linked to innovation with its three core products (computers, personal media player, mobile phones, tablets and other accessories). A key piece of their strategy involves meeting the needs of the converging digital electronics and computer markets. Apple has elected to implement its strategy by designing and developing proprietary operating systems and software technologies, thus allowing for strict protection of its intellectual rights.

The company started off as “Apple Computer,” best known for its Macintosh personal computers (PCs) in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Despite a strong brand, rapid growth, and high profits in the late 1980s, Apple almost went bankrupt in 1996 (Kim & Yoffie, 2010, p.1). This can be explained that Apple has become larger and more significant than other competitors put together in 1980. Because Apple failed to innovate in 1996, the company almost went bankruptcy but eventually Steve Jobs took Apple from bad situation to the company that can make billions of dollars through promoted itself as a hip alternative to other computer brands. Apple highlighted its computers as the world’s “greenest lineup of notebooks” that were energy efficient and used recyclable materials. The goal was to differentiate the Macintosh amid intense competition in the PC industry (Kim & Yoffie, p.4).

Diversity in products and their prices helps Apple remain an inelastic company, regarding their demand. If a price rises for one of their products, there is sure to be another product that moves into that previous product’s price range that is still comparable in design and quality. There will always be people to buy the more expensive items not only because of Apple’s positive brand recognition and loyalty, but because Apple consistently produces quality and innovative products; including, if Apple finds a defect or fault, they fix the problem for free or replace the product altogether.

2． Powerful brand image associated with quality and superior hardware design: Apple continues to innovate in the area of hardware design. Some innovations are:their own A-series chips for iDevices: Where others use general purpose ARM based integrated circuit chips to drive their devices, each A-series chip is designed specifically for the devices it is to power, designed explicitly to meet Apple’s specific requirements; the unibody design for the laptops: provides a lighter, stronger case for the MacBooks; the multi-touch track pad on the laptops: was new & innovative; the magnetic charger connection on the MacBooks; all the iDevices: the build quality is surpassed by no other; The newest iPhone 5 is regarded as a gold standard in terms of its durability as well as the iOS. In each of these examples, hardware design – aesthetics aside – is always of high quality, and uses the latest technology that is ready.