Mission And Vision Of Apple Marketing Essay

Apple Computer, Inc. was created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in April 1976.   It started as a computer software and hardware manufacturer. Apple Computer, Inc. is famous for having one of the largest and most loyal customer bases that have helped to make concrete consistent growth for the company (Yoffie, Slind, 2008). 

In 2007 Apple Computer Inc., became Apple Inc. to mirror its expansion into the consumer electronics market while still upholding its traditional focus on the personal computer.   Apple Inc. has changed from being known as strictly a computer company into a diverse technology company that is known for its art, video, graphics, and always pushing the envelope as a content creator.   CEO Steve Jobs is not only the company leader he is one of its major creators He refers to it as a magical device that will change the world (Boykin, Fiorini, Tanaka, & Webb, 2008).

Apple introduced the iPod, a portable digital music player based on the MP3 compression standard, in November 2001. Thanks to its sleek design, it soon became a symbol of the Digital Age (Yoffie, Slind, 2008). Initially, the iPod could only be compatible with Macs. But in August 2002 Apple introduced an iPod for Windows. The company’s approach to developing and marketing the iPod was less closed than its longtime approach to deploying the Macintosh (Yoffie, Slind, 2008).

MISSION AND VISION OF APPle:

At the outset it can be interesting that know what was mission and vision of apple.

Vision: Every person around the global should taste at least 1 apple product

MISSION: Apple is committed to bring the best personal computing experience to consumer around the word through its innovative hardware,software,and internet offering.

QUESTION 1:

Historically, what were apples major competitive advantage ?

At the first for define what is the competitive advantage of apple ,we can look at what kind of resources apple has.

According to Apple’s marketing department it is important that Apple computers differentiate from

other computers because of the ‘attractive Apple design factors’.

So it seems a valuable resource and imitable resources that competitors cannot copy these factors.

Another Key resource are the apple stores, these stores are valuable resources as they create quite

some revenues,

Brand recognition and the building of resources is another imitable resource that is a key resource

for Apple. As Apple was created during the 1980’s it has had a long time to develop its brand and

accumulate resources.

But what competitive advantages has apple historically ?

Competitive advantage has two part , cost advantage and differentiation advantage ,that Aplle was chosed differentiation advantage,for prove that ,will argue this issue below:

Apple pursues a differentiation strategy since it started in 1976. Only one time they offered a computer aiming for the mass market, but very soon decided came back to their differentiation strategy. This differentiation strategy was at one point supported by a strong promotion campaign, with the goal of to ‘differentiate the Macintosh amid intense competition in the PC industry. Apple has always been a very innovative PC manufacturer. Apple always managed to launch PC innovations on the market so the innovative role still gave Apple a lot of attention. Apple could create a high value image of the Apple PCs and made the customers ‘love’ their Macs. These loyal customers allowed Apple to charge premium prices for their products.

In other hand at the outset, Apple had many competitive advantage that allowed it to become a profitable business.Apples PCs relied on proprietary designs that only apple could produce.when Apple developed macintosh,it was very easy to use ,had an industrial design, had technical elegance.people craved these qualities in a PC.

Apple makes a difference in the pc market and industry trough its innovative product design.macintosh has been the powerful tool to build the success story of compny.

Apple was able to control the Mac completely in both hardware and software. It was also able to develop its own peripherals that took advantage of a ‘plug and play’ system.

Many of Apples current competitive advantages are come froms its initial competitive advantages.users in todays word still value the user experience just when the Mac was initially introduced.

At the main view Apple’s competitive advantages are its control of software and hardware, marketing, digital asset management, retail strategy, product differentiation and Steve Jobs’s strategical decisions. And Macs offer attractive design, ease of use, good security, and bundeled software . ‘plug and play’ system is still in use,though right now.

QUESTION 2:

What did apple fail to build on these advantages to lead the industry ?

All of PC producer is that none have rare resources as the parts used in building PC’s are largely standardized same as apple. Another problem is that there is always a substitute for a certain PC.

Non-substitutable resources are also limited as the products mainly need to have the same functions.

Thus companies need to largely rely on brand name and quality, but quality increases price.

Apple faced with this problem as its high quality products are more expensive than computers from other companies.

