International Business Analysis of Apple Inc. - Coursework

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of Apple Inc.'s international business operations, with a specific focus on its activities in China. It begins with an overview of Apple's background, core competencies, and competitive advantages in the consumer electronics market. The analysis then delves into a host country analysis, utilizing Hofstede's cultural dimensions to compare the cultural differences between America and China and their impact on Apple's business. The essay further explores the market entry strategies employed by Apple Inc., including licensing and exporting, and evaluates the company's internationalization strategies in China. Alternative actions are recommended, followed by a discussion of Apple's social responsibility and potential action plans for effective business management in China. The essay concludes by highlighting the importance of adapting strategies to the local market and addressing cultural differences to achieve international business success.

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International Business Analysis of Apple Inc
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1INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS OF APPLE INC
Introduction
Apple Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics company that actively
operates in Australia and its business operation includes manufacturing and marketing mobile
communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable music players along with
software, consumer electronic accessories and applications. The company has successfully
established its business in Australia where its online services include Ios Application store,
iTunes, Apple TV and cloud (Apple (Australia). 2019). The objective of the essay is to analyze
the international business of Apple Inc that is a consumer electronics company. Focused on such
objective, host country analysis along with international strategies evaluation of this
multinational company will be carried out along with analyzing its global special responsibility
and action plans.
Discussion
Part 1: Background and Competitiveness of Apple Inc
Answer 1
Apple Inc is a multinational American company that has business operations dealing with
new technologies of communication and consumer electronics. The country of origin of the
company is America where it is based in California that was created by Steve Jobs and Steve
Woznaik. The consumer electronics company has a vision of changing the manner in which its
consumers view computers (Beamond, Farndale and Härtel 2016). Moreover, this consumer
electronics company initially lacked certain important human interface devices built in like the
keyboard. However, with time the company started introducing its products as consumer goods

2INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS OF APPLE INC
through introducing Macintosh classic, the LC and the later Performa budget series. More than
20 years Apple Inc remained a manufacturer of personal computers for which it faced unstable
sales as well as low market share issue (Bhatti, Larimo and Carrasco 2016). In the current years,
this multinational company positioned itself as one of the largest consumer electronics company
with approximate revenue of $60 billion per annum. The products and services of the company
includes iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch, Apple TV along with a portfolio of professional and
consumer software applications along with operating systems, cloud, Apple Pay along with a
range of accessories, service as well as support offerings. Being a multinational company, Apple
Inc has its business operations spread in several nations including Australia, India, Belgium,
Canada, China, France, Singapore, Sweden and Taiwan (Borda et al. 2017). Every year the
multinational company decides to expand its business in new international location for attaining
international growth.
Answer 2
Brannen, Piekkari and Tietze (2017) stated that core competencies and resources are the
skills and capabilities of a company that if unique can offer its business with increased
competitive advantages. These include its unique competencies of knowing when and where to
market its consumer electronics, innovative as well as domain expert human resource,
developing brand image of offering innovative and unique design of its offerings and utilization
of growth opportunities available within the IT industry. High performance if its selected
products such as iPhone, Store, iPod and iPad are observed to perform well than its competitors
in the industry that is difficult for its rivals to imitate (Cantwell 2017). The core resources and
capabilities of Apple Inc. that supported its international business operations success are robust.
Among these there are certain unique resources and competencies that facilitate the company in

3INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS OF APPLE INC
attaining competitive advantages within global consumer electronics industry. These include the
fact that Apple Inc. invests within research and development to develop products in a unique way
in comparison to its consumers. The company has unique competency of developing attractive
design as well as simple usage that attracts consumers towards its products and all the Apple
products are relied on the latest technology (Elia, Petruzzelli and Piscitello 2019). Such core
competencies of maintaining a unique product portfolio development process has ensured the
company’s high responsiveness to changes brought in by competitors. Human resource and
expert resources in different domain attained by Apple Inc. are rare in the market. In addition,
latest technology, powerful architecture, and attractive design along with latest software that is
valuable and unique.
Part 2: Host Country Analysis and International Strategies of Apple Inc.
Answer 3
The America multinational company Apple Inc. has expanded its business in
international market and one of its host nation in which the multinational company operates
successfully is China. The culture of the host nation “China” and its home country “America” is
companied through employing “Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture” model in analyzing the
effectiveness of business operation of Apple Inc (Hamilton and Webster 2018). in the
international marketplace. Power distance dimension analysis of this model indicates that China
has higher rankings in comparison to America which signifies the society believes in inequalities
among employees in the company are acceptable, whereas Americas’ business culture believes
in workplace employee equality. The employees in China are influenced by formal sanctions and
authority in contrast to America. In individualism aspect, China ha low rankings than America

