Strategic Management at Apple: Analysis, Evaluation and Recommendations

This report analyses the strategic management process at Apple, including its corporate, generic and intensive strategies. It evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and recommends alternative strategies, such as cost leadership and customer satisfaction. The report also includes a brief overview of Apple's history and financial performance.

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Executive summary
The aim of this report is to analyse and discuss the strategic management process at
Apple. How the company has done its strategic analysis, in which way they formulate and
implement the strategy; is discussed in this report. Apple’s current strategy indicates that how
the company establish itself as the world’s largest information technology company. The
main purpose to evaluate the current strategy of the company is to recommend the alternative
strategy. The company diversifies its product but the company has to focus on the cost
structure to target the new consumers. Apple is a developing company and by reducing the
cost of the product, it will achieve the high growth in the market in the near future.

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Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
Corporate Strategy....................................................................................................................3
Evaluation.................................................................................................................................5
Recommendation..................................................................................................................5
Conclusion................................................................................................................................6
References................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company; it was established in 1976. It
designs, develops and sells the electronics items to consumers, and serves the online services.
The company also manufactures the iPhone, iPad tablet, computer, Apple smart watch and
many other items. The company operates in many countries with the help of 123000
employees. Apple earned $229.234 billion revenue and the operating income of the company
is $61.344 billion (Reuters, 2018).
In this report, the strategic analysis will be done on Apple Australia. In the starting of
the report, corporate level strategies of Apple are discussed and at the end of the report,
strategies are evaluated and also the alternative strategies will be discussed.
Corporate Strategy
There are many strategies which are followed by the company to gain high revenue
and market share. The corporate level strategy of the company is as follows:
Diversification strategy
Apple introduces new and innovative products to attract the consumers towards its
products. The company diversifies the old product with the new product. Apple introduces
new products by diversifying its old products to grab high market share such as iPod is the
most popular product of Apple; the company diversified it by introduced the iPod Mini and
iPod nano. iMac has changed the taste of PC users, another innovation of the company was
iBook laptop which was introduced by the company to diversify the range of smartphones.
Introducing an innovative product is a strategy of the company. Marketing function of the

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company analyses the demand of the consumers; it helps the company to analyse and
introduce the new products according to consumers demand. The company can also grab high
market share by satisfying the consumer needs (Hill, Jones, & Schilling, 2014).
Generic strategy
Broad differentiation is the general strategy of Apple. The generic strategy of the
company focuses on the key features of the product that differentiate the company and its
product from its competitors. Broad differentiation helps the company to attract the
customers towards its products not for the prices but for the features or quality of the product
(Banker, Mashruwala, & Tripathy, 2014).The marketing department of the company helps to
analyse the new product made by the competitors so the company can easily compete against
the competitors. Continuous innovation is the strategic objective of the company which is
based on the broad differentiation. Competitors of the company introduce new innovative
product to attract the consumers thus; the broad differentiation helps the company to
manufacture the new innovative product to keep the Apple on the top over its competitors
like Dell, Microsoft and others (Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman, and Bamford, 2017).
Intensive strategy
Expansion and business growth can be achieved through intensive strategy. Product
development is the main intensive strategy which helps the company to achieve the market
share. The company offers attractive products which are different from other companies’
products or it is of unique quality which satisfies the customer demands. For the product
development, the company requires to research on innovation and development process.
Apple implements this strategy through innovation in research and development process.
Innovation research on products helps the company to produce the innovative products which
attract the customers. Through the intensive strategy growth, innovation becomes the main

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factor in the success of the company. The company introduced iMac book in the age of
smartphone. Finance department of the company assists the company to make the budget to
adopt the new technology for innovation. Human resources of the company play an important
part in innovation, the new ideas of employees or their efforts for the product development
support the company to achieve the high market share (Ethiraj, Gambardella, & Helfat,
2018).
Evaluation
In the 21st century, it is not easy to achieve a high position in the market over the
competitors. Nowadays, competition is increasing day by day so it is not enough for the
companies to just having an excellent product or infrastructure. It is necessary for the
company to have some unique and attractive quality to achieve the competitive advantage. It
can be possible through strategies thus; they can beat the competitors and grab the large area
of the market. Apple needs excellent strategies to achieve the leadership position in the
competitive market (Madsen, & Walker, 2015). Apple Australia is the world’s famous brand
and it achieved this position on the behalf of its excellent technological products and services.
Generic strategy helps the company to make its product different from the competing brands
and intensive strategies help the company to make the attractive products. To manufacture the
attractive product, the company requires innovative idea which satisfies the customer needs.
Products of Apple are excellent in designs and looks. It is beneficial for the consumers that
the company offers them the various products with the different technology (Rothaermel,
2015).
Recommendation
Cost strategy

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It has been analysed that Apple product has a very high cost which reduces the
consumers demand for the product because there are many consumers who cannot afford the
prices. The company can attract more consumers by reducing their prices of the product.
Low-cost structure helps the company to gain the competitive advantage. The company has
many competitors who gained the competitive advantage of the cost structure such as
Microsoft, Samsung and others. Reducing prices helps the company to gain the competitive
advantage. Hence, it can be said that the company can also target those consumers who
cannot afford the Apple products and services by implementing cost – leadership strategy
(Nagle, & Müller, 2017).
Customer satisfaction strategy
The company has to follow the customer satisfaction strategy instead of a generic
strategy. Differentiation in the product is good for the company but the company has to make
sure that the customers are satisfied with its services or not. Apple provides high-quality
products for the consumer but the company has to improve its quality to increase the brand
loyalty (Oliver, 2014). To improve the services, Apple has to respond to the customer
quickly, and listen to their complaints about the products because the customer is the main
component of the market hence it is necessary for the company to satisfy the customer.
Customer satisfaction increases the brand loyalty which attracts more consumers towards its
services (Hill, & Brierley, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it has been concluded that Apple made its product different
from others by adopting the new technology. Differentiation in products helps the company
to achieve high market share in the market. Apple used its strong brand image and innovation
process to launch new products. The company introduced new products to diversify the old

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products which increased the brand loyalty and goodwill of the company. Marketing and
Finance department plays a significant role in it. Marketing department helps the company to
analyse the competitor’s new innovative products; so that the company can easily compete
the competitors in innovation. There are many consumers who cannot afford its product, so
the company has to reduce its prices to target the new consumers. Apple follows the
appropriate strategies but it requires new strategies to generate the new sale or to grab the
market share.

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References
Banker, R. D., Mashruwala, R., & Tripathy, A. (2014). Does a differentiation strategy lead to
more sustainable financial performance than a cost leadership strategy?. Management
Decision, 52(5), 872-896.
Ethiraj, S. K., Gambardella, A., & Helfat, C. E. (2018). Theory in strategic management.
Strategic Management Journal, 39(6), 1529-1529.
Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: an
integrated approach. US: Cengage Learning.
Hill, N., & Brierley, J. (2017). How to measure customer satisfaction. Oxon: Routledge.
Madsen, T. L., & Walker, G. (2015). Modern competitive strategy. US: McGraw Hill.
Nagle, T. T., & Müller, G. (2017). The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing
more profitably. Oxon: Routledge.
Oliver, R. L. (2014). Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer: A Behavioral
Perspective on the Consumer. Oxon: Routledge.
Reuters. (2018). Profile: Apple Inc (AAPL.O). Retrieved from:
https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile/AAPL.O
Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. US: McGraw-Hill Education.
Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N. and Bamford, C. E. (2017). Strategic
management and business policy. New York: Pearson.