STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

“A good strategic plan can help protect and grow the firm’s resources.”

Apple Company is the world’s famous and successful company. It is a multinational company who manufactures electronics and sells computer hardware and computer software. One of the reasons behind the success of such admirable and reputed company is their strategic planning. Strategy planning is the managerial process of creating and maintaining a fit between the organization’s objectives and resources and the evolving market opportunities.  Apple Inc.’s goals and objectives are the main reason that has contributed towards the success of this company.

GOAL-

The goals of this company are as follows:

     •     To provide the best and upgraded product.

     •     To maintain investor support.

     •     To ensure that the company has a long-run profitability, production and service.

            OBJECTIVES-

·      To expand the sales of product to whom it is not introduced yet.

·      To produce products that are full of enjoyment and service.

·      To become the best company in the mobile device companies.

·      To expand the production rate and have high demand of the products.

All three objectives are very important to Apple Company. Since, Apple Company is world wide known that explains the it can also considered as Strategic Business Units(SBU). Strategy Business Units means that large companies may manage a number of very different businesses.

        

    Where there is large amount of businesses, demand and success, there also comes the challenges and hard time but other competitive companies. Apple Company takes a lot of advantage over other companies like Nokia, Blackberry, Microsoft and other because of their cost, service and production techniques. Followings are the SWOT analysis of the Apple Inc.

               STRENGTHS:

According to the SWOT analysis 2013 the strengths of Apple Company are that it has been considered as the leading innovator in mobile device technology. It is a branded and reputed company. This year Apple Company has the strong financial performance somewhere like ($10,000,000.000 cash, no debt, and gross profit margin 43.9%). The most important is the strong marketing and advertising teams.

            WEAKNESSES:

“Every story has two sides to it”. Just like that where the company has strengths it also has the weaknesses. Such as the set-up amount or price of the product may not be very affordable to many people. Incompatibility with other different OS can give a disadvantage

to the Apple Company. The other weakness can be the decreasing market shares and most important any defect of new product can result in failure.

             OPPORTUNITY:

                  The best opportunity that Apple Company has is the new products will increase Apple’s market’s share and will strengthen firm’s competitive advantage. As it’s a known fact that Samsung is the main competitor for Apple Company, its also the only provider of application processors for Apple’s products. The growth of sale will give the good opportunity to expand firm’s shares. Apple could expand its range of iCloud services and software as the demand for cloud-based services is expanding.

               THREATS:

Companies cannot get opportunities but it can also get threats. Apple Company’s threats could be the rapid technological change, which means that the interest of buyers can change anytime and result as a failure. Another threat can be the tax increase, price pressure from Samsung over key components, and most important if the competitors move in online music marketing. This can be a threat and loss of companies profit.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

As I was reading the chapter 2, I realized that Apple Inc plays a major role in our everyday’s life. This satisfaction of buyers gives the company the advantage over other companies. If the product is sold more that means the company is doing a good deal of work and are making the buyers satisfy. Other then that the variety of production techniques, flexibility of prices, and better customer value has been giving Apple Company the advantages.

MARKETING STRATEGY is the activities of selecting and describing one or more target markets and developing and maintaining a marketing mix that will produce mutually satisfying exchanges with target markets. Apple Company involves of Target Market Strategy, Marketing Mix and most important 4 P’s.

TARGET MARKETING STRATEGY: When it comes to target market strategy for Apple Company. The first target is always the teenagers because for many reasons like they use the Apple products for socializing, for entertainment and etc. The next target would be a college and universities student, which use these products for their daily homework and assignments. The use of Apple products like laptop, iPad makes their lives flexible. Next comes, the business people, who are very keen to use these products for presentation, business purpose and for dealing reasons. Last are the adults, they use Apple products to stay in touch with each other and have a little enjoyment in live by socializing with others.

FOUR P’S: Apple Inc. uses all four P strategies to accomplish their goals and objectives. The four P’s are Product, place, promotion, and pricing strategy.

         Product Strategy- The products manufactured by Apple Inc. are more flexible, easy of carry, less time consuming, and are well designed and are always better then the last product.

         Place Strategy- When you see a long running line outside of a store that means it’s the Apple store. Apple stores are located at easy and approachable places where people can reach quickly and buy their desired product.

   

   Promotion Strategy- The first promotional tool for Apple Company’s promotion is advertising. Heavily in areas Apple promotes the products, new managing changes at any television network, technology magazine and all over the Internet and apps.

        Pricing Strategy- The last is the pricing strategy of Apple Company. The products are not really cheap and less priced. They are sold in high prices but according to surveys the purchase of products with high prices is worth of spending money and satisfies people.