Market Research and Product Development: An Apple Case Study Report

This report investigates the crucial role of market research in Apple's product development process, aiming to understand how it contributes to the company's competitive edge. The research explores Apple's market research strategies, including the use of secondary data sources like SAGE journals, to analyze how they inform product design, innovation, and market positioning. The study focuses on key aspects such as the importance of understanding customer needs, the impact of technological advancements, and the influence of leadership figures like Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Through a qualitative analysis of secondary data, including industry reports and company strategies, the report examines how Apple leverages market research to anticipate customer demands, develop unique product features, and gain an advantage over competitors like Samsung. The report also discusses the research methodology, including the use of an exploratory research method, case study design, and qualitative analysis techniques to provide feasible recommendations for the research issue.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Field of research
This report is aimed at discussing the importance of market research for product
development. The subject of the research study relates to business management. As a business
manager, it is important for me to figure out the market trends as well as demands of the target
customers in a precise manner so as to meet those needs and wants of the customers and capture
a substantial market share. Thus, understanding the market trends and demands is also helpful in
the decision making process regarding the product development in a business. Through this
research proposal, the importance of market research in the product development process of
Apple and how that helps the company to gain advantage will be discussed.
Research aim and objectives
The aim of this research paper is to examine the role that the market research plays in the
product development process of Apple and to evaluate how the market research process helps
apple to gain competitive advantage in the market.
The research objectives are:
 To explore the market research strategies adopted by Apple to improve their product
development process
 To evaluate the importance and role of market research in gaining competitive advantage
in the market for Apple
Research questions
The research questions that will be addressed in the research project are:
1) How exactly Apple’s product development is aided by its market research?

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2) How that process gives the company a competitive advantage?
Key terms
The key terms, which are intended to be used in Google Scholar, for the purpose of
conducting the research and exploring the journal articles, are as follows: Apple, market
research, competitive advantage, Product development, Apple story, Apple Samsung, Steve Jobs,
Tim Cook, and Apple research.
Literature review
Importance of market research in product development
Market research is a very important concept in business. It plays a major role in business
as well product and service development and serving the customers in a better way. As stated by
Sarstedt & Mooi (2014), market research is an activity of collecting information about the target
customers needs and wants and tastes and preferences regarding any particular product or service
with the aim of product or service development as well as development of the business.
McQuarrie (2015) highlighted in his book on marketing research that it is a very helpful tool for
the decision makers in the business, however, the author also mentioned that the businesses must
have a clear idea about what objectives to be set by reviewing its own resources and capabilities
and then decide on the specific research aims and objectives to be pursued.
Burns, Bush & Sinha (2014) emphasized on the importance of market research findings.
The authors stated that the market research findings are not only used for product or service
development, but also for management decision making, such as, needs assessment,
identification of target market, estimation of demand, product design, selection of distribution

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channels, pricing as well as for choosing appropriate promotion techniques. On the other hand,
market research is useful for defining the information needs and values along with ethical or
social issues that need to be addressed by the business in its activities.
The foundation of market research is laid on data, primary as well as secondary. Thus,
accuracy of data is crucial for market research. Eisend (2015) highlighted that there can be
disadvantages of market research if the information collected is inaccurate or the method of data
collection and analysis is not appropriate. Market research incurs a substantial cost on part of the
businesses. Hence, for the study, if a biased population is chosen or a poorly formulated research
design is chosen or if the feedback collected is inaccurate, then that would lead to wrong
decision making or wrong product development. At the same time, market research about a new
product gives an estimation about the customers’ attitude or purchasing intention about the new
product, however, after the product launch, the intentions might not get reflected in the actual
sales. Since, market research generally involves a small focus group, which often gives an
inconclusive idea about the larger market.
On the contrary, Price, Wrigley & Straker (2015) argued that market research helps not
only to get an idea about what the customers want, but also the reason for why they want it. The
traditional market research and deep customer insight methods were compared by the authors to
integrate the best of both methods for innovations. Through empirical study, the authors found
that the deep customer insight methods are helpful for understanding the needs, behaviours and
problems which can be foundation for new business opportunities and it provides more critical
insights than the traditional method. Thus, it can be said that although market research helps in
getting an insight about the wants and motives of purchase of the customers, inaccurate
information can also lead to wrong output which might affect the business.

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In this context, it can be mentioned that for start up companies face the challenges of lack
of funding and for a new product development, they cannot afford to waste their limited capital.
Conducting a market research can help these companies to know about the precise requirement
for the product or services and thus, waste of valuable resources could be avoided (Eno-Adams,
2018).
Importance of market research in gaining competitive advantage in market
Davcik & Sharma (2016) highlighted the importance of marketing resources and
performances in achieving competitive advantage in the market. Hence, not only accurate data is
important, but the resources and their performances also play a crucial role for the firm to
achieve competitive advantage in the market. Firm or brand environment, marketing resource
deployment and marketing as an organizational function are three aspects that help to achieve
competitive advantage in the market, however, the authors did not focus on the data accuracy
and insights of customers for precise product development, which is highly important for gaining
competitive advantage.
Chuang, Morgan & Robson (2015) focused on the insights of the customers and
competitors on new product development, creativity and competence and through an empirical
study, the authors showed that to gain a competitive advantage through product development,
businesses must integrate the insights of the customers and competitors through technology,
creativity and innovation.
In this context, the case of Apple Inc. can be discussed. The competitive advantage and
the success factors for Apple were rightly realized by the founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs.
He was right to deliver a new product with features that the customers themselves did not know

