Apple Inc Marketing Strategy

LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY

7017 BUSMA

MANAGING FINANCE AND

MARKETING AWARENESS

MARKETING STRATEGY AND

FINANCIAL POSITION ANALYSIS

TUTOR/ LECTURER NAME: MR ROGER PEGUM

STUDENT NAME: WEI LI TEH

ID NO.: 506138

Executive Summary

This document consists two main suggested areas which is strongly believed that could assist Apple Inc. achieves future growth. Firstly is the marketing strategy of the company and secondly is the financial position of Apple Inc.

In the marketing strategy section three main models will be used to research the market where Apple Inc. currently competing and suggestion for the best marketing strategy is provided. While for the financial positioning area, the research is based on the company's previous three-year records to analyse its financial strength. With the obtained result, further action plan will be suggested to the company to achieve stronger financial growth.

For the past three years, Apple Inc used its Apple Brand to gain great fortune and manipulate the consumer electronic industry with strong competitive advantages which created by Steve Jobs. However, the moment when Steve Jobs resigned (post-Jobs era), Apple Inc is facing a critical challenge which is to sustain the growth momentum of the company. Therefore, the successor of Steve, Tim Cook plays an important role that determines the destiny of the company.

CORE COMPETENCES

In this section we discuss on the core competences that Apple Inc. achieve and how it helps the company develop further. Core competences is the special technical and production expertise that a company own that act as a source of competition advantage which significantly contribute to perceived as customers benefits. Besides it is applicable in a wide variety of markets which is difficult for competitors to imitate. (Kotler and Keller, 2009) (See also Hamel, 1994) Apple Inc seeks to use it core competencies to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, in which competitors cannot provide the same value to consumers that Apple Inc. does. Apple Inc.'s core competence is having outstanding designs which assist Apple Inc to access lots of markets in ways that no one thought possible. Besides, great design provides the essence of many Apple product which make the success of the product e.g. before there were plenty of MP3 players but iPod hit a wild success for its design. Design is also extremely difficult to imitate by competitors that is why the imitators fail to capture any market share. (Christopher S Penn, Sep 2011) Besides, it had established a great integration between its brand and its product. Apple Inc by offering high quality, distinctive product whose image is recognizable among consumers. (Citation)

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

PESTLE ANALYSIS

POLITICAL

ECONOMY

SOCIAL

TECHNOLOGICAL

LEGAL

SWOT ANALYSIS

In this section we discuss about the SWOT analysis and base on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats how company should react in order to further expand its growth internationally. It is difficult for a company to predict its future. However SWOT analysis is able to provide an overview of the current company position and where it may go in future. (Wendel, 2011) Figure1 shows the result of Apple Inc's SWOT analysis conducted by marketers to highlight company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

The strengths of the company could assist the company to achieve sustainable competitive advantage as it is difficult for the competitors to imitate. Apple had invested significantly in its research and development, in the quarter ending in June 2010. the company has invested $80 million in R&D. (Clerk, 2011) Besides, it could be an advantage for the company to launch another new product to the market, the halo effect of Apple Inc had help the company to achieve a great success for its other product line. Therefore by grapping this opportunity the company has a good position to expand into unexploited markets such as China and new business opportunities. The previous action of expanding the market to China had help to increase the sales of Apple product.

However, when the company venture into these opportunities, the company have to guard against its competitors and their pricing strategies e.g. price wars where products is charge at lower price such as Samsung had a wide range of smartphone which suit the different needs in market and its prices are comparative lower. Apple Inc should also guard against the legal action taken by their competitors, e.g. Samsung law suits in France, Australia and US. Additionally, Apple Inc is reminded to improve their relationship with their investors as the investors are not receiving any dividends although the stock price is skyrocketing for the past.

PORTER'S FIVE FORCES

TARGET MARKET

MARKETING MIX

Promotion

apple can introduce certain product to memorial steve job or advertise in public to continue stay with stevejob = loyal to apple

ASSIGNING RESOURCES TO EACH SBU (BUDGET)

Apple Inc. had developed a wide range of product which includes the personal computer, until todays' iPhone and iPad. According to Kotler (2000), a company should identify its strategic business unit (SBU) in order to develop separate strategies and assign appropriate funding as to prevent wrong investment decision made. In this section we will determine the investment strategy e.g. advertisement of a product (will