How the Company Seeks to Deliver Customer Value - Essay Example

Marketing How the Company Seeks to Deliver Value Introduction The Apple Inc. is a renowned American corporation for its variety of electronic and consumer products. Some products offered by this company are Macintosh computers, iPhone, iPod, Itunes media browser with other software of multimedia; in fact, it has also acquired a large market share in the online downloading business for music (Agnello, 1). Therefore, the main aim of this report to analyze way Apple Inc has been delivering customer value. Conversely, this discussion will focus on elaborating factors such as competitive advantage, analysis of PC and devices market with the positioning sustainability of PCs, MP3 Players, and Smartphone (Agnello, 1). Introduction of the Apple Macintosh has engaged in numerous products launches that have been met with much anticipation. For instance, Apple iPhone has been considered an elegantly designed device for sending and receiving information. The iPhone has a combination of smart phone capabilities with natural graphical interface projected on a large multi-touch display. Apple’s marketers focus on consumer behaviours in order to improve their marketing strategies and foster an understanding of how the consumer thinks feels and selects between various alternatives (Solomon, 10). These marketers also focus on psychology of consumers and influence of environmental conditions such as a culture, family, signs and media. In fact, this entails the focus on consumers’ behaviours while making purchases and other decisions. Nevertheless, there are limitations concerning consumer knowledge or ability to internalize information that can influence their decisions and results of marketing strategies. On other hand, focusing on consumer behaviour considers motivation of the consumers to making various decisions strategies among different products in levels of significance and interest (Hawkins, Best and Coney, 4). Study of consumer behaviours enables Apple marketers to improve their marketing campaigns and strategies in a way that is effective in process of reaching the consumers. Therefore, this paper will focus exploring the way Apple deliver value to their customers based on the 4Ps, product, price, promotion, and place. Nonetheless, in order to understand the process through which Apple deliver quality to their customers, there is need to explore their relationship with consumer behaviour and marketing (Schiffman and Kanuk, 20). Moreover, there is need to focus on consumer reception to advertisements, and learning their schedule in advertising. On the other hand, Apple’s marketers have a great understanding of the way product are adopted by few consumers and a spread occurs later, leading to rest of the population learning that there are new products. In this case, as marketers, they ensure that the products are financed and available until the target market share is acquired. Besides, they focus on creating a good impression to the initial customers, since they take the role of influencing the other customers. 2. Organization’s Objectives Apple has revamped its products and service line in order to offer commodities, which could facilitate the delivery of the tightly integrated experience of the user. The Company has been making effort by remaining committed to the market with the PC products focusing on homes and lifestyles of the consumer. The Apple Inc has also sustained their position through technological innovations and new retail strategies. However, as a typical organization, Apple has several organizations’ objectives such as; 1. To offer quality products and services to customers in a way that meets their expectations. 2. To maintain their leadership in technology and device market, thereby sustaining their competitive advantage. 3. Maximize their profits and grow their organization, while remaining socially responsible in the community. 3. Product and Brand portfolio Product is an element used in referring to things that can be offered to the market for acquisition or consumption and they entail physical objects, services, desires and personalities. There are two major classifications of products; tangible such as computers, phones and other devices intangible products like services that can only be measured based on their delivery, warranty and credit. Consumers are influenced by these evaluations of products and services based on their experience with the commodities. Therefore, the consumers have a form of consistency to a product, whereby they tend to purchase the same product every time they are shopping or faced by numerous alternatives. On the other hand, Apple Company has established a brand name due to the master branding and advertising policies. For example, iPod accounts for half of the brand's value because it is more than an MP3 player or phone (Lewis, 79). Apple also expresses individual creativity since customers are willing to pay at least 20% price premium (Agnello, 1). Even with other rivals like yahoo, Amazon, and other online retail stores selling digital music, the company has managed to maintain its edge. This has been because of the integration of Itunes and iPod. The Itunes are popular software that