Managing Innovation in Business

This report examines Apple Inc.'s innovation history, performance, and capabilities. It analyzes the company's successful innovations, including the iMac, iPod, iPhone, App Store, iPad, and Siri, and explores the external factors influencing its growth. The report also includes a SWOT analysis and an industry overview, highlighting the competitive landscape and future trends in the consumer electronics market.

Managing Innovation
in Business

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Innovation is one of the most important aspects of a business organisation and the report
discusses the same along with its importance in growth of organisation. Every business
organisation requires to upgrade its existing products by adding something new in them. As an
example of the same, firms in several OECD countries now invest as much innovating, such as
investing in research and development (R&D), software, databases and skills, as in physical
capital, such as equipment or structures. This present report is based on Apple Inc., which
provides highly technical products. Main objective of this organisation is to provide new
innovative products to its customers which improves their experiences.
Consumers of electronic industry has been described for understanding actual growth of
mobile industry with its innovation. In order to understand it effectively different models and
theories has been used to analyse the actual situation. It has been evaluated that Apple is using
innovation as a strategic tool for enhancing its sustainability at marketplace. It has been
identified that Apple is going to add AR feature in its new iPhone model. It has been
recommended to Apple, to introduce some economical products for middle class people in order
to add them in range of their customers.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Organisation and its innovation history......................................................................................4
The organisations existing innovation Performance and capabilities.........................................7
The industry 2016-2018..............................................................................................................9
The industry 2016-2018..............................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12
.......................................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Innovation is a process of change which is used for introducing new ideas in existing
products in order to influence interest of customer (Patti, Yanes and Siuzdak, 2012). It can be
done by modifying its design, internal feature or anything which gives a better experience to user
while using it. This report is based on Apple Inc., an American multinational company which
was founded by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak in 1976. This report describes
about history of innovation of Apple Inc. Present innovation performance of organisation and its
future capability towards innovation. And at last, it includes overall information about the
industry.
MAIN BODY
Organisation and its innovation history
Apple Inc. is an multinational corporation that is headquarter in California, U.S . The
company belongs to technological segment as it provides computer hardware, mobile devices
(Iphone), music players(Ipod) and various other products to its customers.
Apple has done lots of innovation in its past decades is continuing the same in future too.
Its revolutions were unique and accepted by its users effectively (Union, 2014). Most successful
innovation of Apple was IMac, IPod, IPhone, App store, IPad, Siri etc. Apple has adopted some
of the effective innovations in IPhone which have contributed in making it as most successful
company. Some successful innovation in IPhone are stated as below:
2008: iOS App Store- Apple have integrated with iTunes stores from which users can
easily download or buy application in their apple devices.
2011: Siri- This is a voice integrated computing system inbuilt in Iphone. Siri is
successful in accepting commands from the user and implementing for the same.
2013: 64-bit A7 processor- It is a chips that consist with more bits which can store more
data in membrane that is 64-bit A7 processor (The 5 most important iPhone innovations of all
time, 2018).
2013: touch ID- It is an innovative touch feature which is installed in IPhone. Touch ID
is fingerprint scanner which helps users to unlock their screen with a single touch of their finger.

2015: 3D Touch- This is the first multi touch feature that is displayed on original IPhone.
The 3D feature executes various commands on the basis of its pressing force. It gives more
priority to the hardly pressed feature on displayed screen.
(Source: Upgrading model of Apple of last 10 years. 2018)

As per the overall history of Apple, it has been observed that there are numerous of
external factors which have influence over growth as well as innovation of this company which
are stated as below:
Political: Research and development of Apple is situated in America, which is already
developed nation. Political stability that is less changes in legal laws promotes the idea of
innovation for Apple as company is getting valid support from the nation in order to increase
number of innovation in the country.
Economic: With increasing growth rate of developing countries, the disposable income
of people of dominant revenue generating countries for iPhone like US has been increased. This
acts as a driver for Apple to make use of innovative practices while developing new models of
iPhone as increased growth rate implies wider acceptability from people for new iPhones.
Social: Increasing demand for change in mobile devices have impacted positively on the
growth of Apple, as people are easily accepting innovations which are made by this company in
recent years (Yin and et. al., 2013). Updated features in IPhone like touch, Siri, face detect etc. is
increasing interest of customers towards usage of iPhone which is raising its demand at market
place.
Technological: Continuous upgradation in technology is increasing demand and
expectation of customers. This motivates research and development department of Apple to
adopt latest technology in their innovative products. For this, apple is focusing on using cloud
friendly apps and other features in its devices. Apple completely did away with their signature
Touch ID home key in support of a more technically protected bio-metric using facial
acknowledgement dubbed Face ID – an industry first (Apple’s Ambition for iPhone X is Nothing
Less Than to Regain Smartphone Design and Innovation Leadership, 2018.). This innovative
practice has impacted positively on the growth of Apple.
Environmental: Increasing concern of people toward safeguarding environment or using
eco-friendly gadgets influences Apple to develop idea of using innovation in its component
which are used in products (Apple PEST Analysis, 2018). For this, the company is adopting
innovation in its batteries, components and processors which are producing less heat. This is

