Challenges Faced by International Businesses: Apple's Case Study Essay

This essay provides an analysis of the challenges faced by international businesses, with a specific focus on Apple. The study explores various issues, including market competition, pricing strategies, and investor concerns. It highlights the impact of these challenges on Apple's market performance and image. The essay also delves into Apple's management strategies to address these challenges, such as considering pricing adjustments, improving product offerings like the Apple Watch, and focusing on stakeholder management. The application of scientific and contingency management theories is also discussed, emphasizing the need for innovative market plans and stakeholder engagement. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting to the changing business environment and utilizing innovative processes to overcome challenges.

Running head: CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES
CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES
The essay is focused toward the effective analysis of the challenges that are faced by
international businesses and the management activities concerning the same. The chosen
organization is Apple. In the current corporate situation in the global context organizations come
across various issues that keep on affecting their market operations. One of the most important
factors that affect organizations of today is competition. The rapidly changing market
environments, the pressure from government and various other factors are responsible for
making the current corporate global situations very challenging in nature.
Apple has faced many issues in the past and currently facing similar challenges. It needs
to tackle these challenges effectively to create better environments for productivity. The nature
of the current issues that affect or can affect Apple presently are discussed in the essay. One of
the most important developments that are affecting the business prospect of Apple currently is
the value proposition that Apple iphones are providing the people. Currently iphones have lost
much of their initial demand. Many experts have pointed to the fact that the new iphones are seen
more by the users as just a similar upgrade to their previous phones rather than providing any
new value (Kingsley-Hughes 2019). Hence, this has given room to the competitors for
developing highly competitive rival products. Another important factor is the fear of the
investors as the company has not disclosed its unit sales. There is an underlying fear among the
investors that the iphone is no longer a phone that can rake in a large revenue for Apple Inc.
Additionally there has been a newer issue that Apple has witnessed. The company has regularly
engaged in the production of more expensive phones. The buyers have been persuaded to buy
more expensive phones from apple as a trick to keep the overall revenue high (Otley 2016).
Convincing people to keep spending more on iphone is going to be very difficult for the
company. These are among the major challenges that face Apple Inc. presently. The major issues

2CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES
that are being caused as a result of all the significant present challenges that are faced by the
company presently are majorly harming the image of the company. The fact that the company’s
newer products are being as overpriced by a large number of smartphone users can contribute
towards greater market issues for Apple in the future. The competitor organizations like
Samsung have started to catch up on iphone even it is in its primacy.
The organization has taken note of some of the challenges and the management is
focused towards developing strategies in order to tackle these challenges. An important strategy
to consider at this time would be pricing strategy. Apple would need to consider slightly
lowering the process of the newer phones. This would give them a boost in terms of popularity.
The company is currently focused towards improving the mobile accessories and other products
apart from the normal iphones (Dolata 2017). This include better presentation of the Apple
watch. The apple watch is being made more effective with new features such as body
management and calorie meter. The company is also focusing on better stakeholder management
as this can improve the better strategic management activities that would take place within the
organization in the future. The investors can be identified as essential stakeholders considering
the prospects for the future resurgence of the products that are provided by Apple. There would
need to be more focus on improving the product quality of Apple. The company is effectively
focused toward improving its relationships with the stakeholders as well as improving their
product offerings. This can help apple to tackle the significant identified issues in the future. At
this juncture it is important that scientific management theory is utilized by the organization.
According to this theory different teams need to be given different functional areas of
management. Teams need to be created that can help to achieve the goals of the organization in a
more holistic sense. It is also better to implement the contingency management theory. This

3CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES
theory focuses on the development of strategies according to the situational requirements (Gond
et al. 2016). Thus, it is important to state the fact that the organization would need to implement
more of these theories of management to create better products, better management and better
stakeholder engagement.
The study was effective in terms of understanding the important aspects that are
governing businesses of today. Apple being one of the largest business organizations in the
world is also facing tough business situation due to the lack of strong innovative market plans.
The organization would need to benefit more from the innovative processes.

4CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES
References
Dolata, U., 2017. Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft: Market concentration-
competition-innovation strategies (No. 2017-01). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Organisations-und
Innovationsforschung, SOI Discussion Paper.
Gond, J.P., Cabantous, L., Harding, N. and Learmonth, M., 2016. What do we mean by
performativity in organizational and management theory? The uses and abuses of
performativity. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(4), pp.440-463.
Kingsley-Hughes, A. (2019). Five major challenges facing Apple in 2019 | ZDNet. [online]
ZDNet. Available at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/five-major-challenges-facing-apple-in-2019/
[Accessed 21 Aug. 2019].
Otley, D., 2016. The contingency theory of management accounting and control: 1980–
2014. Management accounting research, 31, pp.45-62.
Welford, R., 2016. Corporate environmental management 1: systems and strategies. Routledge.