Internal Factors: Situational Analysis Of Apple

4. Use their strong financial position to participate in CR to build on their reputation.

The company chosen for these audit exercises is Apple. Everyone has heard about this company and

Technological factor - As technology is growing fast it is a big advantage for Apple because if it continue innovates like today it will be able to keep a pace of the high technology growth in the world. Increasing demand in technology can lead the company to new success.

3. Make another product and service that can surpass the new product of their competitor and give a right amount of their product so the customer will buy our products because it is

Apple products are in demand and it makes them attract a wide customer base. The company has over 400 retail store and is still growing in almost 15 different countries. Apple even has an online store which is very affective for some of its customer base. Apple used superior design techniques, correctly priced items, and the hype to sell it products. () There superior hard drive and simple to use Apple products help everyone with their daily needs.

Capabilities are the firms ' capacity to deploy resources that have been purposely integrated to achieve a desired end state (Hit, Ireland, and Hoskisson, p.81).In the case for Apple the firm 's unique marketing abilities, engineering skills, creativity, and R&D. Apple 's distinctive core competencies lie within their ability to provide quality products through their vertically integrated inbound activities. Not only are Apple 's finished goods differentiated by quality, they are innovative and cutting edge. Innovation is driven by consistent investment in R&D. Apple has also shown competencies in building brand reputation and generating buzz for its products. Their marketing campaigns have been successful and remain a value added activity. One of Apple 's key capabilities comes from co-founders, Steve Jobs, who has effectively manage to steer Apple into a new market and gain new market share. Apple has effectively integrated its supply chain and distribution channels with the installation of SAP R/3. It now offers built to order machines that can compete with Dell. Apple also has become a key innovator with products such as the

Apple were a very successful company at maintaining competitive advantage over its main competitors, this success can be analysed in more detail using Porter 's five forces model which is broken into:

The music industry’s reinvention, shifted from physical stores to downloads, hence guaranteeing new opportunities for their business (and that of competitors);

SWOT analysis, also known as SWOT matrix is a general organized list of businesses’ greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The SWOT analysis is further divided into two different factors, namely the internal factors which comprises of the business’s strengths and weaknesses to the company as well as the external factors which comprises of opportunities and threats to the company. Internal factors are factors that are within our means and control, for example reputation, patents and locations whereas external factors are factors that we are not able to control, for example suppliers and competitors. Every type of businesses are encouraged to use SWOT analysis as an accessessment tool for their business, especially existing business which can use it anytime

* Apple software, Cell phone and hardware are very costly as compared to other rivals such as Dell.

Apple Company keeps increasing with its sales, this is primarily due to apples competitive edge over other companies with its products and the services it provides. Apple Inc. is very competitive and like to have the upper hand in all products their competitors sell. Apple paid a total of $6 billion for this year’s research and development to have the upper hand on new technology’s and better products. Just last quarter in 2014, the Company introduced many new products like the, iPad Air, its fifth generation iPad and iPad mini with Retina display. Apple also announced there release of the iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2014. In September 2014, the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple pay were introduced. Then in October 2014, Apple introduces iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, I Mac with Retina 5k Display, updated its Mac mini, and previews the Apple Watch for all to see. There content developing and innovative technology is always what keeps them ahead of their competitors. Not only does Apple sell quality products but they always provides quality support. Apple provides warranty and product support with it AppleCare which offers a range of support options for the Apple customers. Which is helpful when issue occur in the Company’s products. This makes it easy for customers to get the help they want and keeps the customers satisfied.

Android has grown exponentially from merely 4 percent of the market in 2009 to 66 percent of the market in 2012, according to Gartner. Samsung is Apple’s main competitor, but also Apple’s sole supplier of application processor that is required for the iPhone to function which gives Samsung the ability to charge a higher premium for their application processor. A key opportunity Apple can acquire is obtaining patents and merging into different markets to create their own application processor, as their contract with Samsung expires in 2014.

1. Performance apple needs the performance of the company to be good as there is no place for under performance in this industry as there is a lot of competition and they can copy the new ideas innovated within the industry easily. As we can see from the case study apple were making considerable amount of losses for a few quarters. The many cause of these losses was products being introduced to the market but not selling or products being introduced with high manufacturing cost such as the apple

[pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]Organizational strategies are the means through which companies accomplish their missions and goals. Successful strategies address [pic]four elements of the setting within which [pic]the company operates: (1) the company 's strengths, (2) its weaknesses, (3) the opportunities in its competitive [pic]environment, and (4) the threats in its competitive [pic]environment. This set of four elements—strengths, weaknesses, [pic]opportunities, and threats—when used by a firm to gain competitive advantage, is often referred to as a SWOT analysis. SWOT was developed by Ken Andrews in the early 1970s. An assessment of strengths and weaknesses occurs as a part of [pic]organizational analysis;

Invent new product that satisfy needs, including product that upgrade society’s quality of life by promotion.