Marcelin1
Marcelin Lauture
Professor Rhea
IS 3100
October 19, 2016
The Apple of Your I
4-7. which of Porter’s four competitive strategies does Apple engages in? Explain
Porter’s four competitive strategies consist of Cost leadership, Differentiation, Cost Focus, Differentiation Focus. Out of these four Apple engages mostly with is the” Industry-wide differentiation”. Differentiation consists of provision of products which are different from their competitors. This include: provision of products and services which are better across the industry and that consists of values to customers. The Apple Company is cultured in such a way that it is consistent with its strategies. This creates the opportunity for its engineers, customers and the founders to have a different thinking perspective as well as design easy and cool devices which are excellent in value and quality like the phones, iPods and iPads.
4-8. What do you think are the three most important factors in Apple’s incredible success? Justify your answer.
The Apple organization has shown its ability in the creation of innovative products which exceed and meet the satisfaction of their customers until today. The three most important factors contributing to the incredible success of the apple company include: Innovative activities through which five sensible game-changing innovations, the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, App exchange and app store, were launched. Secondly, the factor of having Genius engineers who worked in the retail stores to accommodate the customers’ needs when they were demanded. Thirdly, the return of Steve Jobs as the new CEO in 1996 was also a great factor to the factor which contributed to the incredible success of Apple Company. Steve Jobs brought greater impact in Apple at its point of need when it was experiencing downfall.
footnoteRef:1 1: Shea, Therese. Steve jobs and apple. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2012.
4-9. A huge question for many investors is whether the company can be successful without Steve Job. The current stock price would seem to indicate that the market does not. What do you think? What role did Steve Jobs play? How can Apple respond to his loss? Would you be willing to invest in Apple without his leadership? Why or why not?
Steve Jobs was a great figure to the apple Company. Although he played a great role in the success of Apple, it is probable that the Company can still thrive and be successful in his absence. Steve Jobs played important roles in the Apple Company. Some of the roles that were played by the late Steve include: unveiling the original iMac and outlining the operating system’s development road map which later lead to Mac OS X; simplification of Apple’s hardware strategy; development of the iPod, iPhone and the iPad which marked Jobs’ final act of creativity. The best Apple response towards its loss of Steve Jobs is through getting the best and experienced CEO who can fill the shoes of Steve of Jobs. So far the Apple Company has a new CEO, Tim Cook, who has shown some good progress. I can choose to invest in Apple company now even in absence of Steve Jobs. This is because despite the consistency in profitable stocks since 1996 when Jobs returned to Apple up to his death in 2011, Apple organization has had a decline only from 2012 to 2013.
4-10. Provide five reasons why Microsoft has not been able to achieve the same success that Apple has.
Microsoft is one of the companies that have greatly experienced competition from Company such as Apple in the industry. Despite of having privileges at its disposal, Microsoft has not been able to achieve the success experienced by the Apple due to various reasons: Firstly, Microsoft’s services to their esteemed customers were not as good as those from Apple. . For example in Apple, whenever there was a problem with the customer or probably the customer’s requirement for more hand holding, he/she is turned over to the Geniuses in the Apple Company for help. Secondly, failure of simplicity and easiness in the production of Microsoft products was also a contributing factor. In comparison with the Microsoft, Apple’s products were always kept simple and easy for the users hence experiencing more success than Microsoft. Thirdly, the Apple always strived to stay at the top of its competitors with at least two years, something that scared its competitors so much such as the Microsoft. For instance, the new iPhone product released in the market this year was designed two years ago. Fourthly, as compared to the Microsoft, Apple’s products were created by the engineers who actually owned them. Jobs as an example was the chief “user” of products from Apple while he was still alive hence representing the real customers. This made the Apple to always come up with the best products not only for its users but also for themselves. This too contributed to it being better and on top of Microsoft. Lastly, Microsoft had nothing to do with improvement of their designs as well as the user experience. Their products were clunky traditionally as well as difficult to use when compared to those of Apple. In this case, Apple had a better design and user experience than the Microsoft.
4-11. Considering your answers to the four questions above, if you had a spare $5,000 in your portfolio and wanted to buy an equity stock with it, would you buy AAPL (Apple)? Why or why not?
With the current equity stock, I would prefer to buy from other companies such as Microsoft but not Apple. This is due for example, there was higher equity stock returns in the Microsoft for the past 12 months compared to the Apple.
footnoteRef:2 2: Jager, Rama Dev, and Rafael Ortiz. In the company of giants.
footnoteRef:3Work Cited 3:
Jager, Rama Dev, and Rafael Ortiz. In the company of giants: Candid conversations with the visionaries of the digital world. McGraw-Hill School Education Group, 1998.
Shea, Therese. Steve jobs and apple. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2012.
