Strategic Manufacturing Management: A Case Study of Apple Inc.

Apple Inc.

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Introduction
Strategic manufacturing management is method of taking the best decision on structure and
infrastructure that must be coordinated and support the competitive strategy. In
manufacturing organisation, management of the process is necessary for the effective results.
It is essential for the company to analyse the environment before taking the decision
regarding the best decision for the organisation. The organisation develops the strategies to
attain the market share by gaining the competitive advantage (Morden, 2016). It is essential
for the companies to analyse the environment before developing the effective strategies.
There are many strategic tools which can be used by the companies to analyse the market
environment such as Porters Five Forces Framework, PESTLE Analysis, and SWOT
Analysis. These tools help to analyse the factors which affects the policies and environment
of the organisation such as political, competitor’s behaviour of suppliers and many others. In
this report, Apple Inc. has been taken into consideration to analyse the environment of the
company to develop the appropriate strategies.
Overview of Company and Industry
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company which headquarters established
in Cupertino, and California.It was founded in 1979 by the owner of Steve Jobs, Steve
Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. It comes under the top four technology companies such as
Amazon, Google, and Facebook. The company provide the technology products to the
consumer such as the iPhone smartphones, the Mac personal computer, the iPad tablet
computer, the Apple Watch smart watch, the Apple TV digital media player, the iPod
portable media player, and the HomePod smart speaker. In the year of 2016, the company
earned the high revenue with the amount of the $ 241 Billion in revenue. It is the one of the
world richest company in the industries and marked as the most valuable product in the

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market. The company operates under the different industries as it offering the different
services to the consumers such as consumer electronics, Computer hardware, Digital
distribution, corporate venture capital and many others. It is the first company of US whose
value is over US $ 1trillion. It is the world third largest company in the terms of
manufacturing of Phones after Samsung and Huwaei (Reuters, 2018).
In this report, Consumer electronics has been taken to analyse the market of the company.
There are many products of electronics which is offered by the company to its consumers
such as iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod and now it is also offering the Apple watch to its consumers.
Consumer electronic industry has become an essential part of the consumer’s life because
these products are used by the consumers in their daily life routine. As per the analysis, it has
been seen that the market is growing rapidly in the few years. It is also expected that the
industry will also grow in the near future with the rapid growth with the high revenue amount
such as US $2976.1Bn. The industry became the primary factor for the middle class and
upper class due to using of smart electronic devices. The global consumer electronics market
is segmented on the basis of device types. There are mainly three devices types such as
consumer electronics device, smart home device, and wearable device. These devices attract
the different type of consumers and the revenue amount of the market is also based on these
devices.

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(Source: Persistence Market Research, 2016)
The global consumer market is highly competitive in the terms of demand and revenue. There
are many companies operate under this industry such as Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics,
Sony Corporation, Pansonic Corporation and many others. A number of competitors are
increasingly day by day due to strategic acquisition and merger procedure.
Key components affect the product functionality
Apple Inc. manufactures the multiple products to provide the services to consumer. There are
many key components which affect the product functionality such as product design, quality
and cost control, Inventory control, Maintenance and Replacement of machines. As the Apple
Inc. is a technology company which offers the consumers electronics product to consumers
that is why; software is also a component which directly affect the product functionality.
These components are discussed are as follow:
Quality and Cost control