Currently Apple’s share in the PC business is relatively small, thus

it can be concluded that wasn’t possible for them as sustainable competitive advantage and the

Current resources of apple weren’t enough to create a great and sustainable competitive advantage.

Thereby that seems that Apple’s PC Business does currently have sustainable growth. Part of this growth can be

attributed to the Halo effect of the i Brand(ipod,itune), that has attracted successful due to products like

iPod and iTunes and thus increase the interest in Apple products including the Macintosh computers.

In other hand apple did heavy invesment in research and made huge cost for apple and apple has to bear the cost of components and part that it purchases,this expense made bad situation for apple to take advantage and lead the industry.

QUESTION 3:

How has structure of the personal computer industry changed over the last 20 years ? what are the implication for the profitability of personal computer manufactures ? please argue your point using Michael porter 5 forces.

http://essays24.com/print/Apple-Case-Study/51464.html

http://homepage2.nifty.com/suhada/rep/apple.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/mercybabu/apple-inc-2008-report

2. Analyze the personal computer industry. Are the dynamics favorable or problematic for Apple?

Technology in Pc industry became cheaper and affordable over time. Company´s growth was driven by low prices but revenue growth did not match with the volume growth. This led to a decrease in R&D. Hence almost all PC suppliers used cost differentiations as their strategy and sell to volume.   The consumers cared deeply about price, home consumers also valued design, mobility, and wireless connectivity, business consumers balanced price with service and support and at last education buyers depended on software availability.

It can be said, that the dynamics were problematic for Apple because of low prices of different supplier.   But on the other hand it can be seen as favorable to Apple. The reason was Apple had control of both hardware and software. This was a unique strength which other computer industry did not possess. Furthermore, Apple revamped its product line which offered machines that could deliver a.

Five Forces Model

The Five Forces Model by Porter (Wit & Meyer, 2004, pp. 258-262) determines the attractiveness of

an industry. There are five different forces that determine whether the profits in any given industry

will be high or whether competition drives profits down. The profits are essentially determined by

these forces because they influence prices, costs, and required investment of firms (Wit & Meyer,

2004, p. 259). The five different Forces by Porter that “embody the rules of competition” (Wit &

Meyer, 2004, pp. 258-262) are:

Suppliers force

The bargaining power of suppliers determine this force. Cases of supplier power include presence of

substitute inputs, differentiation of inputs and supplier concentration (Wit & Meyer, 2004, p. 260).

The effect of this power is changeable by the number of buyer and importance of materials which

companies require.

Buyers force

The bargaining leverage of buyers determine this force. Substitute products, buyer volume and buyer

information are examples (out of many) from this force (Wit & Meyer, 2004, p. 260).

New entrants force

The threat of new entrance determines this force. Entry barriers can make the threat of new entrants

either easier or more difficult. There is an extensive list of entry barriers, but examples are switching

costs, access to distribution or government policy (Wit & Meyer, 2004, p. 260). Economies for scale

also make the barriers higher.

Substitutes force

There are several determinants of the threat of substitutes. Examples are relative price performance

of substitutes, switching costs and buyer propensity to substitute (Wit & Meyer, 2004, p. 260)

Industry competitors force

the final force is determined by the rivalry among existing competitors inside the industry.

Determinants can be the industry growth, brand identity, Product differences and switching costs.

The structure of the PC industry

Now that we have discussed the theory we can apply it to the case as to determine the structure of

the PC industry.

Five Force Analysis

Suppliers force

” The Company has entered into certain agreements for the supply of key components including, but

not limited to, microprocessors, NAND flash memory, DRAM and LCDs at favourable pricing, but

there is no guarantee that the Company will be able to extend or renew these agreements on similar

favourable terms, or at all, upon expiration or otherwise be able to obtain favourable pricing in the

future.”(10-K, 2008, P, 17). Sometimes quality components can become a struggle within the PC

industry as competitors try to obtain these components and make sure that others cannot use these

technologies. Considering this, a supplier’s power could be changed because of this situation. These

days, “declining average selling prices”(X-bit, 2009) are problematic for the suppliers, which in turn

could lead to a decrease in new technologies as these suppliers will have lower incomes and thus less

revenues to spend on R&D.

Buyers force

There are a number of different entities to which Personal Computer industry caters: large

companies, normal households, governments and so on.

