BM461: Global Business Environment Analysis of Apple Inc. Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple Inc.'s global business environment, focusing on the application of PEST and SWOT analysis frameworks. The introduction outlines Apple's business model, product offerings, and global presence. The main body of the report delves into the SWOT analysis, evaluating Apple's strengths (brand equity, innovation), weaknesses (high prices, lack of innovation), opportunities (technological advancement), and threats (competition from Samsung and Android). The PEST analysis examines the political (government regulations, tax policies), economic (economic stability, labor costs), social (consumer preferences, disposable income), and technological (innovation, automation) factors influencing Apple's performance. The report provides recommendations to address weaknesses and leverage opportunities, and concludes by summarizing the key findings and the impact of external and internal factors on Apple's business. The report is complete with references to support the analysis.

Global Business Environment
Module code:BM461

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................3
.........................................................................................................................................3
PEST analysis.............................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis...........................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
This essay will lay emphasis on Global business environment of Apple and ways in
which it affect’s Apple’s business in this industry.
Apple: Apple Inc is an American multinational Organization founded in 1976,
headquartered in California. They develop and sell Consumer electronics, online
services, computer software etc. One of their famous products known Worldwide is
iPhone. Apple is one of the largest retailers of music, software solutions, electronic
products etc. They have very successful business model (Paul, 2019).
The report will include PEST analysis and SWOT analysis of industry.
MAIN BODY
SWOT analysis
Very important think which is created various opportunities by knowing market growth at
marketplace. This has helped to know about strength, weakness, opportunities and
threats of company. For these sections here is selected APPLE company which is
producing various best featured phones at marketplace. SWOT analysis of company
APPLE are as follows:
Talking of the current position of Apple, Since 2017 the company has faced a
high decline in its sales and there has been an abrupt slowdown of their revenue and
profitability ratio. The major competitors of Apple like Sony, BlackBerry has made their
position stronger due to which there has been a fall in sales ratio of Iphones and hence
the customer base has also somewhat reduced. As per the recent financial report, the
revenue of Apple has decreased to around 32.3% and the main reason behind this
sudden decline is the limited launch of new products. Currently, the company is only
focussing on Iphone and is not bringing any new innovation due to which most of its

shareholders has faced a downturn. But on the other hand, its high brand equity is
somewhat protecting it from facing a high decline.
Recommendation
The one of the biggest weakness of Apple is that it has high price of its product
due to which most of the population basically lower class and middle class are not
willing to pay such high price. In order to overcome this, the company should establish a
new product rand or should and more products in their product line which are of
moderate range and affordable. In short, company should bring more products in their
mobile range or develop new product which is different from their parent line and should
price them at affordable range. This will eventually help them to enlarge customer base
as middle and lower class people will purchase the product due to low price. In addition
to this, Apple should also take the support of various reward schemes like loyalty
programmes, cashback, discounts, price reduction periodically so that even the lower
and middle class people can purchase the product.
Another weakness of the company which has eventually led to its decline sales is
lack of innovation. The main focus of apple remain on Iphones and thus they bring no
innovation and keep their strategy limited to mobile phones. To overcome this, Apple
should endeavour to enter nee product line or should incorporate new product in their
product mixture. For example- They should bring Apple TV which will eventually
increase their sales and profitability ratio. Besides this, they should also start investing a
huge amount in R & D and automation for bringing creativity and innovation in products.
This will helps them to enlarge their customer base and regain the lost position.
Strengths:
 Brand equity: The APPLE is one leading brand in world for its brand equity is
also high.
Tag of innovation: The APPLE has always been applied to apple phone. The
innovation are like IPOD and IPAD.