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which signifies the nation follows highly collectivist culture where employees act in their
group’s interest and their commitment towards the company is low that is not observed in case of
Americans (Harzing and Pudelko 2016).
In the masculinity aspect China has high rankings in comparison to Australia which
signifies that the employees are driven by competition, success and achievement where they
prefer sacrificing leisure for work that is not evidenced in case of Americans. In the uncertainty
avoidance aspect China has low rankings in comparison to Australia which signifies that the
Chinese employees are comfortable with ambiguity that is quite difficult for American
employees to follow. In the long term orientation aspect China has high rankings in comparison
to Australia which indicates that China has highly pragmatic culture in which employees
believes that truth depends on situation, time and context and such belief is not held by American
employees as they have normative societies that prefer maintaining time honored norms in
viewing societal change with suspicion (Hobdari et al. 2017). In the indulgence aspect China has
low rankings in comparison to Australia which signifies that China is a retrained society where
employees show the tendency of pessimism and believe that their actions remain restraint by
social norms. Whereas, America has indulgent societies in which the employees have relatively
weak control over their desires and impulses.

5INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS OF APPLE INC
Figure 1: Hofstede’s Five Dimensions of Culture of America and China
(Source: Jackson and Rathert 2015)
Such identified differences in the company’s operation within China and America have
affected its business within the host nation. It has been observed that the company initially faced
detains issues in situating its business within China because of cultural differences. To attain
competitive advantage in China, Apple Inc. implemented comparative advantage strategy in
order to concentrate on production of its consumer electronics through which it attained high
economic gains (Lakshman, Lakshman and Estay 2017). Through observing that the Chinese
companies are experts in manufacturing products, Apple Inc. considered investing in the selected
regions to ensure superior quality products that are efficiently manufactured. The multinational
company ensured its high economic gains in Chain through understanding the potential of
Chinese market that has abundant exceptionally educated engineers. Considering same, the
company invested in a development center in China for attaining competitive leverage of high
quality work through employing cheap labor.
Answer 4

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In entering the Chinese market, Apple Inc. considered employing suitable market entry
mode along with competitive strategies in attaining business success (Lockamy III 2017).
Licensing and exporting market entry strategies were implemented by the multinational company
in successfully entering the Chinese market. Licensing market entry mode was preferred by the
company in expanding its business in China due to its positive features such as low risks and
decreased threats from regulations. Through employing licensing entry mode strategy, Apple Inc.
was able to attain high returns in is business along with effectively surviving and expanding its
business in the Chinese marketplace. In export market entry strategy within China, Apple Inc.
considered buying and selling goods in the nation where its consumer electronics are sold in
China from its hoe country (Neelankavil 2015). The international strategy of this multinational
company is to follow international business laws and regulations for conducting ethical business
and along with that licensing entry mode facilitates the company in developing its intangible
properties within the Chinese market such as patent, logo, formula and process.
The internationalization strategy implemented by Apple Inc. in operating its business
successfully in China is to deliver exceptional consumer value by means of its innovative bands.
In addition, in the later years the multinational company has also considered carrying out several
cross border acquisitions in establishing its presence in the nation. The company’s strategy is to
attain business growth in China (Olson 2018). In consideration to such strategy, the company
introduced iPhone 5c that is a lower-cost version of smartphones as per the demand of its
Chinese consumers. However, despite successful market entry in China, Apple Inc. faced certain
issues such as declining sales due to its premium provided consumer electronic products.
However with changes in the regulations of the Chinese market, the company attained the
opportunity of improving its business international business in the country. Some other

7INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS OF APPLE INC
internationalization strategies of Apple Inc. for its business expansion and market share growth
in Chain include decreasing prices of all its products for their better acceptance in the Chinese
market. Apple Inc focused on establishing successful business operations in China (Panibratov,
Ermolaeva and Pantic 2017). implemented 3Vs strategy that included valued consumers, value
proposition and value network. Following this strategy, Apple Inc. entered the market through
targeting consumers interested in its products including consumer electronics, video games and
netbooks. Value proposition strategy of the company for Chinese market included to offer a
consumer electronic product regarding all needs within a single product. In establishing an
effective value network within China, the company considered delivering its products through its
official stores based in China (Picciotto and Mayne 2016). These stores are deemed to develop
the brand image that has successfully targeted a huge fraction of target consumer market. In
increasing its product reach and increasing accessibility of its offerings it has considered offering
its products through e-shop.
Answer 5
After analyzing the business operations of Apple Inc. in the Chinese market, certain
effective alternative actions are recommended to be undertaken that can facilitate the company in
managing its business in an effective manner in its host country (Stahl and Tung 2015). In
operating its business successfully in China Apple Inc. can consider making its consumer
electronic products cheaper in the nation in order to compete successfully with its rivals that
offers low priced high quality products. In following this strategy, the multinational company
can consider releasing its cheaper versions of iPhones in order to attract a huge fraction of price
sensitive consumers in the Chinese market. In order to male its consumer electronic goods more
acceptable in the Chinese market and to increase brad awareness among them the company needs

