Apple Case Study (Case Study Sample)

Apple Case study
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Organizational problems
There is no doubt that Apple Inc. is one of the leading information technology companies in the world. Apple Inc. is known for its wide range of products including personal computers, cellphones, wearable devices, tablets, and cloud services. Since the company diversified beyond the personal computers niche it has been enjoying a steady growth. Today, Apple has a strong brand image which has helped the company to maintain an impressive record of annual sales. For the past three years the annual sales have been on an upward trajectory as evident in the case details. The growth can largely be attributed to the company’s unique and revolutionary products that are particularly popularly among young people. In fact, Apple has huge base of young loyal customers who are always on the watch for new product listings from the company. Others like Apple’s products for their user-friendliness and for their utility. As rightly noted by some pundits, Apple’s business concept revolves around innovation, which partly explains why the company invests a lot in research and development (Montgomerie & Roscoe, 2013).
In the 40 years of Apple’s existence the company has been expanding to new markets. The company has a presence in the Americas, which is the biggest market segment, as well as in Europe, Greater China, Japan and the rest of Asia Pacific. The presences of the company in all these regions has helped the company to stamp its authority as a leader in the information technology space. According to Chang & Wang (2007), diversifying to many markets helps companies to remain resilient even when one market segment experiences turbulences. The losses occasioned by turbulences in one market segment can be compensated by the gains achieved in a well-performing market. The company also enjoys the same benefits as result of product diversification. In this regard, Apple’s many products ensure that even if one product is performing badly other well-performing products can always boost the overall sales.
Despite Apple’s sustained profitability, the company is struggling with a number of strategic challenges. To begin with, although the company has ventured into other markets outside North America, it still heavily relies on the domestic market. About 50% of the company’s sales are from the North American market. This essentially means that Apple has a low global market share because and has not adequately penetrated the Asian and European markets. The problem of depending on the North American market is exacerbated by strong rivalry from other companies in the technology industry. In the international market, Samsung provides the greatest business rivalry to Apple because it has a bigger market share in Europe and Asia. What is more, Samsung products are affordable compared to Apple products. In the domestic market, Apple is facing strong competition from companies such as Microsoft, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Dell (Dolata, 2017). Apple has to find a way to deal with the increased competition for it to achieve growth.
Also, as earlier alluded Apple has managed to register impressive growth over the years due to the regular launch of new and innovative products. However, in recent years the company seems to have reduced the number of new products being launched. Although the company continues to invest a lot of money in research and development, new products are hardly coming out. The company now has to grapple with the possibility of reduced sales considering that as products age the volume of sales tend to decline. Failure to develop new products also threatens the organization’s growth and profits. Therefore, Apple needs to find a way of sustaining its innovation of new products.
Strategic Recommendations
Apple’s growth is partly dependent on the company’s ability to increase its market share in the European and Asian markets. For instance, Southeast Asia that has a population of more than 600 million people is possibly a huge market for Apple. Apple’s currently focuses on wealthier nations of the region such as Japan and South Korea. To penetrate the rest of the Asian market, Apple needs to consider using strategic partnerships and acquisitions. Strategic partnerships and acquisitions will help Apple to broaden its market share quickly without the need to acquire new skills and technologies in the new market. Apple can leverage on the strengths and resources of the firms it merges with or acquires in the new markets to grow its business in countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Thailand.
Additionally, Apple can achieve growth by leveraging disruptive technology to enhance product development. For example, Apple can use artificial intelligence (AI) to develop innovative products that meet consumers’ expectations. Already the company is applying AI to improve its product offerings such as Siri and Apple TV. This strategy should be applied to other products and services so as to strengthen user-experience. Going forward, there is no doubt that disruptive technologies such as AI are going to be at the heart of innovation. Companies that take the lead to exploit such technologies will obviously gain competitive edge over other players in the industry. According to Aminoff, Antikainen & Kettunen (2017), disruptive technology can help Apple fend off the stiff competition it is currently facing and at the same time help the firm to meet customers’ expectations of getting new products on a regular basis.
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