users apply to connect to the iPod and Itunes music store (McElhearn, 69). The entry of Nokia, which is a company that has immense financial and branding capabilities, the consumers, and buyers, might have a different attitude towards the sale of digital music. The bargaining power of buyers in this scenario represents a significant threat for Apple; thus they have to leverage on increasing their brand equity. Brand equity is a term referring to the value quality realized by a company from product through a prominent name compared to generic equivalent products or services (Kotler and Keller, 20). Brand equity is acquired through outstanding products offered by a company, which are recognized for its superiority in terms of value and consistency, especially on their brand portfolio. Brand equity is also built through marketing campaigns, and the brand’s value and strength is determined by its worth. Moreover, it is also defined as influence of knowledge concerning the response of the consumers to the brand marketing. Therefore, their brand equity has been considered a function regarding to the choice of consumers in a target market. In fact, the concept of the brand equity occurs though the choices made by customers concerning the products and services, and familiarization of customers with the brands, whereby they have a favorable perception towards distinction of the brand. The effort of maintaining the brand equity involves focusing on brand awareness in order to increase the probability of customers familiarizing with the availability of products. In fact, this increases the degree of consumer association with the commodities offer by a certain company. Moreover, there is need to measure the ratio of the marketing niche, which relates to former knowledge concerning the brands (Suzanne, 1). Therefore, creating brand awareness is a substantial way of maintaining the brand equity and brand recall. The other effort is to facilitate brand recognition of the products by consumers through their prior knowledge. Moreover, there the brand is associated with the deep customer mind concerning the brand, whereby establishing a positive perception about the brand. The other initiative related to the effort to foster brand loyalty, whereby the customer has fear of consuming commodities from other brands, thus they end up remaining loyal to a specific brand which contributes to maintenance of brand equity. 4. Pricing strategies Price as one of the element relates to amount of money that a customer has to part with in order to acquire a certain good or service in the market, in fact, the price attached to commodities entails returns to the firm due to their effort and cost incurred in manufacturing and marketing activities. On the other hand, the consumers’ decisions are influenced by Apple’s pricing strategies since the cost of their products is passed to the consumer through these prices. In this case, despite the pricing objective of the firms, which are derived from Apple’s goals, consumer makes the decision based on his or her income. Therefore, a consumer focuses on maximizing their utility on the commodities purchased; thus, there is a certain price, which they are willing to pay for particular commodities based on their income. Moreover, the consumer has to make a choice among different alternative in order to identify the products that suites their purchasing power despite the quality of the product. 5. Distribution strategies Apple’s distribution strategies focuses on place as an element of the marketing mix that relates to the channels of distribution and intermediaries or the mechanisms that facilitate to the flow of goods and service of the manufactures or producers to the market. Deffree (1) explained that “ISuppli estimated that Apple will ship 21.7 million iPhone 4s in 2010, representing 51% of the 42.6 million iPhones Apple is expected to ship during the year”. Moreover, the concept behind this element is to ensure that the commodities are available in the market at the time when they are needed. Consumers are willing to purchase the commodities that are readily available in market (Drummond and Ensor, 5). According to Ong (1), Apple Company is increasing product sales through promotion of its brand by opening up of its stores in China, and they opened 2 stores for the doubling its total number of stores in the country; in fact, this was a plan to add up to a total of 25 by the end of year 2012 (Agnello, 1). Although, Agnello (1) stated “As of now, the iPhone accounts for 7.1% of all smartphones shipped in China, putting Apple in fifth place in the market.”  