Customer Strategies and SWOT Analysis: Apple Smartphone Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple's customer relationship management strategies, focusing on its smartphone business. It begins with an executive summary highlighting Apple's brand strength, customer preferences, and competitive threats. The report then delves into a situational analysis, including a detailed SWOT analysis that examines Apple's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the smartphone market. The core of the report explores Apple's customer strategies, emphasizing its CRM approach, customer service, and product innovation. It also presents a customer and product profile, using the STP model (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) to understand Apple's market approach. The report concludes with recommendations for Apple to further enhance its market position and customer relationships.

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Management

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Executive Summary
It is true that Apple smartphone is getting huge concentration on the part of employees. Due
to its unique features and innovative model, customers used to prefer iPhone in their hand.
The brand image of the Apple Smartphone is the major strength of the company. As compare
to this, the increasing competition is the threat for Apple smartphone. In order to retain as
well as attract the customers, it effectively makes use of customer strategies for fulfilling the
demand of customers and their changing needs. Moreover, every year it comes up with its
one new model with the changing features. This strategy is also helping the company in
several ways. The product profile of Apple tends to target the all type of customers whether
they are business class people or students. However, it is recommended to increase its
product line due to its brand image and goodwill in the market.

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Situational analysis.....................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis of Apple Smartphone...................................................................................3
Customer strategies of Apple.....................................................................................................5
Customer/ Product profile of Apple...........................................................................................6
Recommendations for Apple......................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Apple Inc. is a multinational company that manufactures, designs, sells as well as ensure the
marketing of consumer services and electronics. Steve Jobs founded Apple in the year 1976.
The headquarter of Apple is in Cupertino, California. The online services of Apple include
the iTunes, icloude, as well as IOS app store. Previously, it has developed only the personal
computers, later on it also shifted to the consumer electronics (Von Lohmann, 2017). It is
also regarded as the number 1 innovative company among the presence of several brands.
Apple Company has always given emphasis on the innovation and come up with unique
products. By considering the revenue also, it is the biggest informational technology
company all over the World. Recently, it has around, 1,15,000 employees. The main target of
its brand is to serve the high-class people of various countries. In Apple, employees are
treated to be essential asset that proves to be effective for the Company. It also has effective
and string marketing team that helps it in reaching to the large number of customers.
In the report, discussion starts with the SWOT analysis that helps in knowing the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The major threat for Apple is the increasing
competition in market. In addition to this, customer strategies of Apple are also being
described. It has been seen that Apple is one of the best and leading smartphone Company by
using its effective customer relationship management strategies. All the strategies that are
adopted by Apple for effective customer relationship management has been described in the
report. Afterwards, discussion is carried on the customer and product profile of Apple. It is
described with the help of STP model. However, the discussion ends with providing some of
the recommendation for Apple for its better functioning and gaining advantage that is more
competitive.
Situational analysis
SWOT analysis of Apple Smartphone
Strength:
 It is one of the top most companies in the World. It is effectively known for its best
quality and featured iPhone.

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 The tag of innovation is permanently attached with the Apple IPhone and Ipad. Apple
through its innovative measures, always responsible for the tech revolutions.
 Apple also invest huge amount in its marketing and branding. The iPhone of Apple is
launched for the both personal as well as professional use. It has entertainment and
music apps and has various apps that can be used by the IT professionals. These
features generally do not found in any other smart phone.
 It is true that Apple iPhone is not proves to be smart but it is efficient as well as
powerful like hell (Chesbrough, 2017).
 Apple Smartphones has retina HD display along with the 3d touch.
 Apple sales are also growing well all over the world. It also started focusing on the
Indian market.
Weaknesses
 The major weakness of iPhone is its higher prices that sometimesremain inaccessible
and unaffordable for some of the customers (Khan, Alam and Alam, 2015).
 It is also found that the battery of iPhone is non-removable that is considered to be the
biggest weakness of Apple smartphone.
 In the 7s phone of Apple, there was no headphone jack. Due to this reason, most of
the customers not liking the feature.
 The founder of Apple Steve Jobs has anticipated that no one will be going to buy the
big phones. At this point, it was wrong. In this way, Apple failed in predicting the
future such as Phablets. Due to this reason only, Samsung had come up with the
Galaxy note in the year 2011. In recent time, now it is commanding the market of
Phablet.
Opportunities
 In recent time, opportunities are growing in the Asian market. Besides this, the
popularity of the Apple phones is growing in the Asian market. It presents the various
significant opportunities for the Apple to grow more.
 iPhone of Apple is innovative smart phone that is always loaded with the innovative
features. However, there is still the space for innovation that can be used by Apple to
do more friendly (Pine and Gilmore, 2016).

