Elements of a Marketing Plan
Apple Inc. is an American multinational that specializes in designing, making, and selling of consumer electronics, consumer software, and online services (West and Mace, 2010). The company’s primary line of products includes the MacBook, the iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. Besides, the company designs software such as OS X and the IOS that runs on its laptops and iPhones respectively. Moreover, the company offers online services such as Apps Store and iTunes. However, of the numerous products, the iPhone has been the most successful product. Since the company launched the first iPhone in 2007, the iPhone has made the company rise from near oblivion to become the most valuable company on earth by
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First, politics in Apple’s major markets and its basis of operation will affect the company’s marketing activity. According to Price and Gilmore (2013), not only do more than half of iPhone sales come from outside America, but also, the company manufactures some its parts from countries such as China, Czech Republic, and Korea. As such, any bad political relations between the US and other countries are likely to affect Apple’s marketing operations and offering of its products in such markets. Secondly, economic factors such as inflation, recession, and dollar fluctuation will make Apple reevaluate its marketing process (King, 2011). Since most people perceive the iPhone as a luxurious gadget, inflation, recession, and dollar fluctuation may lead to reduced sales. Besides, social factors such as increased purchasing power in markets such as China, Africa, and the Middle East imply Apple will expand their marketing operations to such markets (King, 2011). Moreover, rapid change in technology means that Apple has to invest much in research and development to upgrade their products hence outdoing compensation. Lastly, legal factors such as the numerous lawsuits Apple had with Nokia, HTC, and Samsung may hamper Apple’s investment in upgrading the iPhone (King, …show more content…
For instance, Geek Squad understanding of its competition enabled the company to come up with new services such as in-home installation. Besides, the company’s understanding that women are increasingly interested in personal computing enabled the company to offer personalized services. Lastly, I would recommend Geek Squad to develop a differentiation strategy that would help the company stand out amidst completion from Easy Tech and Tech Depot services. Besides, the company should invest in research and development to remain abreast of changes in technology to ensure the company’s services remain relevant in the
Companies are pressured to release new products faster than competitors. Another is increased competition for government contracts, has to compete with Samsung and Apple for contract
Abstract The purpose of this assignment is to critically analyze the context of Apple’s new product, ‘The Apple Watch’ and prepare a Marketing Feasibility Study in order to assess the viability of introducing in the new product range into the UAE market place. Data Introduction Apple Inc. is an American multi-billion dollar corporation that internationally produces computer software, cellular devices and consumer electronic products. Items such as the iPod, the iPhone, the Macintosh desktop computers and the iPad are easily recognizable by society.
Channels of distribution is also part of the marketing controllable of the company. When analyzing Apple Inc. distribution channel of products we have to include the entire chain of businesses or intermediaries through which each product passes until it reaches the end consumer. As of 2015 Apple Inc. has 453 retail stores in 16 countries also they operate online stores which is available in 39 countries.
Apple states in their Form K-10 Report (2017, p.1) they are “committed to bringing the best user experience to its customers through innovative hardware, software and services.” In an Industry where profit margins are low, technologies are constantly evolving and competition is high it is essential that Apple continues to offer innovative and simple products that increases customer experience (Heracleous, 2013) so to maintain a competitive advantage. A variety of tools have been used to evaluate Apple’s external and internal environment, including the PESTEL (Appendix 1), Porter’s Five Forces Analysis (Appendix 2), SWOT (Appendix 3). It is envisaged that the information derived from these tools and the associated analysis will support Apple’s CEO to make strategic decisions that addresses the challenges ahead in the short term, ensuring Apple can be competitive in the long term (Rothaermal, 2017).
The external business environment consists of a set of external factors, such as economic factors, social factors, political and legal factors, demographic factors, technical factors amongst others, which are not controllable in nature and affects the business decisions of a firm. The external environment includes opportunities and threats which can impact on the marketing strategy of Huawei. As mentioned, marketers cannot control the factors of the external environment. However, they should try to understand the changes in the external environment and assess the impact of those changes on the target market. In fact, a proper understanding of these factors helps organizations to identify potential business opportunities and threats in the international market (Baines et al., 2011).
Apple’s vision Apple 's vision is to create and deliver electronic music and personal computers to individuals, teachers, employees, students, and computers used in government agencies and companies. Apple 's strategy focused on enhancing its ability to design and contribute to its development, It’s easy to use and distinctive design and innovative. Importance of knowledge management in Apple Company Knowledge Management (KM) is a discipline that improves Apple 's ability to better solve problems, adapt, evolve to meet changing business requirements, and survive with disruptive changes.