shows their efforts in securing environment which in improving customers perception that high
technology products are affecting environment.
Legal: Increasing growth of privacy regulation generates demand of innovation for
Apple as the company can take it as opportunity and work on introducing products with high
privacy security system. As a result, it will increase its demand among customers as Latest
version of IPhone includes high security features.
The organisations existing innovation Performance and capabilities
Apple Inc. has done lots of innovation in the past years and it is presently working for the
same in order to improve its performance in innovation. Apple is investing huge amount of
money on research and development department as it helps them in differentiating themselves
from the competitors by serving new designs with advanced feature. With the help of this,
organisation is successfully launching its new innovation at regular basis. Current innovative
products which are introduced by Apple are IPhone X, IPhone 8 and Iphone 8 plus. These recent
innovation of Apple which have helped the company in attracting customers at regular basis.
IPhone of Apple is now consist of 64 bit processors which owns capability of performing
numerous of functions at a single time. It smoothers the functioning of IPhone in order to
execute the command in less period of time. Research and development department of this
company is presently working hard for extending its future capabilities.
Capabilities of Apple: Far from the present innovation done by research and
development department, the company is presently focusing on making plan for the future
techniques which will help them in providing customers completely new product for which they
have not even thought off (Teece, 2012). For the future, Apple is focusing on providing upgraded
IPhone which will include feature of Augmented reality (AR) that means experience of virtual
reality. This describes live experience to customers through cameras.
The company have also stated its capabilities for future which includes certain new
features by 2020 that is large screen in its plus model with proper finishing and perfecting it.
Research and development department of Apple, is also working on making magnetic Smart
Connector. This will be considered as an additional feature for Apple IPhone, as with this device
its users can share data easily with the computer or any other device by connecting with each
other.

SWOT - SWOT analysis refers to framework that helps in identifying the capability of
organisation i.e. how capable an enterprise is to perform in future by analysing its internal and
external factors (DU and ZHANG, 2012). Hence, after conducting this analysis Apple will be
able to identify its capability in terms of using it in innovation at regular basis.
Strength: Apple is introducing innovative products back to back which gives reason to
customer to remain loyal with the company. Its past successful product that is IPhone and up
gradation has been liked by users utmost. The company believes in fulfilling each and every
desire of customers with its every new innovative product. iPhone with 3D touch was successful
innovation of Apple as it mainly accepts command of user on its pressing force. This product has
been liked by customer as they have not even heard of this feature earlier. The company is
capable of bringing more such innovative features in upcoming iPhone models so that it can gain
widespread acceptability and satisfaction from people in future.
Weaknesses: Product of Apple are very expensive as it includes lots of technology and
higher expertise who can make an effective product for customer which have not been
introduced by anyone (Wonglimpiyarat, 2012). Apart from this the other weakness is the
distribution network of Apple is limited which restricts its total number of sales. Apple by
working on same can improve its capacities to raise the sales volume.
Opportunity: Apple can expand its business by introducing reasonable products too for
grabbing attention of middle class people as this segment is of vast number. Also, by working on
the distribution channel team apple can cover greater geographical ara which will raise its
capacities to increase the revenues.
Another capable opportunity for the Apple is that the company can introduce dual camera
in its IPhone as it will influence special customers who uses camera as a most important feature
of phone.
Threat: Google's Android is the biggest competitor for Apple as it provides
approximately similar features in smart phones which are much reasonable in comparison to I
phone’s. As per present condition Samsung have already introduced huge variety in mobile
phone that might impact negatively on the demand of IPhone at marketplace (Dončić, Perić and
Prodanović, 2015). As per the future launch planning of Apple by 2020, Android might
introduce some new feature or quite similar feature in their mobile phone. Apple is capable of

introducing some more variety of IPhone in reasonable price segment so that they can increase
their command over middle class people too.
The industry 2016-2018
Consumer electronic are products or equipment’s which are manufactured by business
organisation in order to make life of customers smoother. It includes various types of devices
that includes entertainment, communication as well as office equipment. Mobile phones belong
to the communication type of industry. This industry is upgrading continuously with the
changing time in order to avail different kind of products and services to customer which are
helpful in making their basic functioning of life easier. According to a survey conducted by
Deloitte, 78% of consumers across the globe in today's modern era use smartphones, 10% have
their own wearables while over 50% of the population use tablets. Further, the survey conveyed
that 7% of the global customers use all of the before mentioned three devices. Besides this, the
consultancy firm Ovum has pointed out that the Smartphones market across the globe is
forecasted to grow to approximately 2054 million units by the year 2020. With the passing time
innovation within the mobile industry are most considerable fact that influences customers and
their buying (The consumer electronics market in 2017 and beyond, 2018). It has been observed
that in past decade innovation in Mobile phones have crossed every limit with its best innovative
product. It has enhanced thinking capacity of overall industry and as a result its growth have
been increased effectively in comparison to previous innovations.
HTC Dream was the first phone within the global market to run on Android system. This
phone featured a keyboard which could be slide-out with the help of physical buttons, a tracking
ball and 3.17-inch display. Within the initial six months when it was launched, more than million
phones were sold across the globe. CAT S60, released in the year 2016, is the first ever
smartphone to come up with an integrated thermal imaging camera and is also found to be the
most waterproof phone across the world. This phone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 617
processor together with 4.7 inch display and 3GB RAM. It has a resistance of upto
approximately 1.8 meter. Further, ASUS ZenFone AR is an Augmented Reality phone which
was an active part of Project Tango of Google. This phone had a 23 megapixel primary camera
together with a Snapdragon 821 Processor and 5.7 inch AMOLED display. These innovations
foster Apple Inc. to come up with latest and innovative features within the new iPhone models to

