Analysis of Apple's Environment and Competitive Advantage Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Apple's environment, focusing on its internal and external factors. It begins with an introduction to Apple and its market position, highlighting its product quality, design, and technological advancements. The report then delves into internal and external environment scanning, including PESTLE and SWOT analyses to identify the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strengths include product diversification, advanced technology, and innovation, while weaknesses include high product costs and limited features. Opportunities include increasing demand in foreign markets. Threats include the potential for decreased demand in developing countries due to high prices. The external environment analysis covers political, legal, social, economic, and technological factors impacting Apple. The report emphasizes Apple's competitive advantages, such as product diversification and brand loyalty. Strategies used by Apple for value creation and competitive advantage are discussed, along with measurement guidelines for strategic decisions. The report concludes that Apple maintains a strong competitive advantage and has successfully satisfied its customers. The measurement guidelines and strategies adopted are effective in gaining and sustaining a competitive edge in the market. The company's brand loyalty and unique features contribute to its success.

Environment scanning

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Introduction
Apple got established in 1976, the company deals with the manufacturing and trading of
the IT systems and is recognised in the market for its product quality, design, technology and
its features offered to the public in the market. The diversification strategy of the Apple
helped the company in achieving the brand recognition and the loyalty of the customers. In
this report, the internal and external environment scanning results are depicted to analyse the
competitive advantage of the firm in the market. The internal and external environment
scanning includes the PESTLE and SWOT analysis of the company. The report identifies the
competitive advantage of the firm, the strategies, and the measurements applied behind it to
gain the competitive advantage.

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Internal and External environment scanning of Apple
The internal environment scanning refers to the identification of the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company (Yun, Lee, & Aoshima, 2019). The
external environment scanning refers to, identifying the external factors that affect
functioning of the organisation.
Internal environment-
Strengths
The strengths of the company include the diversification in the product offering of
the company in the market, its effective upgraded technology, and continuous efforts
towards the creativity and innovation.
Weakness
The weakness of the company includes the high cost of the product, as eventually every
group of customer, is not able to afford it, another is the certain limited features of IOS. For
example- the Bluetooth feature in the Apple mobiles is only accessible with the other Apple
mobile users.
Opportunities
The opportunities for the company include the increasing demand of the product in
the foreign markets as the customers are thrived regarding the new launches of the brand that
they are effortlessly waiting to spend their savings on the Apple products.

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Threats
The threats to the company include the fear of decreasing demand of the product in the
underdeveloped or the developing countries due to its high price in comparison to the other
brands offering the same features in their product at low cost (Khan, Alam & Alam, 2015).
External environment
Political
The political environment affects the company at large because of the trade relations of
the company with Asian countries, which at times acts as a hindrance and affects the working
of the company at large.
Legal
The company undergoes stress in regard with the legal environment of the country,
the pressure from the U.S. government regarding the import of certain parts of the products
required for the manufacturing of the products offered by the Apple.
Social
There have been numerous changes in the products as per the demand of the customers
the social factor affecting the firm is the high price of the product, which is not affordable by
every group of the society.
Economic
The company went through global recession which the affected the economic growth of
the company at large, despite that the company overcome and the flourished its earnings and
gained its competitive advantage back again over its competitors.

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Technological
The technological aspect of the company has never failed to compete against the
competitors of the market the company always functioned according to the upgraded
technology (Gardere, Sharir, & Maman, 2018).
Competitive advantage of Apple
The main competitive advantage gained by the firm Apple is the diversification in the
product offering, and the brand loyalty recognised as the most important aspect of the
Apple’s competitive advantage over the other firms of the market. The main competitors of
the firm are Samsung, MI, Nokia against which the company has gained a huge competitive
advantage through its brand loyalty (Giachetti, 2018). The customers are very fascinated with
the brand to buy it as it gives them the recognition in the society being a user of the Apple
brand.
Strategies used by the Apple to create value and the gain competitive advantage
The basic strategies used by the company are the diversification of the products
and innovative strategies for the up gradation of the products offered by the company, to its
customers (Gavetti, & Porac, 2018). The company uses various growth and development
strategies basically, regarding the innovation, product development, and diversification by
providing a range of products for gaining the competitive advantage over the other
competitors of the same market (Clemons, 2019).
Measurement guidelines used by the company for its effective strategic decisions
The measurement guidelines mainly include the knowledge about the market of the
company and its potential customers as a result the company is aware of the needs and wants
of the customers. The major benefit that the company holds is the brand loyalty on the side of

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the customers as the product offered by the company is not new and there are numerous
competitors out there in the market selling the same product. Despite that, the company has
the sustainability in the market (Rothberg, & Erickson, 2018).
Effectiveness of the measurement guidelines
The effectiveness of the measurement regarding the strategic majorly depends upon the
type and the group of customers the company serves or is willing to serve and is focusing on
the same by providing limited but effective product lines to target group of customers
(Cusumano, Yoffie, & Gawer, 2019). However, the company does not serve every group or
everyone in the market but serves in a way that the targeted clients of the company are
retained for long-term period.

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Conclusion
The discussion concludes that the company holds its effective competitive advantage over
or against the other companies or brands in the market. The company has successfully
satisfied its customers by serving them according to their expectation, needs and wants. The
measurement guidelines used for the strategies are effective as the customers are highly
satisfied with the offerings of the Apple. The company has maintained its brand loyalty,
which makes the customers so fascinated and attracted towards the product offered by the
company. The other reason behind this is the unique features of the brand, which are imitated
by other firms but is not replaced as the quality provided by Apple does have the replacement
found yet in the competitive market of the company. The measures and guidelines adopted by
the company for formulating the strategies are the main tools of gaining the competitive
advantage and sustaining it for the long-term. The working style of the company is also
definite and effective.

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References
Clemons, E. K. (2019). Resources, Platforms, and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: How
to Win and Keep on Winning. In New Patterns of Power and Profit (pp. 93-104).
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Cusumano, M. A., Yoffie, D. B., & Gawer, A. (2019). The Business of Platforms: Strategy in
the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. HarperCollins Publishers.
Gardere, J., Sharir, D., & Maman, Y. (2018). Consulting and Executive Coaching on Future
Trends: The Need for a Long Term Vision with Apple and Samsung. International
Journal of Business and Social Science, 9(3).
Giachetti, C. (2018). Explaining Apple’s iPhone Success in the Mobile Phone Industry: The
Creation of a New Market Space. In Smartphone Start-ups (pp. 9-48). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N., & Alam, S. (2015). A critical analysis of internal and external
environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and
Management, 3(6), 955-961.
Gavetti, G., & Porac, J. (2018). On the origin of great strategies. Strategy Science, 3(1), 352-
365.

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Rothberg, H., & Erickson, S. (2018). Engaging Layers of Intangibles Across Intelligent
Learning Ecosystems for Competitive Advantage. Electronic Journal of Knowledge
Management, 16(1).
Yun, B. S., Lee, S. G., & Aoshima, Y. (2019). An analysis of the trilemma phenomenon for
Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. Service Business, 1-34.