However, Apple’s target includes people who have special demands for a computer. For example, in

the publishing industry; Apple’s computer was the only effective machine as it allowed companies to

edit things digitally. Apple still remains in that industry, because of the fonts, the system, and options

it brings. Many companies continue to use Apple’s computers as it is expensive to change the entire

system, thus companies are afraid to switch to other systems. However, average sales continue to

decline. “Combined, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Apple’s unit sales decreased only 5% year-over-year,

however, their collective ASP dropped 13%, causing an 18% decline in PC revenues.”(X-bit,

2009).Needless to say, Apple’s competitors have control over Apple’s former market share.

New entrants force

More than 60% of the market share is occupied by Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba (“PC

Market Still Strong in Q4 With Solid Growth Across Regions, According to IDC”, 2008). Brand identity

is a large enough barrier to make it difficult for new companies to enter this market. Producers

continue to lower their prices to try and attract new customers. This is a large barrier that makes

sure that new entrants cannot easily start a business. Hence, Entry Barriers are so high that threat of

new entrants entering the market is low.6

Substitutes force

Other PC’s from other companies are treated as substitutes for Apple’s computers, the same is true

the other way around. Thus in this market there are a number of substitutes which have an influence

on the sales of each producer.

Industry competitors force

“Combined, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Apple’s unit sales decreased only 5% year-over-year, however, their

collective ASP dropped 13%, causing an 18% decline in PC revenues.”(X-bit, 2009) Competition has

always been fierce within the personal computer industry and this is only increasing. Cutting costs is

required to survive in this a situation.

Moreover, Apple is facing three aspects of conflict in the Personal Computer industry.

a) PC hardware

Needless to say, there are many companies which provide PC hardware. In 2007, Apple had

only 2.6% share in global personal computer market (“PC Market Still Strong in Q4 With Solid

Growth Across Regions, According to IDC”, 2008).

b) Operating System

Mac OSX has minor share comparing to Windows OS. Some important applications do not

support Mac OSX.

c) Software

Apple provides software for Mac OS, but most of Apple’s software and the software

developed by third-parties for Apple could only be used on an Apple Computer in the past.

Apple’s computer used to play a role as digital creative tool, but now, other software

producers have reached same level and these software programs can be used on multiple

operation systems and competition has occurred. For example, Final Cut Studio 2 – Adobe

Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, iWork 08 – Microsoft office, iLife 08 – Blog, Adobe

Dreamweaver, flicker, and picasa, and Logic Studio – DTM software.

Considering this output of five force analysis, two strong forces could be found: a strong decrease is

price and severe competitive environment in PC industry. Especially, a conflict of software is

important because existence of similar software as all competitive software can be used with the

Windows OS, means that there is nothing we can only do with Apple’s computer.

QUESTION 4 :

Evaluate apples strategies since 1990(focus on scully and the return of steve jobs) ? how scully try to save apple ? how did job?

At the first we should study what was apples strategy,apples strategy had have to main part ,that mentioned below :

“Increasingly, though, we live in an irregular world, where irregular people take advantage of irregular events and use irregular means to produce irregular products that yield irregular profits.” – The Future of

Management: Gary Hamel; Bill Breen, 2007.

During his time as CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs displayed the attributes outlined in many leadership theories. In some ways he was charismatic, powerful, supportive, flexible and indeed, transformational. However, in others, he was directive, dictatorial and also used reward and punishment techniques to inspire his followers and to propel the organisation to become one of the leading companies in the world today. [Forbes, 2011]

Central to Apple’s success and upswing is Steve Jobs and his strong leadership and vision based on continual technological innovation and intelligent marketing strategies. Apple has begun to change the computing and next-generation device industry and can sustain this growth only if they continue to utilize effective marketing coupled with innovative thinking. In regards with their marketing Apple must continue to focus on a diversification and cost effective strategy that continues its innovation into new technology based device markets. It must continue using its strong development background and move to explore new developing markets along with continuing to ‘open’ up their products to more universal use and working with corporate partners in unlocking their products’ full value for the customer. 

Scully :

Cool Essay!!

1. What   do you think about John Sculley’s vision for Apple?

I think that John Sculley has very strong position about the vision for Apple. I think that it is very important that Sculley knows how Apple can change the world driven by a vision. To show that it is possible to combine old – fashioned business discipline with creativity and innovation John Sculley is working hard.