gain the attention of a large number of people (These Are 10 Most Innovative Android Phones
Ever Made, 2019).
Presently, this overall industry is focusing on covering new consumer electronic products
which are new and eye catchy for customer. For instance: Apple is planning to introduce its new
innovation in their mobile phones that is AR, VR and other related products that can be
connected to Internet of Things. In order to grab future opportunities, it is important for
organisation to analyse overall consumer electronics industry so that they identify best suitable
options for them. For this, Porters five model have been used for Apple in order to identify
current status of the overall industry. All major factors of this model are described as below:
Competition in the industry: Competition in consumer electronic products like cell
phone is high as there are lots of well-established large scale companies which are available in
the same industry who offers somewhat similar products in terms of technology. This creates
threat for Apple phones as owing to the presence of a large number of organisations such as
Huawei, Lenovo, Philips, Panasonic, ZTE, Samsung, the organisation faces tough competition
and has to bring up innovations within iPhone models at frequent intervals.
Threat of new entrants: New entrants cannot enter easily in consumer electronic
industry (Khan, Alam and Alam, 2015). It is due to the fact that this industry requires lots of
capital to be invested in order to set up effectively. But for new companies it is not possible to
invest this much huge amount. Being a well established company having its large base of loyal
customers, Apple is not affected by the entry of new entrants within consumer electronics
industry as the features and the reputation of iPhone is not maintained by any other organisation
across the globe.
Bargaining Power of Buyers: Power of Buyer is high in consumer electronic as there
are numerous of suppliers available in the industry from which buyers can directly purchase their
desired product, i.e., phones. This acts as a threat for Apple as the buyers usually prefer those
mobile phones which offer similar features as iPhone models but are available at low prices
within the marketplace. Thus, the high bargaining power of buyers within the mobile phone
sector poses threat for iPhones.
Bargaining Power of Supplier: Bargaining power of supplier is low as there are
numerous of suppliers which are available for the organisation present in this industry. This
gives preference to the priority of industry that from which supplier they will like to purchase the

raw material. Owing to the presence of a large number of top companies within the mobile phone
sector, Apple enjoys lesser bargaining power as it is usually seen that purchasers prefer large
number of innovative features within the phones at economic prices. However, it is also seen that
Apple's iPhone are viewed as a status symbol by a large number of people across the globe and
thus they prefer to only buy iPhones even if they are costly in comparison to mobile phones of
other organisations within the world.
Threat of substitute products: Threat from substitute products is high for this industry
as there are lots of competitor available for the company who offers similar kind of product
(Gobble, 2012). This reduces overall profitability of industry. This acts as a threat for Apple
company in mobile phone industry and further offers opportunities to introduce economic iPhone
models which can be afforded by all the income groups of society.
As per this analysis it has been identified that organisation belongs to consumer
electronic product is required to upgrade themselves at regular basis by introducing newly
launched products to be competitive.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report it has been concluded that innovation is best tool which
is used by organisation in order to increase its sustainability at market place. There is a positive
impact of external factor for innovation as it creates a favourable conditions or organisation to
upgrade their products on continuous basis. Through SWOT analysis the capabilities of company
were determined which shows that if the outside factors remain same Apple is capable of coming
up with better technology products in the market.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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competitiveness of the apple producers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Economics of
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DU, S. B. and ZHANG, J. K., 2012. SWOT Analysis and Proposals on Development of Organic
Apple in Yan'an Mountain Area. Northern Horticulture. 7. p.070.
Gobble, M. M., 2012. Innovation and strategy. Research-Technology Management. 55(3). pp.63-
67.
Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N. and Alam, S., 2015. A critical analysis of internal and external
environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and
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Patti, G. J., Yanes, O. and Siuzdak, G., 2012. Innovation: Metabolomics: the apogee of the omics
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Teece, D. J., 2012. Dynamic capabilities: Routines versus entrepreneurial action. Journal of
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Union, I., 2014. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council,
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Wonglimpiyarat, J., 2012. Technology strategies and standard competition—Comparative
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Yin and et. al., 2013. Exogenous melatonin improves Malus resistance to M arssonina apple
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