Apple Business Plan

For understanding the strategies and success of Apple Incorporated as an international computer and electronics maker it is necessary to first understand the economic climate in which the company is in. Right now, at the beginning of the new century, and especially in the past decade, there has been a boom in the electronic and computer market worldwide. Computers and electronics are no longer the fancy toys of rich people who could afford them. At this time, electronics, and computers are flooding international markets. Millions of computers are sent each year to the emergent economies in Malaysia, Honduras, or South Africa. Computer technology, found in cell phones and televisions, is part of the life of everyone, no matter which country, ideological posture or social-economical status. It is also necessary to understand that this is possible by the acceleration in research and development of the large corporations like IBM, Intel, or Apple (Helft, 2011). Those industries have played undoubtedly a huge role in advancing technology, along with the unbelievable creativity and genius developed in the United States University's like Stanford or MIT. The other reason the computers and electronics have become so affordable is the production chains and reduction in labor and materials. China, India, Malaysia, and other South American and Asian countries are providing most of the labor necessary for the manufacturing of the electronics and computer companies.

Check on the bottom of any device, computer or iPod, and see that it was assembled in China or Indonesia. This is a global situation that is affecting the world in this late phase of capitalism: the economic boundaries have fallen. No frontiers for international commerce, and enormous container ships coming from Asian ports loaded with millions of tons of kinds of products arrived everyday to the Los Angeles seaport. COSTCO offers fresh produce that has traveled half of the globe and is still fresh and ready for consummation, Friedman was right with his flat-land concept.

The world has become a vibrant electronic flatland where the sun never goes down. When the Wall Street stock exchange closes the German Stock Exchange opens, and businesses men and politicians fly through the sky to the most distant places to close deals of free trade whereas, other countries start to adopt the dollar as a national currency. It is in this world that Apple has grown and flourished, from a small project in Silicon Valley to a giant that employs more than 5,000 developers in their Cupertino developing center. Apple Inc. products have conquered the world markets, its products are so common nowadays that they have become part of our language. If Google Inc. has created the verb "to Google," Apple Incorporated has redefined the portable mp3 players such as iPods, the leader in the industry, the rest of the similar products to accomplish the same functions are seen as poor copies of a genius product. This has permitted Apple Inc. to generate massive revenue through the merchandising of the brand, not the product itself. As several economic analysts have found, many companies are more worth their brand name than their product itself, Coca Cola been the classic example. In the electronics and computer world the same can be said about Apple Inc. products. The brand has become so well positioned in the minds of the wide population that just the brand name is a reason for awe and amazement. Apple Incorporated dedicates a large resource to the research of its merchandising campaigns and to the study of its brand as a popular concept. The most exclusive advertising firms work closely with the managers to make sure than the brand name, not just the product, is the world's favorite. They have done it well so far (The evolution of cool, 2011).

Apple Incorporated During Difficult Economic Times

Any legitimate and complete study about the feasibility of investing at Apple Inc. or any other technological company must take into consideration the economic dimension in which we live right now. The extreme forces of global economy have rendered to the countries fortunate (or unfortunate) players who can't escape from its dynamics, therefore any disturbance generated in a nation affect irremediably the rest of the world. We are seeing it happening in Greece right where riots are showing that the economic crisis is real, and in Europe some analysts think this crisis wave across the Euro zone (Mitchell, 2011). The same happens with the economic depressions generated by the dollar market. In 2008 we were witnesses of one financial recession that shook American foundations and was said to reach 10%. We saw the collapse of the house market when the bubble exploded and thousands lost their homes at the hands of the banks, which created the problem in the first place. We are seeing an economic turmoil happening again, but this time it won't be possible to generate the bailouts used by the Obama administration in 2008 to stimulate the economy because those bailouts are debts and if the dollar falls again no country will be interesting in lending money for the recovery because we would be defaulting our creditors from 2008.

How to Resolve the Situation

Some politicians and economists claim to have an answer, the return to sound money, the sanitation of the economy, paying the debt and reducing federal expenditure the control of the Federal Reserve, etc. However, it is necessary to be optimistic of a better future with strong finances, in which the companies that have made this country successful will be able to keep growing and generating wealth, new technology that makes lives easier and a general sense of progress to the whole planet. Coming back to our specific case, Apple Incorporated has faced many crises before; remember that the company was formed in the second half of the past century, when Steve Jobs founded Apple Incorporated with a very small budget but wonderful ideas. The financial system at Apple Inc. is very sound (as it has been discussed previously on other papers for this assignment), and we can expect that Apple Inc. will overcome the difficulties that will appear as well as the difficulties of the past have been successfully solved (Mitchell, 2011).

. Realistically we can see that Apple's fate is no longer determined by the consequences of the American economy, it is dependent of a multitude of nations. Apple Incorporated cannot be considered to be a transnational titan like Shell or other companies that have hundreds of thousands of employees distributed throughout the Earth. Certainly the scope of the company is very large, and they have offices in several continents and in the major capitals of the world. Therefore, it is clear that Apple Inc. management sees the company with a global vision. Interesting