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to develop innovative promotional strategies (Stahl and Tung 2015). These alternative actions
can consider implementing aggressive communication on TV media of China through which it
can position itself as the leading differentiated brand that can persuade positive purchase
intention among Chinese consumers. Another alternative action that can be recommended to
ensure growth of Apple Inc. in China can be implementing the market entry strategy of FDI or
Foreign Direct Investment through joint venture. This entry strategy can facilitate the company
in building its credibility. Through this strategy the local investors of China can actively
participate in expanding its business that can support Apple Inc. in overcoming its scarcity
related with technology, domestic capital and expertise. In addition, this approach can also offer
the growth advantage for the multinational company through ensuring string hold if the company
in Chinese market and exploring new market in a better manner so that it can stay ahead of the
competition.
Part 3: Social Responsibility and Action Plans
Answer 6
From analyzing the understanding the course topic “Stakeholders in International
Business and Responsible Management of MNEs”, it has been gathered that it is important for
multinational companies to remain socially or environmentally responsible in attaining business
sustainability. In fulfilling the approach to be socially and environmentally responsible, Apple
Inc. is committed to make sure that highest standards of social responsibility are maintained in
development of consumer electronic products (Teagarden, Von Glinow and Mellahi 2018). The
multinational company also ensures that it suppliers offer safe working conditions, treat
employees with respect and dignity along with using environmentally responsible prices of

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manufacturing. Apple Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives and programs reported
by the company’s CEO Tim Cook included making donations to charity that was sometimes
criticized due to lack of public offering. Such initiatives were then improved for ensuring its
suitable business in the global market through addressing concerns of all its stakeholders
(Zander, McDougall-Covin and Rose 2015).
The CSR strategies of the company included supporting local communities, educating as
well as empowering employees, labor as well as human rights at Apple Inc., employee health and
safety, supporting equality and monitories along with sustainable water, energy, waste
reductions, sourcing, supplier responsibility and carbon emissions control. Apple Inc. has
decreased its carbon footprint by 29.5 million metric tons where it has considered using
renewable energy to make great contribution in decreasing CO2 emissions (Teagarden, Von
Glinow and Mellahi 2018). In ensuring health and safety of its employees, Apple Inc. has
improved its standards for managing the changes within workplace design. Moreover, Apple Inc.
has attained approximately 95% compliance among suppliers and its supply chain process also
ones through audits. The company supports local communities through its “Global Volunteer
Programs” in which it encourages its employees to volunteer within the local communities in
which it responds to natural disasters along with powering its offices and stores with solar
panels.
Focused on such analysis, Apple Inc. is recommended with suitable action plans in order
to increase their capabilities to deal with social or environmental issues faced by the company.
Apple Inc focused on facilitating the company to deal with relevant social or environmental
issues (Teagarden, Von Glinow and Mellahi 2018). The company is recommended to focus on
developing policies related with supplier sustainability in which it can consider developing an

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effective “Supplier Code of Conduct” along with developing local labor laws. In addition, it must
also develop stringent policies regarding sustainable sourcing through which it can make sure
that the products are responsibly asked and sourced as it can consider making use of fibers
(Teagarden, Von Glinow and Mellahi 2018). Such action plan on supplier responsibility can
facilitate in maintaining business sustainability and developing its consumer electronics in the
most responsible manner.
Conclusion
The objective of the essay was to analyze the international business of Apple Inc. that is a
consumer electronics company. It was gathered from the essay that there are certain unique
resources and competencies that facilitate the company in attaining competitive advantages
within global consumer electronics industry. These include the fact that Apple Inc. invests within
research and development to develop products in a unique way in comparison to its consumers.
The company is recommended to focus on developing policies related with supplier
sustainability in which it can consider developing an effective “Supplier Code of Conduct” along
with developing local labor laws.

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