Marketing Environment of Apple Incorporated - Essay Example

?Marketing Part Marketing Environment of Apple Incorporated Introduction Apple Incorporated is widely known for its cutting-edge technology and especially on its domination in the market when it comes to providing highly competitive and quality products. Just like any other companies, Apple simply tries to stimulate demands for its products and meeting customers’ needs on a timely basis (Apple Incorporated, 2011). This is a customer-centric approach of looking at how Apple was able to genuinely surpass competition. However, this is not the only concern that will eventually give out the whole picture of Apple’s marketing environment. There is a substantial need to actually look in detail the two major components of marketing environment. The first component is the microenvironment which substantially deals with concerns regarding the company, suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers and publics (Kotler et al., 1999). The second component on the other hand is the macroenvironment which consists of influential forces such as demographic, economic, natural, tefchnological, political and cultural (Kotler et al., 1999; Boone and Kurtz, 2006). The Microenvironment and Macroenvironment Since its manufacturing and logistics are relied on the third parties, Apple Incorporated tries to give significant emphasis on the level of impact of this relationship on its actual marketing operation (Apple Incorporated, 2011). This gives Apple a more meaningful approach in order to come up with effective service that could sustain the current needs and trends in the market. Apple does not need to keep too much focus on its suppliers since as mentioned earlier; it relies on its manufacturing activity on the third parties. Apple does not need to give time on where to find the needed resources in order to address effective customer value delivery system for product manufacturing. As Kotler et al. (1999) emphasised, the effective customer value system is the basic impact of suppliers in the marketing environment. It seems this is true in other organisations which have integrated manufacturing activity in their operation. However, it is definitely different from Apple. Such of this difference from other ongoing activities in other organisations of the same industry gives Apple considerable time to monitor effectively its products’ quality, innovation and substantive differentiation. This offers a competitive advantage for Apple to give more priority for its total quality management system. In fact, this can be elaborately pointed out as one of the reasons why Apple was able to reach for its competitive advantage. The good thing about this full reliance of Apple of its manufacturing activities on the third parties is a close monitoring of other related marketing intermediaries such as promotion and other marketing related activities. With this, Apple has remarkably created control over its entire marketing operation from the manufacturing point of view. Since Apple is one of the leading organisations in its industry, it can substantially demand higher quality for its line of products. It can demand the most innovative design that would greatly enhance its marketing performance. Marketing intermediaries are able to help Apple to promote and distribute its line of products to prospective customers. After all, marketing intermediaries are an organisation’s alliances prior to creating services and offerings that will substantially address the needs of customers (Kotler et al., 1999). Marketing is also about the study of customer market in the first place which substantially involved customer, business, reseller, institutional, government and international markets (Kotler et al. 1999). All of these are actually considered by Apple prior to creating on-time and quality service for its customers (Apple Incorporated, 2011). It gives too much emphasis on its relationship with resellers for there is substantive control of its marketing system in here. Apple Incorporated (2011) emphasises that its performance particularly in the context of financial matter is directly affected by its competitors’ moves. This implies on its part that strategic moves are necessary and its marketing activities are one of them. In fact, Apple was able to give detailed goal for its marketing agenda and that is to stimulate needs for its products and ensuring on-time delivery of its services (Apple Incorporated, 2011). This clearly shows the fact that Apple is one such a big challenge in its industry among its competitors. On the other hand, Apple Incorporated was able to achieve its goals due to the existence of the publics. In fact, its reliance on these categories is due to great preventive measures not to disrupt its product delivery (Apple Incorporated, 2011). After all, the publics include financial, media, government, citizen action, local, general and internal forces (Kotler et al., 1999; Boone and Kurtz, 2006). Finally, the macroenvironment which includes demographic, economic, natural, technological, political and cultural forces is another important consideration for every organisation (Kotler et al., 1999; Boone and Kurtz, 2006). Of these influential forces in Apple’s macroenvironment, all of them are actually considered by the company as influential to realizing its corporate objectives (Apple Incorporated, 2011). In fact, its emphasis on current economic condition, terrorism, product innovation and other related concerns in its website is a significant proof that the company is trying to get a wider perspective of its macroenvironment. Political, legal, regulatory, societal and technological forces Apple is concerned so much on the innovation of its offerings. Due to this concern, it is of great importance for the company to focus on issues concerning intellectual property rights (Apple Incorporated, 2011). This issue encompasses in general all aspects such as political, legal, regulatory, societal and technological. In the first place, Apple is primarily concerned in protecting its product designs and technological attributes because these are integral parts of its success in the market. This makes Apple to use other environmental factors in order to cater the demand for a competitive and highly differentiated offering in the market on a focus market segment. Economic and competitive forces Competition is intense everywhere. This in particular would require an organisation for competitive strategies. Even if Apple is on top in its industry it would still require to compete to the fullest considering that there are entrants and key players who would also want to be on top. According to Porter (1980) the three generic strategies in order for an organisation to reach its competitive edge are overall cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. Apple Incorporated seems to be specialising on these three generic strategies knowing that in the first place its