The Challenge For Apple Inc

Apple’s goal is mainly on generating creative ideas that focus on products that are different and those that will lead to sales and customer brand loyalty.

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.

Since 1976 Apple’s innovation has helped the company become a market leader in computer and mobile electronics. Through this time the company has faced a number of challenges either it be an internal power struggles or criticism from the media for certain aspects of their business model. This report covers five different issues that the company is facing or may face in the future.

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 was established as an IT company dealing in exclusively in computers. However, competition in the technology sector forced the firm to focus on other consumer products. The diversification strategy has seen Apple’s sales grow tremendously in the last decade, earning the firm the No. 1 brand position at Forbes. The Apple brand is recognized on an international scale and enjoys a strong recognition thanks to its aggressiveness when it comes to creativity and innovation (Tar, 2013). It has a large number of loyal customers who would purchase the new products regardless of the market price, which guarantees profits from the new division.

Technology change has naturally been a major factor in Apple's success. The company played a major role in the shift to a mobile computing society, by developing the personal technology devices that would

I learned that Apple is a juggernaut when it comes to their technological products and marketing goals. Apple focuses on the needs of customer’s light years ahead of their competition and even before most consumers have realized they want Apple’s products. Through their innovative marketing involving social media, word of mouth, Apple Stores they have convinced consumers about the high value of their product even lending to the formation of a “Mac cult” for its diehard fans. The way ahead for Apple is not to lose sight of its brand loyalty and continue to service the customers and entice them with the brand’s prestige. Even with the death of Steve Jobs, I believe Apple forge ahead to differentiate itself from the markets they are in.

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, Inc. started out as a concept driver when they reached new market showing fast growth in the beginning. Then, they came up with new knowledge and competencies as concept learners. They were also pioneers in the industry showing fast innovation. They reached a mature life cycle with economies of scale when they had to widen their product lines. Apple, Inc. went through all the stages of technological change. However, in the fast growth stage they were not prepared for what lay ahead, so they had to come up with different strategies to have the competitive advantage. Every stage requires development of their employees and more financing resources (Mello, 2011).

Issue 02: Apple is a wildly successful company that generates billions of dollars in profits every year. This is one of the strongest examples of how a company with the right strategy, great products, a strong leader and the willingness to take some risks can become vastly successful. The market in which Apple is strong has intense rivalry for market share. Apple is challenged with staying ahead of its competitors and maintaining long-term relationships with its customers. In order to stay ahead of the competition Apple is forced to keep product innovation a top priority. I would maintain a Blue Ocean Strategy to market our product and maintain our competitive advantage (McGraw-Hill Irwin, Page 152). The company has a strong and loyal customer base which will allow Apple to concentrate the focus to highlighting the features of our products. I will not focus on what our competitors can and cannot do; I will focus the attention to the benefits of having Apple products. Strategic marketing campaigns highlighting the different uses and features of the popular iPhone and iPad will headline the campaign.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the world leaders in the research, development, marketing, sales and service of personal digital music & video devices, in addition to personal computers globally. Its' innovative music and digital content delivery service, iTunes, has sold over 1 billion songs to date. As of the close of their latest fiscal year the company generated $156B in Sales and generated a Gross Profit of $68B earning a Net Income of $41B (Apple Investor Relations, 2013). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate Apple's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) and provide an analysis of each. The cause, impact and recommendations for each specific strength, weakness, opportunity and threat are provided along with an action plan of how to maximize strengths and opportunities and mitigate the effects of weaknesses and threats. The Apple brand is among the most valuable in the world and its ability to innovate with successive product generations unmatched, yet this has led to a high dependence on its iPhone and iPad platforms, to the exclusion of entirely new businesses. The Apple iTunes platform and ecosystem delivers 30% of all profits and a significant portion of overall revenue, making this single business a stabilizing force in their strategic product and services roadmap (Apple Investor Relations, 2013). Despite these challenges however Apple continues to attain

Tim Cook’s task may seem impossible but it isn’t, it is daunting no doubt. There are a few steps Tim Cook could take:

Three areas that Apple can use to improve its learning and growth include: focusing on understanding more of the customer's needs, increasing quality and enhancing innovation. The way that they relate to the mission, vision and strategy is through empowering the staff to create products which are going above and beyond the expectations of customers. This is the basic model that Apple used to stand out against competitors. When this happens, a larger demographic of consumers will realize an improvement in their overall experience. ("Apple Inc," 2012)

One of Apple’s biggest strengths and aspects of their image originates from their vision. Their excellent talent to design creative products and remarkable campaigns has helped Apple exceed even their largest competitors. While most companies try to cut costs when developing a marketing plan, Apple focuses on making their products unique. In fact in 2007, Apple was named the Most Innovated Company by Business Week for the third year in a row (Ireland, Hoskisson, & Hitt, 2008).

This paper aims to highlight and discuss the major challenges and opportunities which Apple Inc. faces while bringing innovation in the four primary areas of its business operations; including product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, and organizational innovation. The major focus of the paper is towards discussing the combination of all these processes which this organization follows and the major challenges which it faces in the course of its innovation or change strategies. The paper concludes by summarizing the importance of innovation for Apple Inc. in the light of the whole discussion.