Weaknesses It is easy to produce different pricing levels and marketing methods for different regions. This is the result of the lack of Coordinating and communicating, cause the conflict of interests between each branch and the whole company. Apple’s Leadership
Apple Inc. strives to limit the time between ordering for the goods and receipt of the same. Normally, long distribution channels do not only influence the pricing of the products, but also the time when the consumers receive the product. Apple Inc. commands a great power in the market because it has differentiated
Apple on the hand arguably is considered to be the mother of modern smartphones. On June 29, 2007, the cofounder of Apple Inc Steve Jobs announced the release of iPhone, a technology they had been working on for about five years. It was the first of its kind compared to the other players in the market like Blackberry, Motorola and Palm who were already making pocket personal computers. The new tech had a bigger screen, multi-touch interface and the mind-boggling on-screen keyboard was met with a lot of excitement. With these new ideas Apple dominated the phone market and during the Macworld Expo keynote speech, Jobs reported that the Apple iPhone had a 28% market share in Q4 2007 this represented significant growth in the second full quarter that iPhone has been on sale and translated to a
In this way, the sale of products in world-wide market will increase. • Increased labor costs in China could take away the cost advantage of some Apple products. • Decaying middle-class incomes in some developed countries, including the United States, could shrink the potential market for higher-end consumer goods such as those marketed by Apple. • A strong U.S. dollar could increase exchange rates, making it more expensive for Apple to do business in key markets like Europe and
Apple is one of the well-known electronics brand in the world. Millions of people were waiting in the line to get their new phone devices at the Apple store. This tiny device has many impressive characteristics that attract consumers. Every year the company comes out with new device features with a new advertisement to catch the consumer attention. According to the official website, the first iPhone advertisement was released in 2001.
Segmentation, Targeting and positioning, also known as STP are an essential part in marketing today. This model is important for generating marketing communication strategies and it aids the marketers to prioritize schemes and deliver personalized and pertinent messages to diverse audiences. This approach is audience oriented rather than product focused in terms of communication, which results in conveying appropriate messages to the members who are more commercially appealing. Segmentation benefits the managers in finding out the area on which they have to concentrate on in terms of geography, demographics, social factors or behaviors.
a. The product and production orientation of marketing asserted that a company should first develop product and then they should scan the market for sale opportunities. Now days in the modern world the market have changes. The process orientation of marketing requires a company to first to analyse the market, understand customer requirement and then develop products. In todays world, the modern marketing is based on the reverse process, in which the first the customer needs and demands are identified. The subsequent market program of the firm depends on how the market identifies the potential customer, profiles them, target them and positions his offering in the minds of customer.
Further, the growth of the world’s economy was also very slow in 2012 and was expected to be same in 2013-14 as obvious. Apple has been affected by a crisis such as the change in American regional sales for the current year was 9% in 2012-13 compared to 50% of 2011-12, in Europe, 4% in comparison to 31% and in greater China 13% in comparison to 78% (Apple INC, 2012). The unemployment rate in U.S was 7.9 during 2012- 13, 4.1 in China and 4.6 in Japan, was one of the significant causes of the downturn in sales growth (Trading Economics, n.d). Euro crisis, U.S fiscal problems and hard landing of large developing countries will likely continue in the coming couple of years leading Apple to more toughen economic situations (IMF, 2013). Moreover, stringing dollars had also source of problem for Apple product prices, transportation cost and profit margins (Apple INC, 2012).
Today, almost every person caries a smart phone with them and some can’t survive the day without it. There are many companies and manufacturers who build smart phones like the popular ones such as Htc, Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Motorola, Sony and many more, but what makes those companies not alike are the phones they release through the years, but are they that different? To compare, let us take an example of two leading rival companies in the field of smart phones, Samsung and Apple, who newly released their flagship devices, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the Apple iPhone 6 plus. The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 features a 5.7 inch Super Amoled touch screen, a 16 megapixel back facing camera, an octa core processor with 3 gb of Ram and a 3220 mah battery whereas the Apple iphone 6 plus comes with a 5.5 inch retina display touch screen, an 8 megapixel back facing camera, dual core processor with 1 gb of Ram and a 2915 mah