The External Environment Of China

Apple Incorporation is one of the largest organizations dealing into Information Technology. Apple has a host of products ranging from Laptops, Desktops, Mobile Phones and Multimedia Devices. The company has been extremely innovative in the field of multimedia and it owes it success to one of the greatest innovators, Steve Jobs. The company has always believed in innovation and that is the major reason why it has been so successful in the mobile phone segment. In recent years Apple is second only to Samsung in the Global Mobile Phone industry. However the operations have been largely based in the United States and in times of recession any organization needs to focus on economies of scale and thus focus on growth

One key element of Apple’s strategy in computers, personal media players, tablet computers, and smart phones is product innovation, diversification and development. Over the years Apple has been very successful in integrating software and hardware in new developing products. Despite the struggling economy in recent years, Apple has been able to grow their market share and stay ahead of the game.

Tracing back the history of China, Xia Dynasty of the second millennium BCE was the earliest dynasty in China, which was centered along the Yellow River. Before China was unified, it was the time during which most of China's cultural tradition arose. Chinese civilization ascended and developed in a vast area, one-third larger than the United States if such dependencies as Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet are included. For centuries China was almost completely isolated from the other centers of civilization by mountains, deserts, and seas. This isolation helps explain the great originality of China's culture. China has many mountain ranges and three river systems that rise close together on the high Tibetan plateau and flow eastward to

The globalization of china has detrimental affects on its environment and population. Globalization will eventually kill the earth and its people if it is not brought under control. It will cause global warming to accelerate and many environmental changes.

The other nine are limited to only official iPhone pages which merely provide information about Apple products (Anon., 2010) .Therefore although Apple is avaible in almost all areas of the world the extent in which it is availble is limited. Apple is a constantly growing company so it may not be long before it is fully available world wide which means Apple is limited in how globally distanct it is. Futhermore Apples ability to expand may be effected not only by Apples own ambition and desire to do so but also by the restrictions placed on a nation by its government. For example in china apple had no real presence until January 2014 (Bloomberg, 2013) where it was only through agreeing a deal with a Chinese network ‘China Mobile’ was apple able to gain a foothold in china despite many of the components of there products being assembled in that general region. This therefore also shows a limiting factor to Apple’s ability to being global in distance by highlighting the power and influence states can have on a company’s ability to expand into those regions.

Apple has benefitted significantly from globalization and from technology change. For example, the company started primarily as an American company, but globalization has allowed Apple to become a multinational operation. The company only derives around one-third of sales form the Americas according to the annual report, a figure that includes Canada and all of Latin America in addition to the United States. The company therefore can be said to sell globally. Sales in Asia-Pacific were growing especially fast, and the company has numerous flagship stores in the region.

Individual Assignment 1: Using a company that you are familiar with, explain how factors in the external business environment influence marketing strategies and outcomes

Apple has prospered internally and it is necessary to consider both strengths and weaknesses. Apple has lots of strengths, the major of them being it’s impressive brand reputation, Apple managed to position the brand as “premium products” for “elite” people. Customers are loyal and tend to stay in Apple’s ecosystem. Apple’s self-reinforcing ecosystem, it has a diverse ecosystem which integrates various hardware and software products into one large interactive space. Status of top innovator, Apple is perceived as the leading innovator and its products are highly anticipated. Apple’s very strong financial performance, high profit margins and very high liquidity. It’s network of retail stores, high-quality customer service helps to create advanced user experience. A powerful marketing strategy, Apple’s team masterly uses various marketing techniques to create a hype for their products and to strengthen the brand.

Is the lifestyle of people in Europe and the USA a major cause of China’s environmental problems?

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

Established in 1976, Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II and the Macintosh. Today, Apple designs, manufactures and markets personal computers, portable digital music players and mobile communication devices as well as related software, services, peripherals and network solutions. Apple sells its products worldwide through its online stores, retail stores, direct sales forces and third party distributors to its core customers—consumers,

Currently, most countries have made numerous environmental policies and spent lots of money to stop environmental pollution and protect the environment. In China, China’s leaders were putting, even more, emphasis on the companies who make chemical production, especially after chemical disasters in recent years. Although China has made great process in supervision pollution, the serious gaps still exist in hazardous materials’ oversight in China. Recently, there was uproar among Chinese families after a report of China Central Television, and the report revealed that about 500 students at Changzhou Foreign Languages School had developed illnesses because of pollution at school.

With the declining sales in China, iPhone maker Apple is casting its eyes on India, a third largest smartphone market which operates differently than any other major market. The economics and the slow networks having been the main roadblocks, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, insists India is very much in Apple’s scheme of things as it looks to proliferate there in the future, a distant future in fact.

Political & Legal environment: The political system of a country is an important part of a companies marco-environment. ‘Who governs the country?’ ‘What does the government follow?’ and ‘What legal regulations follow from these policies?’. The most important factors a company is subject to are policy uncertainty, macro instability, and tax rates. Considering China is a country in transition all of the above factors are subject to change, to a degree substantially larger than it is in stable developed countries. We have recently seen changes happening in China on all of the above factors. One example is the new regulations regarding copying, which turned out in favor of Starbucks. However, what will happen in the (near) future is hard to tell. Whatever happens though, Starbucks will be subject to the consequences, whether positive or negative.

Apple Inc. is the most revered corporation of the USA, both in terms of brand equity and market capitalization. The company’s international competitive strategy is focused on the innovative product development, which Apple controls through its eight business segments: Portables, Desktops, iPads, iPhones, Music related products and services, peripherals and hardware (Lam et al. 2005).