MRKT 5000 Online Course Willie Williams Consumers Take a Shine to Apple Inc. Case Summary: Apple Inc. was started by Steve Wozniacki and Steve Jobs on April 1, 1976. For the first two decades Apple concentrated on manufacturing and selling personal computers. The first personal computer was the Apple I and then the company produced the Apple II, Macintosh and now they produce MacBooks and iMacs. Apple really began to prosper in 2001 when the company began producing the extremely successful iPod music player. Along with the iTunes music stores the iPod revolutionized the way individuals would buy music.
His wife was Laurene Powell. They have 3 children- Eve, Erin, and Reed (“Jobs” 320). According to TIME, “It’s a rule of thumb in the world of technology that you get to revolutionize one industry at most, but Jobs did it every few years with stunning regularity: computers, movies, music, phones” (Isaacson 38). Personal computers, animated movies, digital music, and cellphones would have never been the way they are today without the contributions by Steve Jobs. He was awarded TIME Person of the Year (Isaacson 40).
* It is the third largest mobile phone manufacturer following Samsung mobile and Nokia. * Apple went public in 1980 and by 1982 it hit $1 billion in sales becoming the first manufacturer of personal computers to make such revenue. * With over 13,500 employees all over the world, the labor policies of this giant have been the source of much complains and criticism. * All over the world, apple distributes and sells products via a channel of online stores, sales offices, authorized dealers and using
This paper will try to shed some light on the matter thru past and recent articles from analysts and insiders that has attempt to decipher Apple’s recipe for success. Apple is a computer and software manufacturer that also sells digital content as: books, music, operating systems and software applications (Apple.com, 2013, p. 1). The 2013 Fortune 500 global company list ranks Apple as #17 (Money.cnn.com, 2013). According to Badenhausen from Forbes (2013), Apple is the most valuable brand in the world, “Apple is the most valuable brand in the world for a third straight time at $104.3 billion, up 20% over last year. It is worth nearly twice as much as any other brand on the planet by our count.” (para.
According to Fortune 500, a list rating 500 best US companies, in 2012, Apple is at the seventeenth position in this list and is one of three most profitable companies (money.cnn.com). Nowadays, Apple has had nearly 15,000 employees in many countries all over the world. Since being established, Apple has always tried to “differentiate itself through elegantly simple design” (Christopher Meyer, 2012). This statement has been realized during the leadership of Steve Jobs and now new CEO of Apple, Tim Cook continues following this orientation. Consumers can easily see that the appearance of Apple products is quite simple and fit with many classes but their insides functions and characteristics are very fantastic.
* Apple has the biggest online apps store for iPhones, iPods touch, iPad and Mac with over 585,000 apps for users. * The stage of iPhone 4S ’ s ‘product life cycle’ is growth. Because It has just came out to the market for only 6 months and with a lot of new software and features it might affect some applications that do not fit with the new changes. So Apple needs to update the firmware and improve the quality of performance for the phone, example: apple just release the update iOS 5.1 to increase the battery life and improved Siri by provide a new language for voice recognized: Japanese bring up to 6 different kinds of voice recognized languages: English, British English, Australian English, French, and German. * Our organization’s overall marketing strategy is in order to satisfy consumer and increase the market volume, we need to give them better quality and performance of products with lower price.
Amazon Evolution Amazon, the largest online retailer, has annual sales in excess of $10 billion but investors have not seen the consistent profit growth they expected (Rainer & Turban, 2008). Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com in 1995 by selling books because he believed that only the Internet could offer customers the convenience of browsing a selection of millions of book titles in a single sitting (Small Business Notes, 2009). According to Small Business Notes (n.d.), “Since 1995, Amazon.com has significantly expanded its product offering, international sites, and worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers.” Amazon continues to grow and evolve as an excellent e-commerce platform by giving customers more of what they want such as low prices, vast selection, and convenience (Small Business Notes, 2009). However, many analysts wonder if Amazon will ever fulfill its original promise to revolutionize retailing (Rainer & Turban, 2008). According to Rainer & Turban (2008), “By 2007, Amazon had spent 12 years and some $2 billion building the infrastructure of its online store, which is among the biggest and most reliable in the world.” However, Amazon does not use but a small amount of its processing capacity at any one-time so the company decided to provide a series of computing, storage, and other services that make its infrastructure available to companies and individuals to help them run the technical and logistical parts of their businesses (Rainer & Turban, 2008).
Case objective: For these two cases we can focus on their main concerns: Apple 2002: The PC industry is the fastest growing in the last 20 years, as well as the most changing and challenging one. By 2002 Apple was facing weak unit sales, flat gross margins and declining share in several core markets. While Steve Jobs was implementing new strategies and new products, he was facing the question, if this changes will bring the company back to life. Apple 2005: After releasing new products and shifting strategies, that had positioned the company as the top brand and market leader, Apple was facing the challenge of keep the company in that place, and if this would be sustainable in the long term. Brief history: Apple computers Inc. was founded on 1976 by Steve jobs and Steve Wozniack.
Their level of profitability has also significantly decreased from 20% to merely 0.4%. “Today, Apple commands just 2% of the $180 billion worldwide profits in the PC market. Their primary competitors are a combination of brands from two different spectral within the PC market.Apple is currently experiencing from rivals that they have followed their creative leads and captured a significant portion of market share and profits from Apple.’ This case emphasizes the reason for this downfall of Apple in the market, whose key success factor is to be creative and innovative. Here this case defines the core debate, which is behind the concept of product champion vs. process champion; The basic question is "what are a better driving force for economic growths: Here we have tried to find out the reason as well as recommending some positive measures, which may assist Apple in regaining it’s position in the Technological Market, using some other tactics instead of being only creative and innovative. … Purpose- Here in this study, we have tried to explore the various aspect of Apple’s Strategic system, within this periphery we have also tried to explore some related factors from other competitors from the
At the beginning it was just an online bookstore. Six years later, Amazon used their own inventory management, distribution infrastructure, fulfillment, and customer service model to become the one of the biggest online-shopping company. By 2000, over 75 percent of U.S. consumers recognized the Amazon.com brand, and the Interbrand ranked the company as the 48th most valuable brand worldwide. The number of customers increased from 14 million in 1999 to over 20 million in 2000. However, a successful company like Amazon.com also has its own actual problems.