6. Promotional Mix Apples’ promotion mix is applied by marketers as a component of the marketing mix with a purpose of creating awareness, persuading and reminding customer in a certain market about products in order to influence their feelings, convictions and behaviours. In this case, promotion offers consumer with the information about various commodities in the market, and this increases their confidence; thus creating the likelihood of purchasing the product. Consumers are willing to purchase the products or services that they have substantial information that can assist in making a rational decision. In fact, they tend avoid the products that are not commonly known in the market; thus, promotion has a substantial influence on the decisions of a consumer. Apple’s marketers are aware of the millions television around the world and they focus on using the linear TV in the moments when people are watching their favourite shows, whereby they are intercepted for a period of few minutes by adverts. Therefore, the television sets are contributing substantially to the efforts of marketing and changing the way goods and service are purchased by customers. There are other customers seeking to watch their TV shows through the online services, which have become a target for marketers seeking to advertise by taking advantage of the modern trends of innovative dimensional concepts. Apple’s , marketers focuses on online interactive advertisements applying innovations that enable customers to scroll using the cursor, while watching actors in a way that they can identify the products being consumed and the cost. E-commerce has undergone a substantial evolution, whereby the customers are able to purchase commodities via interactive TV, whereby the marketers offer a platform to the customers can order commodities using their remote control into a payment device. Therefore, marketers are offering a chance to the customers to watch TV and shop online at the same time, and this is resulting to a substantial expansion of the strategies and tactics applied by the marketers. On the other hand, marketers are investing in retail, whereby they seek to understand channels used to access their target customers. In addition, the demand and opportunities of revenues, marketers invest on making the TV interactive way of advertising by facilitating online shopping. Therefore, the expansion of the marketing strategies has been facilitated by integration through technology advancement focusing on interactive online service and television marketing. 7. Conclusion This paper has focused on assessing the way Apple has been offering value to their customers. This analysis of the way Apple offers value to their customers was based on the marketing mix. It evident that this company focuses on efforts that give them a competitive advantage by organizing things differently compared to other competitors. In the future, Apple is planning to utilize Consumer Electronic Companies known to be organized in a Business Units, which are entirely integrated with the P&L and R&L (Suzanne, 1). However, the Apple Company has a single way of organizing activities and management of products, not the categories. This is an approach that has resulted to facilitation of trust with the customers. This is evident through their willingness to buy the launched products before review. They also seek to build a long term plan and willing to have patient in order for the development of the concept in the minds of consumers. The decision of Apple Inc to invest in the mobile phones considered was a risky move, though it contributed significantly to their dominance in the industry unlike other companies such as Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola. Apple Company is also planning to make necessary efforts sustain the competitive position among the other companies in the market. For example, “Apple’s smartphone and tablet will serve as cornerstones, but the company plans to promote the products in new markets like Brazil” (Deffree, 1).This has been evident through the effort to move the sales of the Smartphone from zero to thirty percent. The Company uses the competition with other companies like Google in order to intensify their own advertisement systems as the effort of sustaining their market position. Works Cited Agnello Anthony John. “Demand Outpacing Supply for iPhone 4 in China: Despite very high costs, iPhone is selling out in China”. Investor place. Sep 27, 2010. Retrieved on 23 Nov 2013 from< http://www.investorplace.com/2010/09/demand-outpacing-supply-iphone-china/> Barrile, Steve. “Ingredients for the success of the Apple iPod: Innovation”, Businessdate, vol. 14, no.1, 2008:pp. 5-7 Bearden, William, Ingram, Thomas and LaForge, Raymond. Marketing: Principle and Perspectives. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2004, Print. Deffree Suzanne. “iPhone 4 supply and demand issues could hurt Apple brand”. Electronics design, strategy news. June 29, 2010. Retrieved on 24 Nov 2013 from< http://www.edn.com/article/509611-iPhone_4_supply_and_demand_issues_could_hurt_Apple_brand.php> Drummond, Graeme. and Ensor, John. Introduction to Marketing Concept. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Butterworth Heinemann, 2005, Print. Hawkins, D., Best, R., and Coney, K.. Consumer behavior: building marketing strategy. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2004, Print. Kotler, Philip and Keller, Kelvin. Marketing Management. (14. E d) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012, Print. Ong Josh.”iPhone 4 demand outstrips supply in China”. Apple insider. Retrieved on 23 Nov 2013 from Solomon, Michael. Consumer behavior: buying, having, and being. NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2010, Print   Schiffman, Leon. and Kanuk Leslie. Customer Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007, Print. Read More