highly differentiated line of products have gathered considerable acceptance in the market. Not only that, even though the prices of its products remain relatively higher compared to the other, its existence remains and this proves that focus is its major generic strategy which is definitely integrated with differentiation. At some point, this still leads Apple to gain overall cost leadership in its industry considering that it does not only compete with its cutting-edge technology, it also emphasises quality with highly competitive price for its offerings. Micromarketing environment and strategic opportunities What seems clear from the previous discussion is the competitive capacity of Apple Incorporated to create a name for its offerings. This leads to its strategic opportunities which would concern further on its ability to emphasize its three generic competitive strategies. However, there seems to be a need to incorporate all of these in detail with its micromarketing environment. However, a great detail of this incorporation should substantially place more heavy weight on its competition. The importance of monitoring marketing environment For Apple monitoring its marketing environment is an essential process in order to obtain its corporate goals in general. However, what is the most specific reason is to be able to clearly take a look at the on-going competition so as it can effectively monitor the prevailing strategic moves in the market. All other essential components in both microenvironment and macroenvironment are also of great importance. However, with the nature of business trend in the industry where Apple belongs, there is a higher need for product trust and reliability and such can be essentially addressed if competition is used as the basis of any strategic moves. The importance of sustainability among consumers and marketers The on-time delivery of offerings from Apple and its careful considerations of environmental factors are proofs that sustainability matters to both consumers and marketers. Such will be essentially addressed by building reliable and trusted product lines. The impact of environmental change on the market It is clear that for Apple the environmental changes would bring forward to obstruction of its successful on-time delivery of offerings in meeting customer needs (Apple Incorporated). This would also hinder its full capacity to stimulate customers’ needs for its products. Thus, as much as possible, environmental changes on the market should not essentially create major negative impacts on the marketing objectives and strategies of Apple Incorporated. Product line of Apple Product is one of the essential elements and considerations in every marketing activity of each organisation (Boone and Kurtz, 2006; Dibb and Simkin, 2008). As stated earlier, Apple has consistently defined the competitive advantage of its line of products. Its competitive edge lies on its ability to differentiate, focus and consider overall cost leadership for its products as suggested by Porter. This is suggested by Porter due to increasing competition in the marketplace and where every firm tries to create specific strategies that will help and make them a cut above the other. Thus, this changing level of competition is a specific change in the marketing environment. In response to this change, Apple was able to substantially consider other related environmental factors as stated earlier. Part of this is its ability to widely cover the vast scope of marketing environment which substantially involved the two basic components: microenvironment and macroenvironment (Apple Incorporated, 2011). However, what seems to be the basic focus in this consideration is to effectively create products that would make an entire difference in the market place. Thus, based on this approach from Apple, it is implied that in an intense competition, there is a need to actually stand out and strategic moves are necessary. Thus, after all these years, Porter is still right with his idea of competitive advantage. Conclusion All components in the marketing environment are important for the attainment of Apple’s corporate objectives. However, in today’s intense competition, it is important to largely differentiate one’s offering and continue to remain in focus. This is the most important case found in Apple Incorporated. However, it is not only important to keep only this but there is also a need to explore and go for innovative marketing approach without overlooking the basics. Part 1. Block Three Nortel Marketing Briefing Nortel Report Product leadership strategy brings Nortel forward to the top of competition. This was its specific response to a particular change in its marketing environment. It is clear that in the case of Nortel the most important approach is to deliver service on time and guarantee customer satisfaction. The most substantial strategies used by Nortel are still in line with the three generic competitive strategies suggested by Porter (1980). Nortel has been trying to become the leader in providing the best customer service experience in its industry by creating a move to differentiate its services. As stated, it has already differentiated its services in terms of delivery performance in site. This means that it is trying to create a competitive edge that is far more important in the market based on the prevailing needs of the customers. In the first place, Nortel would never create such of this strategy if the market does not require such need for better services in terms of delivery in site. This was observed by Nortel as its opportunity and in order to gain such, it was necessary for its part to consider creating a strategy that will pave way to its competitive advantage. It is therefore clear in the case of Nortel that in competition and changing trends of needs in the market, finding for competitive advantage is necessary and such will be defined completely with the existence of its competitive strategy. Finally, Nortel was also able to mention other competitive strategies such as focus and overall cost leadership. These are involved in its goal to go for product leadership strategy considering that it takes into account customer-feedback activities which in particular would not only differentiate its services from any other but would also ensure service quality and less cost for back jobs or repairs. References Apple Incorporated. (2011) ‘Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results’. [Online] Available at: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/10/18results.html (Accessed: 09 January 2011). Boone, L. E., and Kurtz, D. L. (2006) Contemporary Marketing. 12th ed. USA: South-Western. Dibb, S., and Simkin, L. (2008) Marketing Essentials. USA: Cengage Learning. Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Saunders, J., and Wong, V. (1999) Principles of Marketing. Milan: Prentice Hall. Porter, M. E. (1980) Competitive Strategy. USA: Free Press. Read More