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A SWOT ANALYSIS FOR APPLE INCORPORATED (Capstone business essay) ID number: of (affiliation)
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A SWOT ANALYSIS FOR APPLE INCORPORATED
Apple Incorporated is an American corporation based in Cupertino, California that designs, builds, develops, and markets a line of consumer electronic products, on-line services, computer software, and personal computers (the Mac series of desktops is its most famous line) but now includes other iconic products such as the iPod media player (which practically made the Sony Walkman obsolete), the iPhone smartphone which revolutionized the cellular phone industry in terms of design and marketability, and its latest line product which is the iPad tablet computers (which merged the functionalities of the mobile phone and the laptop computer).
Strengths –one of its major strengths is its reputation for high-quality, technological innovations, and excellent customer service. This ability to leverage new technological ideas into something useful for business and especially appealing to consumers is exemplified by its catch phrase of “Think Different” which was the personal motto of its founder Steve Jobs. The people at Apple, Inc. had continued this legacy as it ventured into new areas of consumer electronics. In a sense, Apple, Inc. is a good example of the learning organization as shown by its flexibility and agility to constantly re-invent itself (Schermerhorn 2010) to respond to various threats like the rise of Samsung from South Korea and in several pending patent lawsuits still in the courts.
Weaknesses – a key weakness of Apple, Inc. is it is being viewed as solely the product of the sheer force of will of Steve Jobs and who is gone due to cancer, there are some lingering doubts whether his successors can continue his legacy of innovation and thinking out of the box, so to speak. This company had transitioned well without Steve Jobs at the top but its future is not assured as it continues to battle many new entrants to an already over-crowded industry.

Opportunities – the company can enter into strategic alliances with its competitors so it can better grab market share and shorten the period in bringing a new product to the market. It is a strategy adopted by the faster and nimbler Samsung when it allied itself with Apple, Inc. in the early stages of the smart phone industry but has since parted ways and now dominated the global market for this hand-held device. Apple, Inc. can further tighten its grip on the high-end tablet market by entering into business agreements with retail chains like what it did with Starbucks for its vast music catalog to create new demand for its products (Ireland et al., 2008).
Threats – Apple, Inc. is in serious danger of losing its former laser-like focus because it is engaged in many patent lawsuits and it had lost its obsessive nature about secrecy of its many products still under development. This web of litigation, especially its famous fight with former partner Samsung of South Korea, has diverted Apple, Inc. from its core activities of designing new and innovative consumer products which really resonate with the consumer publics.
Strategy Outline for Apple Inc. – the firm must re-examine its priorities and in particular make extra efforts not to lose the visionary spirit of Steve Jobs who brought it to prominence and then brought it back from the brink of collapse and bankruptcy due to mismanagement when Mr. Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple, Inc. for a while during its corporate history. It must regain its pioneering ideas by which it will create new markets and in a sense make competition wholly irrelevant (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005) by not trying to compete in already crowded industries such as smart phones in which its latest model only got a lukewarm reception. It must dream up and create a truly revolutionary product in the same mold as the iPod and the iPad to ascend to the top of the highly-competitive consumer electronics industry marked by constant innovations.
References
Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R., & Hitt, R. (2008). Understanding business strategy: Concepts and cases Florence, KY, USA: Cengage Learning.
Kim, W. C. & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue ocean strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Schermerhorn, J. R. (2010). Management. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Due: June 20, 2014 @ 10:10 a.m. Read More