Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies of Apple - Essay Example

Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies Current Position of Apple Company regarding Ethical and Social Responsibility: Apple Company believes on the empowerment of the workers and the labor force regarding many factors. According to the top management at the Apple Company, they tend to provide necessary education and training to their workers just to polish their skills because this education and training is their right. They think that the education empowerment may improve the life style and the living standards of their workers (Bajarin, 2011). All the managers are advised or we must say ordered to respect every single worker at the Company and thus listen to him very carefully. It is the right of the workers that they should get fair treatment from their Company. According to Apple Company, the provision of safe and healthy work place environment is the duty of the top management or the executives at Apple Company. Apple Company devises certain policy program for maintain the health and the safety of the employees and especially the workers or line managers. Apple Company tends to remain environment friendly in its operations and even in the marketing campaigns (Bajarin, 2011). In this way, the Apple Company is trying its best to meet the social and ethical responsibilities. Impact of Publication of Ethical and Responsibilities Violation Made by Suppliers on Apple: However, Apple Company is famous for its fulfillment of ethical and social responsibility still an incident happened in Chine in the manufacturing factory imposed a stain on the Apple’s repute. Chine Labor Watch is an organization which checks the environmental conditions of the workers in the factories and industries os that they can maintain a standard of ethical behavior for the workers. In a Chinese manufacturing plant, The China labor Watch criticize that the work place environment is not at comfortable and safe for the workers. The working hours are very long and the employees are not well paid. In addition, there is insufficient space for the workers to complete their work easily (Bajarin, 2011). Including this, the China Labor Watch Company also blamed Apple Company that in this plant, they are manufacturing a lower cost iPhone, which is a little low in the quality, but the price will be the same in the market. Though the cost is low and the quality is low, still they are not paying their workers a handsome amount. According to Labor Watch report, this Apple manufacturing plant is actually gathering the profits from the market (Ning, 2012). All of these reports were prepared on actual facts, which were collected during the visits to the factory site. This published report created a bad image of the Apple Company in the market. Still Apple manages to overcome the impact of this publication of ethical standard’s violation in China. Two methods to ensure that suppliers can adhere to wage and benefits standards going forward After the publication of the report, China has to face many hatters from the non profit organizations and the journalists. According to these reports, the Apple Company put contrast between its policies and actions. They are of the opinion that Apple Company shows very much ethical and respectable behaviors for the workers but in actual they are not practicing it as in China factory site. Therefore Apple Company has to bear the loss of its reputation in the market but the CEO of Apple Company do not want this. For creating appositive image or we should say for removing the bad image from the Company label or brand name of Apple Company, the CEO repeatedly took audits of the suppliers of the company. In this way, they showed that they are very much careful about the operations and the working of their supply chain members also. According to the CEIO of the Apple Company, they are even careful about the selection of the suppliers so that they can work in accordance with the ethical and social standards. (Mariana, 2013) It is fact that the Apple users may want that their favorite Apple Company may not violate any social or ethical standards and rules in any of the geographical boundary. Either it is United States of America or China; the Apple manufacturers should be vigilant about the fulfillment of the corporate social responsibility. The customers are willing that the mangers at the Apple Company should consider any ethical or social violation by any of its supply chain member. Contrary to this it is also a matter of fact that these customers may not want to pay anymore for the Apple product higher than its usual price just to pay a profit to the company, so the company can use this profit for the benefit of the workers. According to general market opinion, Apple is charging a premium price already so it should not increase its prices just to gauge the amount for the benefit of the workers, this strategy may cast a negative image of the company. Marketing Strategies of Apple Inc.: Currently Apple Inc. is ruling over the major portion of the target market and also providing differentiated products to the customers at premium price. There are many factors, which play their role in the marketing strategies of the Apple Company. According to marketing manager of Apple Company, they believe and act upon certain rules, which help Apple to reach at this peak point. Apple Company has the capability to turn an ordinary product into a specialized and eye catching commodity (Bush, 2012). All this done just on the basis of the product designs of the Apple Company and the marketing managers are well known about the fact that Apple product will be welcomed by the market. Another important strategy of Apple Company is to justify the price, which means the inclusion of such product features that customers willingly pay higher prices as compare to other market products and brands. Another most important strategy of Apple Inc is to use the language of audience in their marketing and promotional campaigns. They will never use any technical jargons or terms in order to show the specifications of the product rather they may use simple words to describe the features of the product (Bush, 2012). Some other marketing experts name it as customer interactive marketing, which helps to create a good image of the company. Therefore, we can say that marketing managers at Apple Company are playing wisely to hold on their market share by establishing a strong and loyal customer base (Bush, 2012). Despite of the fact that Apple is a strong brand still it needs more concentration in the global market because of the tough competitive forces. Ways to Improve the Competitive Advantage in the Global Market: Apple Inc is playing at its peak and thus covering maximum share of the global economy. However, there are many other market players who are giving a tough competition to the company by practicing different marketing strategies. Therefore, many of the marketing experts suggest different ways for the Apple Company, which may help them to sustain their competitive advantage in the global market (Lake, 2011). Apple must remember that it is a software company first and then a hardware company. People love Apple products just because of the reason that they feel delighted by the services or the features, which they can enjoy, and these services are actually the software and not the hardware. Apple Company should focus on the innovation in the software applications. For example when Apple launched iPhone 4S after the success of iPhone 4, people were expecting a little change in the form or we can say hardware of the handset but there was no difference in the two products rather the software were different from each other. Still people welcomed iPhone 4S readily and purchased it at their earliest. Therefore, we can say that people are willing to accept innovations in the software technology from the Apple Inc; therefore, they should focus more on it. Reference List: Bajarin, B. (2011), ‘Why Apple has a Strong CSR and Competitive Advantage?’ TECH Opinions, retrieved on October 26, 2014 from http://techpinions.com/apples-competitive-advantage/5 Bush, T. (2012), ‘Developing an Organization’s Competitive Strategies: Staying Ahead of the Competition’, International Conference on Management Artificial Intelligence, Volume 35, Number 4, page 88 – 92 Lake, D. (2011), ‘Organizational Capability: Creating Competitive Advantage’, Academy of Management Executive, Volume 5, number 1, page 79 – 93 Mariana, T. (2013), ‘Apple’s Changing Business Model: What Should the World’s Richest Company do with all those Profits?’ AIR Working Papers, Paper number 13, page 4 – 9 Ning, H. (2012), ‘How to Maintain CSR and Competitive Advantage: Evolution of Organizational Strategic Management’, International Journal of Business Management, Volume 3, Number 5, page 45 – 52 Read More