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Threats
 Competition from other cheaper smartphones presents the biggest threat for the Apple
smartphone. Large number of other smart phone models presents in the market with
large screen. Due to this also, they are growing higher popularity in the global market.
 Apple IOS also has to face the high amount of competition from the other android OS.
This also seems to be war between the two giants as recently android is enjoying the
great leadership position in the market of almost every country.
Customer strategies of Apple
Apple uses several strategies in an effective manner. In its customer service department, it
uses CRM by making assessment regarding the needs of customers. The purpose of using
CRM by Apple is to encourage the long-term relationship with the customers. It usually put
emphasis on ensuring that customer should have experience when they are making purchase.
Using customer strategies, it not gives concentration on making the customer to buy their
phone, rather than it focuses on teaching the benefits of having an iPhone or Ipad. This is the
essential element of the Apple customer strategy (Weinstein, 2016).
The making of Apple iPhone is only the pleasure for customers. It has made the Apple
iPhone provides the sensory pleasure to customers. Due to the innovative features and battery
storage, it tends to increase the retention rates for Apple iPhone. It also believes in providing
the beautiful design, high quality, and innovative phone for maintaining the long-term
relationship with customers.
In the report, it is found that Apple store employees should make sure each customer have
memorable and magical experience. Employees of the Apple also used to advise the
customers regarding how products of Apple can bring benefits as well as enrich their lives.
Apple also empowers customers. At the time of Apple store, customers are also encouraged
to touch and experience their product through themselves. The main objective behind this is
to unleash their own inner genius (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright, 2017). This is
because Steve Jobs believes that each customer of Apple has that creative spirit, and it is the
responsibility is to provide the tools to him or her in changing the world. In addition to this,
when customers of Apple join the one to one program, they also get, trained by the creative
personally in editing and using the devices of Apple. Apple also created the place in which
customer feel comfortable and welcome so that they can express themselves freely. Apple has

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also own the own retail experiences in which they get the chance to do conversation with
their potential. This also helps the Apple in finding out what their customers exactly want as
well as how their product helps them in solving the recent as well as future problem.
The strategy of Apple also tends to regularly improve its products and keep the customers up
to date with the latest and recent technology. In making its smartphones finest as well as to
compete with the other companies in same industry, it enhances the features of its phones
constantly. Apple has wide range of products in its product line. In this regard, the
development team of Apple regularly look for the enhancing of its products so that they can
easily attract the customers and maintain the position. This is the reason that Apple products
are famous among the customers because of their performance, features, and up to date
technology.
These are the reasons that products of Apple are superior as compare to other companies in
the same industry. For maintaining this position, it always regularly keeps checking the
desires and latest trends of the customers (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright, 2017). It
always comes up with the latest technology as well as ideas. In its customer star4ategoes, it
management team is also included that satisfies the desires and needs of customers and make
the customers happy.
Customer/ Product profile of Apple
The customer or product profile of Apple can be understand through the segmentation,
targeting, and positioning of Apple
Segmentation- In the geographic segmentation, it serve the customers internationally, and
mainly include the customers from urban areas. In the demographic segmentation, it has
mostly segmented the market between the age group of 20 to 45. It includes the both gender
for its products. It has segmented the market based on male as well as female. In this way,
high earners mostly prefer the smartphones of Apple. In terms of behavioural segmentation, it
includes the customers who are ambitious and determined. The psychographic segmentation
of Apple is divided on the basis of social class and lifestyle. In the social class, middle and
upper class both comes. Based on lifestyle, it includes the aspirer, explorer, succeeded as well
as resigned person (Arocha, 2017). The iPhone is suitable for every generation whether it is
school student or businessperson.

