Business Strategies of Apple Inc.: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the business strategies employed by Apple Inc., a leading IT giant. It begins with an introduction highlighting the company's dynamic strategies in a competitive market, emphasizing innovation and creative design. The core of the report is an annotated bibliography, which examines scholarly articles focusing on Apple's business model, including outsourcing, third-party development, and quantum strategy. The report explores how Apple leverages crowdsourcing, balances platform control, and maintains a unique approach to business operations. It also discusses the company's use of Porter’s classic strategies, and internal and external factors using tools like PESTLE and SWOT analysis. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing Apple's strong market position and the importance of its strategic model. References and a bibliography are included to support the analysis.

Running head: BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF APPLE INC.
Business Strategies of Apple Inc.
Name of the Student
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Author’s note

1BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF APPLE INC.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion....................................................................................................................................2
2.1 Annotated Bibliography.........................................................................................................2
3. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................5
4. References....................................................................................................................................6
5. Bibliography................................................................................................................................7

2BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF APPLE INC.
1. Introduction
Apple Inc. is one of the leading IT giants and hence has experienced several forms of
severe changes within their business strategies (Gómez-Uranga, Miguel & Zabala-
Iturriagagoitia, 2014). The company makes use of a different form of strategy based in the highly
competitive market. The company primarily emphasizes on innovating their products with a
creative form of design that are meant to attract a wide base of customers (Fogliasso & Williams,
2014).
2. Discussion
2.1 Annotated Bibliography
Bergvall-Kåreborn, B., & Howcroft, D. (2013, December). The Apple business model:
Crowdsourcing mobile applications. In Accounting Forum (Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 280-
289). Elsevier.
In the article, the business model of Apple Inc. have been put under major focus. The
company has outsourced the manufacturing of their technological components, which is a unique
formulation within their model of business. The external form of outsourcing of a wide form of
digital content is an integral part of the success stories based on the business model of Apple Inc.
in the year 2008, the company had primarily opened their business platform to the wide
community of their third party application developers. With the help of this form of outsourcing
of developers, they were successful in leveraging of a wide skills of expertise based on the
supply of applications on their app store. The rapid form of dominance over the market of
mobiles have led to the emergence of a business model, which has helped in weaving a type of
Internet-enabled mobile device platform.

3BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF APPLE INC.
The study based on the article helps in focusing on the analysis based on Global
Production Network. The valuable reports gained from the analysis have shown that although
some developers had experienced a vast form of success, yet the financial based returns
remained to be intangible. They have also experienced high form of pressure in order to generate
new kinds of products within the saturated and competitive market. The article also puts light on
the aspect of crowdsourcing, which has permitted the company for bringing the efficiency of
source development within the software developers and capitalize the mass production of their
digital products.
Ghazawneh, A., & Henfridsson, O. (2013). Balancing platform control and external
contribution in third‐party development: the boundary resources
model. Information Systems Journal, 23(2), 173-192.
This paper helps in focusing on the various forms of development of IT based strategies
within Apple Inc. The previous documents based on research help in signifying the various kinds
of platform bounded resources for the purpose of generating different sustainable ecosystems
with the aid of third party development of applications. The paper puts deep insights on
implementing a theoretical model, which is able to put light two forms of models, which are used
in the design and use of applications and resources. They are also able to explain the ways in
which the major driving factors would be able to interact with the third party form of
development of applications.
This form of model have been applied to the platform of Apple Inc. The use of this kind
of model would not only be able to serve as a kind of illustration of their IT based strategies but
would also be able to generate vast form of insights about the different goals that could be set
based on the marketing strategies of the organisation. This case study is also able to discuss

4BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF APPLE INC.
about the use of IT maintenance techniques based on the control over the platform of the
company. With the high form of use of IT based systems by the organisation, they would be able
to transfer the capability of designing their applications to the third party application developers.
With the gained insights from the ideas gathered from the research activities, there are
four form of specialized constructs that have been designed based on the understanding of third
party development of applications. The research conducted over the article helps in extending the
knowledge of IT strategies within the organisation and provides insights based on an alternative
form of improved systems development.
Heracleous, L., 2013. Quantum strategy at apple inc. Organizational Dynamics, 42(2),
pp.92-99.
The article discussed by Heracleous focuses on the ways in which Apple Inc. have made
a revolution in the global market. The company follows a Quantum Strategy model of business,
which is extremely rare and is very much difficult for their competitors for imitating the same
business model process. The article focuses on the ways in which Apple Inc. have gained the
ability for balancing the intense form of efficiency within their business operations. With the
help of this form of model, the company has been able to innovate their products and have hence
outstand their competitors in the global reach. With the help of the Quantum Strategy, the
company has also been able to bring newer kinds of products within the world market. The use
of this model has helped the organisation for developing better forms of design and improve the
quality of service within their products. The article puts a major focus on the use of Porter’s
classic form of strategies, which have been used by the company and which have been the major
cause of influence within the business. Based on this research, the various forms of ways in

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which a company could outstand themselves in the highly competitive market have been
discussed.
The main aim of this case study is to understand the ways in which Apple Inc. have
achieved the high form of strategy within their business model and thus would integrate the
various kinds of policies within the business models in order to achieve higher gains within the
market.
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.
The article focuses on the impact of Apple Inc. in the global based market. T7he article
focuses on a critical form of analysis based on the business strategies and the social
responsibilities that are undertaken by the organization. The authors have made use of several
forms of tools in order to evaluate the various kinds of external and internal factors with the help
of PESTLE, SWOT, BCG matrix and Porter’s five forces model. This study focuses on the deep
form of strategies that are undertaken by the organization based on corporate governance,
corporate social strategies and relationships in the highly competitive market. The article is thus
able to gain valuable insights based on their integrated products, market share, policy of returns
of shareholders and cheaper form of marketing strategies.
3. Conclusion
Based on the conduction of reviews of the various scholarly articles and journals, it have
been understood that Apple Inc. follows a very high form of business goals that helps the
organisation to develop a better form of stand within the world market. The company has

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majorly dominated their presence within the world market. The article focuses on the use of
Quantum Strategic model, which is majorly followed for gaining higher business profits and thus
establish a strong business and customer base within the market.

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4. References
Bergvall-Kåreborn, B., & Howcroft, D. (2013, December). The Apple business model:
Crowdsourcing mobile applications. In Accounting Forum (Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 280-289).
Elsevier.
Fogliasso, C. E., & Williams, A. (2014). Analysis Of The Business, Societal And Governmental
Relationships Of Apple Inc. Leadership & Organizational Management
Journal, 2014(1).
Ghazawneh, A., & Henfridsson, O. (2013). Balancing platform control and external contribution
in third‐party development: the boundary resources model. Information Systems Journal,
23(2), 173-192.
Gómez-Uranga, M., Miguel, J. C., & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, J. M. (2014). Epigenetic economic
dynamics: The evolution of big internet business ecosystems, evidence for
patents. Technovation, 34(3), 177-189.
Heracleous, L., 2013. Quantum strategy at apple inc. Organizational Dynamics, 42(2), pp.92-99.
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.

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5. Bibliography
Abraham, S. (2013). Will business model innovation replace strategic analysis?. Strategy &
Leadership, 41(2), 31-38.
Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., & Bamford, C. E. (2017). Strategic management
and business policy. pearson.