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Scanning the Environment

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1.Environmental Scanning and Industry Analysis
2.Internal Scanning and Organizational Analysis
3.Why do an External Analysis?

â?¢Identify examples of good and bad business practices in the use of strategy design components.
â?¢Apply critical thinking skills to analyze business situations.
â?¢Use effective communication techniques.

You are a senior manager of a computer company that competes with Apple, Inc. (Apple). You read a case study about Apple and determined that doing a SWOT analysis of Apple may help you with your own strategies.

1.Perform a SWOT analysis by identifying at least five factors each for the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For each strategic factor that you include, make sure that you also include an explanation of why that factor is important and why you selected and positioned that factor in that category. For example, if you include a factor as a Strength, make sure you explain why you think it is a strength.

2.After reviewing the SWOT analysis of Apple, propose strategies to take advantage of their vulnerabilities to help increase your company's market share. Remember, a strategy is not just an idea of "what" to do, it is a plan of "how" to do it. A strategy must describe "how" you are going to implement the idea, what potential ramifications (pros and cons) may result from your strategic implementation and what feedback mechanisms you will use to evaluate the success or failure of your strategic implementation.

-Include an abstract, a short introduction, body and conclusion.

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Solution Summary

The responses addresses the queries posted in 2123 words with references.

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The responses addresses the queries posted in 2123 words with references.
//The paper does the SWOT Analysis of Apple Company. The SWOT analysis is done to know vulnerabilities of Apple, so that the company can take advantage of its weaknesses and threats. //

Abstract:

In the paper, there is a discussion about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Apple Company. The competitor company is conducting it, so that it can take benefit of the vulnerabilities of Apple and increase its market share. The company has to design appropriate strategies after performing the analysis. It has to take care of the feedback mechanism to see the progress of the strategy.

Introduction:

Apple Computers is an American Multinational Corporation that produces electronic goods, computer software and personal computers. The company prepares hardware products, such as Macintosh, i-Pod, i-Phone and i-Pad. The company's software includes the Mac OS X operating system, i-Tunes, i-Life suite, i-Work, Safari and so on. It has established a unique position in consumer electronics and computer industry. The company has been established as a brand name. Fortune magazine has mentioned Apple as one of the most admired companies in United States in 2008. The company has always used innovative practices. The company has an innovative product line. The corporate culture of the company is good. Steve Jobs used to move bare footed even when the company entered into Fortune 500 Company (Hagel & Singer, 2000).

The company has maintained its reputation by fostering individuality and excellence. It has highly skilled employees, who are specialized in their tasks. The company has good leaders, like Steve jobs, Tim Cook. It has developed extremely efficient and effective supply chain management methods to distribute its products. The company has been ranked as the world's best for the past four years in supply chain management. The company has maintained brand loyalty. In order to increase market share or adopt a new strategy, it is essential that company should do internal and external scanning of the environment. The internal factors are strengths and weaknesses of the company and external factors are opportunities and threats that the company is facing in the market (Hagel & Singer, 2000).

Strengths:

Innovative Products: Company is producing innovative and Hi-Tech quality products. It was first to introduce products, like iPod, MP3 players, etc. Apple has always been known for its product innovations in the IT and gadgets market. It has employed a highly skilled workforce, which is a requirement for the innovation. It focuses on everything from launching to the end-use by customers while designing a product.

Brand Image: Company is having a big brand image. It enjoys high level brand recognition of the products in the region wherever it operates. The company has differentiated its products from competitors by being first to launch new and innovative products. It has created barriers to entry for other companies and thus enabled itself to command pricing of its products. This way its market leadership becomes its own strength (Ashcroft, 2010).

Global Presence: Company has a global presence in many countries across the world. The presence spans across America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. More than 50% of revenues of the company are derived from regions outside United States. It reflects the company's brand image throughout the world.

Strong Media Content: The growth of its products has been a successful story. The 'iTunes' allows users to legally download and purchase music and ...

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  • BBA, University of Rajasthan
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