I think that it is good that Scully knows how to make the work of Apple correctly and in right way, to not change the “Apple is a company driven by a vision to change the world”, in different cases, to make strong position on it.

What will he have to do as a leader to make his vision a reality?I my opinion he has all chances to make his vision a reality because as I said at 1st answer he has a strong position about the vision of Apple and he really knows that the future of Apple depends on his work, on his discipline and creativity. I think that John Scully should make his work in that senses like he does it now, because according to case he makes a lot of work to change the world.John Sculley is trying to make future better, doing all for that

hard measures and led to the fir ing of its visionary Steve Jobs.

John Sculley had been vice-president at PepsiCo where he had successfully made Pepsi the number one brand in the Cola Wars. Actually, there was no reason for him, one of America’s top managers with a secure and highly paid position at PepsiCo, to join a bu nch of young computer nerds at the West coast. The reason why he finally agreed yet is Steve Jobs who impressed him by his visionary ideas and asked him a question to which he did have no answer: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”) This question told him that his “entire life was at a critical crossroads.”)

Sculley and Jobs became close friends. They could “complete each other’s sentences” because they “were on the same wavelength.”) The “dynamic duo”, as they were called in an issue of Business Week in October 1983, was esteemed highly in the press and cont ributed significantly to Apple’s good reputation in the public at the time.

The downfall came soon, however, when their largely overestimated expectations of the Macintosh sales could not be met. In their euphoria about the revolutionary Mac, they thought they would ship 80,000 units by the end of 1984, and had produced them in ad vance. When the reality brought “merely” 20,000 with a falling tendency, the crisis was evident. Reasons for that decline were that the Macintosh was not as “perfect” as expected – with its 128 KByte RAM (they were then mounted to 512 KB) it was not powerf ul enough, and there were hardly any software applications available yet. Moreover, at the 1985 annual meeting, Jobs and Sculley neglected the fact that 70 percent of the company’s sales were still due to the Apple II, whereas the Macintosh accounted for o nly 30 percent. Many sophisticated Apple II designers were annoyed and left the company.

Steve Jobs became more and more angry and aggressive because of the continuing drop in Macintosh sales (merely 2,500 units in March 1985).) He blamed everyone for it, except for himself. Steve just did not see that the “problem was with him.”) In the end , he blamed even Sculley for the crisis and wanted to lead the company himself. But this seemed impossible to everyone else: “Steve was a big thinker, an inspirational motivator, but not a day-to-day manager. What was sad was that he could not see it.”)

When Sculley was informed that Jobs intended to remove him insidiously from the company, he was quite concerned, but then decided to choose the company’s welfare over his friendship to its visionary co-founder. Supported by Markkula and the other members o f the board, in May 1985, he dismissed Steve from his positions as the vice-president and as the leader of the Macintosh division; Jobs did not have any managerial power anymore.

At Apple, John Sculley took several measures to save the company, which had become chaotic. In the course of a major reorganization he dismissed 1,200 employees (20% of the total workforce) and put the broken parts of the company together to form one unifi ed Apple. His restructuring saved a lot of costs and consolidated the company.

1986 was Apple’s worst year with a decline in net sales from $1.92 (1985) to $1.90 billion. Gradually, Sculley could persuade software companies, which had turned away from Apple, to write applications for the Macintosh.

Apple found its new market in desktop publishing (DTP), for which the Macintosh was predestined. By the time, the Macintosh became a serious tool for the business market and its sales increased again.

Until today, Apple has grown steadily and now reaches net sales of more than $7 billion. Although the Macintosh lost the battle against Big Blue, today it is a successful product and was sold over 2.5 million times worldwide in 1992. Apple remains the seco nd-biggest personal computer manufacturer after IBM and has released innovative products such as QuickTime, an easy to use multimedia software combining sound, video and animation. Its latest development is Newton, a personal digital assistant (PDA), which serves as an electronic notepad and “integrates advanced hand-writing recognition, communication and data-management technologies.”)

Steve :

decided to go back to premium price differentiation strategy and invited Steve Jobs to take over as CEO in 1997. Steve jobs restructured company around the original strategy of Apple and turn that into a competitive advantage. Apple’s competitive advantages are its control of software and hardware, marketing, digital asset management, retail strategy, product differentiation and Steve Jobs’s strategical decisions. Decisions such as switching to Intel processor resulted not only reduced power use & design ease but also made Macs able to run windows on it. Apple retails concept implements direct selling, creates first hand experience to customers, customer education, after sales service etc. With these advantages Apple built a barrier to five forces that shapes industry competition [1].

