Analysis of Apple Inc.'s Competitive Advantages and Business Purpose

This report analyzes Apple Inc.'s competitive advantages, emphasizing its strong brand and significant investments in research and development. It explores how Apple's brand recognition and high profit margins enable it to invest heavily in innovation, allowing the company to create high-quality products and maintain a competitive edge. The report also discusses Apple's business purpose, which is to enrich consumers' lives through superior products. Furthermore, it addresses the competitive landscape, highlighting key rivals like Samsung and Xiaomi, and the importance of continuous innovation. The assignment, prepared for MGT 164, examines the company's strategies, market positioning, and ability to maintain its leadership in the technology sector.

Running head: BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Business and Organizational Leadership
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1BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Two Competitive advantages of Apple Inc.
The case reflects on the success of the technological giants, Apple Inc. and can be
considered as the most successful company in the technology market segment. The company was
able to earn higher profit margins and revenue due to their competitive advantages in the market.
The first factor is that the company has developed itself as a valuable brand with a net worth of
close to $ 200 billion (Yoffie and Baldwin). A strong brand of the company determines better
business in the market and Apple has used their brand name to pursue consumers to purchase
their products in comparison to lesser known products in the market. Moreover, it has also
helped in increasing the average selling price of the products sold by the company (Yoffie and
Baldwin). The success of the company depends on the profit margin on each of the products.
Apple sells their phones at high end prices but due to its brand name and image, it has become
one of the most popular products in the market. The next competitive advantage of the company
is their investment on research and development (Yoffie and Baldwin). The company has been
able to develop innovative products and cater to the market gaps and consumers due to their
massive spending on research and development of new technology. The company generates high
revenue and gross profit which helps them to spend more on research.
Apple’s purpose of business
The purpose of Apple Inc.’s business is to enrich the lives of the consumers by
developing products of highest quality in the market. The products they offer are the very best in
the market and does not cater to those segment where they cannot offer the best product (Quick
and Feiner). They can product great products but it will not enrich the lives of the people unless
those products are best in the market (Quick and Feiner). Therefore, the company prefers to work
on a narrow funnel and uses niche market to provide to achieve the highest quality level they
want to achieve to improve the experiences of the existing consumers.
Competitors
In the global market, competition in the technological industry has intensified due to the
increase in variety of the products offered at relatively lower prices. There are various companies
such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Oneplus, Google and Microsoft (Dolata). Even Amazon has been
competing with Apple on Ipads. Samsung is the biggest competitor of Apple as they have similar

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growth margin and profitability in the Android segment. Similarly, Xiaomi, being a new player
in the market have been providing product with high end specification with cheap prices. The
company has evolved as one of the major player in the past decade which has reduced the sales
of Apple products significantly (Dolata). Similarly, other companies such as Google has been
competing with par in developing high end phones and tablets for premium consumers.
Therefore, research and development has become one of the major aspect for the company as
they need to keep on innovative their products and developing new technological to address the
needs of the consumers.

3BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP
References
Becky Quick, Lauren Feiner. "Watch Apple CEO Tim Cook's Full Interview From The
Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting." CNBC. N.p., 2020. Web. 14 Jan. 2020.
Dolata, Ulrich. Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft: Market concentration-
competition-innovation strategies. No. 2017-01. Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Organisations-
und Innovationsforschung, SOI Discussion Paper, 2017.
Yoffie, David B., and Eric Baldwin. "Apple Inc. In 2018." Harvard Business School 9-718-439
(2018): 21-33. Print.