Weakness:
 High price: APPLE have the higher price of product which is not purchased by
every one because of high price.
 Another weakness which has dominated the company is the lack of innovation.
The low spending of Apple in R & D and advanced technology has somewhat
limited their ability to innovate due to which they main emphasis remains on
Iphone. Thus, limited innovation and low spending on digital technology is one of
their weakness.
Opportunities:
 Continued technological advancement: The apple have delivered hits
everywhere through that people have started expecting more unique products
(Rastogi and Trivedi, 2016).
Threat:
 Samsung: This is the main competitors of APPLE have the largest of mobile
phones coming in the all shapes and size.
Android: This is the biggest threat to APPLE is the android operating system.
PEST analysis
PEST is a strategic tool which helps in analysing the impact of political, economic,
social and technological factors on the organization that can affect its both long-term-
and short-term growth (Rastogi and Trivedi, 2016).
Political factor:
This factor is affected electronic industry performance and market share (D
O'Rourke, 2018). If the US traffic rapidly increase on imports into the US then product
face the highest tax from government through that it affect to industry. The political
conditions of United Kingdom is stable which supports the growth of companies
operating within the confines of mobile industry (Valeriani and Vaccari, 2018). Further,

the government of this nation provides a number of grants and incentive schemes like
reservation, financial assistance, price preferences, technical services etc. for the
growth of brands such as Apple’s. This facilitates the growth of premium brands like
iPhone operating within mobile sector to attain growth and development. These
incentives provided by the government not only help in the growth of premium brands
but also helps them to boost up their operations and the sales ratio. Thus, in this way
the political condition most importantly the government of UK becomes a supporting
system for helping Apple to expand in wider geographies.
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Economic factor:
This influence business environment of industry and performance (Khan, Alam
and Alam, 2015). The economic stability of the many developed country in the world
created great opportunities for tech brand like apple. That can be exploited these
opportunities for the business expansion. Increased labour cost is impact to the industry
because through that industry is not able to higher skilled employees.
Social factor:
The major social factors consist of rise of online power, health consciousness,
cultures, attitudes, lifestyle etc. Changes in the customers taste and preference have
impacted the company because customers now wants online products and thus prefer
everything online. From past few years disposable income of Consumers have
increased which is helping them to increase their global sales (Rourke, 2018). Today
need of people is also shifting from necessity towards luxury and because of this they
are getting attracted towards Apple products in many ways.
Technological factor:
This is the most important factor which ultimately influences the performance of
the companies and thus influences their overall operations. Technological factors are
the one which forms integral part of PESTEL and thus describes the technological
capabilities. Various technological factors are innovation, automation, R & D, advance
technology etc. There are many competitors in the industry have provided advance
technology product of high values at affordable prices which is negatively affected the
brand image and financial performance of industry. Growing demand of smartphones or
tablets is decreasing demand of Apple’s personal computers. They also need to focus
on continuously update their products and service technologically due to growing
competition. Thus, the shift of customers to more advanced smartphones has
somewhat hindered the operations of company as the main line of Apple is their
computers.
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CONCLUSION
From that report has been summarized that Due to their innovative products, Apple
have demonstrated their ability to adopt technological changes. It has also been
analysed that Due to strong brand image and high product cost, many people consider
it as a luxury brand and are getting attracted towards buying Apple products.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
D O'Rourke, A., 2018. The world apple market. Routledge.
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
Management.3(6). pp.955-961.
Paul, J., 2019. Global Tax Governance or National Tax Discrimination: The Case of EU
vs. APPLE. North East Journal of Legal Studies. 39(1). p.2.
Rastogi, N.I.T.A.N.K. and Trivedi, M. K., 2016. PESTLE technique–a tool to identify
external risks in construction projects. International Research Journal of
Engineering and Technology (IRJET). 3(1). pp.384-388.
Valeriani, A. and Vaccari, C., 2018. Political talk on mobile instant messaging services:
a comparative analysis of Germany, Italy, and the UK. Information,
Communication & Society, 21(11), pp.1715-1731.
Online
Electronic Arts Inc. PESTEL & Environment Analysis. 2018. Online. Available at:
http://fernfortuniversity.com/term-papers/pestel/nyse4/3502-electronic-arts-
inc-.php [accessed on 26th November 2019]
Statista. 2018. Online. Available through: <https://bstrategyhub.com/swot-analysis-of-
apple-apple-swot-2018/>
SWOT analysis of Apple Iphone. 2019. Online. Available through:
<https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-apple-iphone/>. [Accessed on 19th
Nov 2109].
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