Steve Jobs is one of the founders of the Apple. From the beginning his main goal was to make technologies that will change the life style and that will serve the customer. Jobs left the apple during the 80ies, only to return in 1997 and completely shake things up. He is known not only as a good visionare but as well as someone whose decisions are always unpredictable (switching to Intel). He is as well known for publicly provoking his competitors (Mac vs PC videos and talking how Michael Dell and his empire are far behind Apple when it comes to innovation and that they can only copy them.

Knowing to implement excellent design to all of its products – Apple is putting a lot effort when it comes to design of all its products. After Steve jobs returned to the company, both desktop and laptop computers received new stylish helmets

. Steve Jobs fits best with the trait theory which is also called the “great man” theory of leadership. The main believe of trait theories are that they can develop through experience and learning. As a matter of fact that apple is well-known as learning and innovative company due to Steve Jobs amazing management style. Jobs has faced a lot of different market situations along with his career and almost in all he has succeeded, although he suffered from a”trailblazing start” in 1980’s.   Interestingly, he has a vision a goal which he tried to achieve with his followers. According to the case, which describes some typical behaviors of charismatic leadership. To be accurate, Jobs possess a vision, willingness to take personal risks to achieve that vision, sensitivity to follower needs, intelligence, self-confidence, level of energy and activity as well as task-relevant knowledge. Firstly, the vision of Apple is: to focus on software rather than hardware; at the point when he has delivered music to online consumers he set out to „develop the best customer experience”. 

Moreover, Apple took many risks to achieve their vision and goals. Cooperating with his rival Bill Gates is a good example fort hat. The deal was Gates supply Apple with Office, Internet Explorer programs, and purchase 150 million dollars of Apple’s stock. Though this deal was good for Microsoft, it was even better for Apple. As a result, apple was no longer a competitior for Microsoft. Furthermore, the production of iPod was also a risky game. Jobs

pushed his managers as well as the engineer team for innovative thinking, which was a huge challenge for everyone.

Thirdly, Steve was self-confident. The fact that he created a video-editing program even without the help of Adobe shows very good this trait. Finally, Jobs charisma is largely dependent on his deep knowledge and understanding of the technology he is immersed in

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QUESTION 5:

the ipod: why has apple been so successful with ipod business ?

Apple has successfully achieved a branding of the ipod like no oneelse because they were the first to offer an elegant andcomperhensive solution between hardware and content.

Key success factors are significant to future success of industry firms. These factors encompass competencies, market achievements, resources, competitive capabilities and product attributes. It is most important for the strategists to be familiar with ehe external environment in order to distinguish the most important competitive success factors.the key success factors of apple in the ipod project are giwen below :

Innovative activities for the ipod :

The stylish mp3 player that started its decade of distraction. Before apple unleashed the Apple unleashed the iPod, no company really did a good job of integrating the player, the computer, and the software that connected the two.

I tune and network:

The itunes program to help mac users manage their growing digital music collections.

Use the network for downloading music files over the internet without the permission of copyright.

2. The interface

Apple designed a product that was drop-dead simple to use, even if it sounds decidedly deficient when you lay it out on paper

Advertising and differentiation:

Throughout the history ,apple has been recognized well for its advertisements,which are planned to imitate set up of marketing its brands to creative persons.their most campaigns include the ‘think different’ 1990s campaign, and the 200 ‘ipod people’.

Apples ipod, protable music player, has been showcased as a part of modernart

Apple shops:

They were the first company to offer the full solution in a one-stop shop , and the successful branding at the youth,apple computer has created the mass market for others to follow.

Actually core competencies of apple make success in ipod business.

Core competencies: apple has been the leader of the consumer electronic industry and music. The core competencies responsible behind the success are mainly the differentiation strategy.it offers the best designed hardware and incomparable software in ipod.

The main factor for success of ipod is cannot decide its sustainable competitive avantage because the industry hasintense rivalry. Then apple use innovation and differentiation key to make success business.

Finaly:

I salute you apple computer for a job well done !