Corporate level strategy is a business level strategy that affects the business in long term. The corporate strategy by apple is divided in to four steps. It has a major focus on computer development. Hence the major reliability lies on single line of product. Apple offers products such as home computers, personal computers, phones, music players, software and applications which are on same design and technology and are easy to synchronize with one another. The company is in dilemma due to competition which is growing fast. Company has from high to moderate level of diversification in its product line. Apple introduced many digital products which show that Apple has diversified vastly. As we can observe that Apple’s products are interrelated hence the creativity is coming from same technology, ideas and resources. All the products are distributed through one vehicle that is Apple store. Here imperative point is that 70% of the revenues come from major products and shared business products. Diversification strategy like music download and Apple play store has increased the business by a large percentage. Apple market power has increased by change into digital technology from computers. Apple’s competitor only holds about 8% market share which shows what a large percentage of market Apple has. In 2006 Apple announced an alliance with Intel. This had helped IBM to increase the customer base while it enabled Apple to compete with the competitors such as Dell and HP. They have become a large competitors with strong hold in market. Apple has always been a strong supporter of the industrial level innovation. It is in fact a competition response corporate strategy. Collaborations have been made for product development. These collaborations have helped in improving the computing experiences for the customers. The companies however, split later on and became rivals. Such other collaboration made by Apple was back in 1992 with Motorola. It aimed to create optimized computers with a creative design. The resultant was a very competitive performing unit which was very much unique in performance and design. Apple invests in horizontal and vertical integration. It only links with the achievement.
As apple is aiming to bring about change it should aim to produce the products that bring radical change. Apple has always existed between eliminating and bringing out new products like smartphones were already present in market when it brought out I-phones. Apple brought its vision how a smartphone should be in industry before it full potential of the product category was unrealized. It shows that apple aims to bring best in the market and better than its peers. Hence it seeks higher profit margins than its competitors. Apple has carefully chosen the market to enter and hence the sum is greater than the parts. Their platform strategy makes each individual business very powerful and valuable. MobileMe is a premium product as is a standalone product. Using it as platform strategy would enable to gain more market share than otherwise. Once the customer will be able to use it across all of their products than they will less likely to switch to products that are available from competitors. It is a way of making a loyal customer. I-book store is a similar case. It just comes of simply as a book store. This application has much potential attached with it. It is important that company explores into the opportunity.
Recommendation:
Apple should develop close relations with the suppliers. As it is very important to develop close relationships with the suppliers in the PC market. Rather than looking for low cost suppliers it is important to maintain a collaborating relationship with them. In addition franchising of stores is an important step that needs to be taken. Apple has very limited service stores available in specified locations. Although apple products are used all over world but they are services stores in very small number of locations. It creates issues for customers and normally people avoid using a product that can cause problems for them without sales and service support. Apple has successfully a brand name for differentiated life style. This must not be changed in order to compete with Dell of HP and targeting the middle class. It is a step that can get the customer confused and may lead for loyal customer to leave the product.
It is also important to emphasize the integrated systems in all sorts of communication models that are adopted to communicate with the customers. This design will push the cross selling further and increase the size of market segment. Apple should also continue to support the creative professionals. It will bring forward the most creative people that can help in bringing innovation to market. Lastly Apple should infuse market growth. New markets should be explored and penetrated. Apple is still not available everywhere. Especially the Asian markets are very much ignored. The new territories must be explored and new borders must be crossed to improve the market share. Keeping in limited place will bring in stagnancy to market. Other focuses on developing new products and developing new features for the existing products must not be stopped. It is a constant process that should be in place. It will help in maintain the existing products. Company should heavily invest in the research and development so that the company can explore new horizons for their growth. It is a major new trend in the market for IT based companies to invest in the research and development. This increases the resources of company by finding many new methods and technology on the way to develop a new product or feature. Human resource management can be improved by the grantee in the quality of product and service. After sales services are also an imperative part of company finances. Their quality and quantity also pays of company highly. They should also be a part of company development. Normally we fail to focus on such things but here it is important for Apple to focus so that it can maintain the top position it claims to have achieved. Company has to focus on horizontal and vertical integration both. It already functions on these integrations and needs to continuously focus on multiple strategy as it is what the customer has been accepting for all this time. Apple has a reputation that no one can deny or turn a blind eye to. It is hence important to remain consistent. Achieving success is no doubt success but harder task is to maintain the level it has reached. Customer is use to luxury provided by the company and would be unwilling to compromise at all. One mistake and it can ruin the hard work it has done over the years. Hence apple already encourages the creativity and gives space to its employees to maintain the exceptional level.