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that they wanted it. Various features especially the technology are used by Apple to develop its
products and make them unique to have a competitive advantage. For example, it has iOS
technology, which is a protected ecosystem and a brand appeal that attract the customers towards
the purchase of the items (Więcek-Janka et al., 2017). Dustin, Bharat & Jitendra (2014) showed
that innovation is the key to success as well as competitive advantage for Apple. It gained a large
market share by being the first mover and staying ahead of the potential competition. However,
before the innovative move by Steve Jobs, Apple successfully conducted the market research to
understand the needs of the new generation. On the other hand, Purkayastha & Sharma (2016)
showed in their study that right business model is extremely essential for gaining competitive
advantage in the market and choosing the right business model depends on the outcomes of
market research. As for Apple, the personal attachment to the products from the business leaders
strike a chord with the audience and innovation even before the customer wants is another key
for success and competitive advantage for apple.
Research plan
To conduct the research study on the importance of market research on the product
development of Apple and the role of market research in gaining competitive advantage in the
market by Apple, secondary data will be collected. As stated by Phillips et al. (2014), secondary
data refers to the information that is collected from secondary sources, such as, books, journals,
government sites, reports and publications, industry reports, company reports, newspaper articles
etc. In this study, the business strategies and product development strategies of Apple will be
explored and evaluated to understand the role of market research. Primary data would not be
suitable as the data collection would be time consuming and since that would be based on the
people’s opinions, the outcome could be biased.

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Secondary Data Source
The main source of secondary which will be considered for the completion of the project,
is SAGE journals. SAGE is a collection of journals which have a variety of journals relating to
various topics of academic study. The link to the platform is as follows: www.sage.com. Journals
from this database will be accessed for an extensive literature review and to assess the market
research strategies by Apple.
Research methods
Exploratory research method will be adopted as the research topic is required to be
explored in a new perspective. This will lead to the application of inductive research approach, in
which the researcher will present new insights about the research topic (Jebb, Parrigon & Woo,
2017). Case study research design will be applied and Apple Inc. is the case study organization.
This strategy is useful to narrow down the research topic to a real world practical scenario and
provide feasible and realistic recommendations for the research issue (De Massis & Kotlar,
2014). As non-numeric, that is, qualitative data will be collected, hence, for the analysis process,
qualitative analysis techniques will be applied. Descriptive analysis method will be suitable for
this study as the findings for the research topic will be obtained through literature review and
qualitative analysis of the company reports and industry reports. Thus, the research project will
adopt a qualitative research method on the secondary data.
Gantt chart
Week
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Strategy formulation
Framework design
Literature review

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Secondary data collection
Data analysis
Findings and discussion
Conclusion and
recommendations
Report submission
(Created by author)
The research project will be completed in 12 weeks. In the first week, research strategy
will be formulated about the data collection and analysis plan. For the first two weeks, the
research framework, that is, research aim, objective and questions and significance of the study
will be designed. The literatures will be explored and the review will be conducted from 2nd to 4th
week, followed by the secondary data collection. This will take another 3 weeks. Data analysis,
findings and interpretations will require another 3 weeks to 10th week. The conclusion and
recommendations will be drawn in the 11th and 12th week and the report will be submitted in the
12th week. Thus, it can be said that the project is feasible and can be completed within a limited
time period.

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References
Burns, A. C., Bush, R. F., & Sinha, N. (2014). Marketing research (Vol. 7). Harlow: Pearson.
Chuang, F. M., Morgan, R. E., & Robson, M. J. (2015). Customer and competitor insights, new
product development competence, and new product creativity: differential, integrative,
and substitution effects. Journal of product innovation management, 32(2), 175-182.
Davcik, N. S., & Sharma, P. (2016). Marketing resources, performance, and competitive
advantage: A review and future research directions. Journal of Business
Research, 69(12), 5547-5552.
De Massis, A., & Kotlar, J. (2014). The case study method in family business research:
Guidelines for qualitative scholarship. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 5(1), 15-29.
Dustin, G., Bharat, M., & Jitendra, M. (2014). Competitive advantage and motivating
innovation. Advances in Management, 7(1), 1.
Eisend, M. (2015). Have we progressed marketing knowledge? A meta-meta-analysis of effect
sizes in marketing research. Journal of Marketing, 79(3), 23-40.
Eno-Adams, I. (2018). Strategies for Improving Technology Startup Capital (Doctoral
dissertation, Walden University).
Jebb, A. T., Parrigon, S., & Woo, S. E. (2017). Exploratory data analysis as a foundation of
inductive research. Human Resource Management Review, 27(2), 265-276.
McQuarrie, E. F. (2015). The market research toolbox: a concise guide for beginners. Sage
Publications.

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Phillips, C., Kenny, A., Esterman, A., & Smith, C. (2014). A secondary data analysis examining
the needs of graduate nurses in their transition to a new role. Nurse education in
practice, 14(2), 106-111.
Price, R. A., Wrigley, C., & Straker, K. (2015). Not just what they want, but why they want it:
Traditional market research to deep customer insights. Qualitative Market Research: An
International Journal, 18(2), 230-248. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-03-2014-0024
Purkayastha, A., & Sharma, S. (2016). Gaining competitive advantage through the right business
model: analysis based on case studies. Journal of Strategy and Management, 9(2), 138-
155.
Sarstedt, M., & Mooi, E. (2014). A concise guide to market research. The Process, Data, and.
Więcek-Janka, E., Papierz, M., Kornecka, M., & Nitka, M. (2017). Apple products: A discussion
of the product life cycle. In 4th International Conference on Management Science and
Management Innovation (Vol. 31, pp. 159-164).