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Positioning of Apple- Positioning of any brand means the marketing efforts. It can be only
done through advertising and promotion. Apple is all about experience that is felt in the mind
as well as heart of customers. The iPhone brand is reflected through the core beliefs regarding
design, innovation as well as imagination. All the entire three beliefs are strongly promoted
through their advertisement, products, and customer experiences. In this way, Apple is
positioned as the luxury brand that brings the huge emotional connection as well as loyalty
among the customers. Some factors contribute in the positioning of Apple in market. The one
essential factor is brand identity that has unique position in the mind of customers (Aswani,
2016). It also come up with the innovative technology and has a strong command in the
market.
Apple has targeted the various people in the market. The first target market of Apple is
teenagers. It is because teenager uses the iPods for several reasons such as for listening to
music, socializing with friends, and for using Twitter and Facebook. Apple also targets
university and college students because it believes that they require iPhones, MacBook to
record the notes. Besides this, Apple also targets business class people. All the devices of
Apple have the business quality that proves to be useful. All the devices help the business
people to finish their work effectively as well as communicate with the clients easily. Besides
this, it has targeted the young kids and children. The reason behind targeting these is that
devices such as iPads and iPod are easy in use due to their quality of touch screen. It also
becomes easy for the parents to download the learning game apps on the device of Apple for
teaching the kids and the young children. In addition to all these, the Apple also targets
adults. IPhones also proves to be useful to the adults for their everyday needs such as
mapping direction, phone calls (Chen and Ann, 2016).
Recommendations for Apple
It is true that Apple is growing well in the various parts of the World. Apple has various
strengths that it can use to effectively address the weakness. Besides this, it can use the
strengths in exploiting opportunities such as expansion of the distribution network. However,
Apple can effectively use its rapid process of innovation in successfully developing and
launching the new product lines. It is also seen that Apple also faces the significant threat of
aggressive imitation and competition that are major challenge affecting the player in global
market for computer software and hardware, consumer electronics, and the online content
distribution services. Apple also failed to put emphasis on the research and innovation that it

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used to do. It can also put the negative impact on the Apple in future that can also lead to
avoidable loss (Heracleous and Papachroni, 2016). It is also true that products of Apple are
creative and unique so it is quite efficient in targeting the customer preferences and needs
better than its competitors. In recent time, it is seen that ability of Apple in terms of
uniqueness has been diluted. Therefore, for reducing the threat of its competitors, it is
required by the Apple to stick with the initial product tailoring by bringing the improvement
in new technology (Pisano, 2015).
In addition to this, it will also prove to be beneficial to study the customer preferences and
taste that is crucial for dominating the market. Therefore, Apple should consider the trait of
clients and tailor makes their brands for each of the customer segment. Besides this, it should
also introduce the other market segment as compare to putting emphasis on the high end
segment. The proper study of client will also increase the understanding of Apple in
understanding the services that are used such as pictures, messaging and videos as well as
many others. Apple should also look for the ideas, this can also be done through holding the
innovative technology in various campuses and schools. It is also required to produce the
products that are efficient as well as fast in order to serve its customers (Ma,Wang and
Szmedra, 2019).
Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be concluded that Apple is growing well in the
market by adopting its innovative measures each year. It is found7 that Apple Company is
quite strong in the place as well as promotion. The iPhone of Apple Company has been
marketed using retail promotions and online. In the first few years, Apple has also smashed
the whole market of the smartphone. It is also true that Apple is making the continuous
efforts in lowering down the price of the device for getting the as many customers as
possible.
It is true that if Apple will stretch the product line of iPhone in both the ways such as coming
up with new segment in its upper segment of the range of product to target the professionals,
and corporates, then it will definitely ensure the growth of company in terms of revenue and
user base. It has been seen that Apple strives for the new technology and innovation, the
various product range of Apple recently offers the high end products such as iMac, iPhone,
ipad and others.

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In conclusion, it can be stated that Apple is positioned as the high quality= high price. If the
company can perform with high-class stability and design, company will have the bright
future in the upcoming years. Besides this, there are various opportunities available for the
Apple Company in securing the pole-position and penetrating.

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Chen, C.M. and Ann, B.Y. (2016) Efficiencies vs. importance-performance analysis for the
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