External and Internal Environments – Apple Inc
Apple Inc. is a technology company based in America. The organization was founded in 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne Steve Jobs. Apple serves as the largest and most valuable technology company in the world. The company deals in consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. The research below evaluates further details concerning the organization, such as the global environment segments, competition forces, and possible improvements on the forces. In addition, the paper discusses the external threats affecting the firm and the available opportunities the organization can embrace. Finally, the article will analyze the most significant strengths of the company, weaknesses, and techniques on how to optimize the strengths to fill the weaknesses.
General Environment
From all the possible general environment segments of the firm, I would name the political segment and technological segment as the elements ranked highest.
Political Segment
The legislative section significantly affects how companies operate and their profits in any country. The political segment specializes in laws and legal matters within the firm’s functioning. Under the feature mentioned above, Apple Inc. may be affected by labor training laws, deregulation policies, anti-trust laws, educational philosophies, and taxation policies. Different countries have varying taxation rates, which may negatively affect the organization’s profitability (Hitt. 2020).
Technological Segment
Technology can significantly influence an organization’s operations, like Apple, based on several elements. The factors mentioned above include product innovation, government, private expenditures, and knowledge application. A company retains its place at the top if it has a high level of skilled employees because they can change to the most current technology (Hitt. 2020).
Five Forces of Competition
There are five competition forces: new entrants’ threats, supplier bargaining power, competitive rivalry, buyer bargaining power, and substitution threats. The most vital forces for Apple Inc. are competitive rivalry and substitute threats from the forces listed above.
Threats of Substitutes
For many years, Apple Inc. has encountered challenges with threats from the substitutes offered by its competitors. For instance, instead of people using iPhones, a product of Apple, to take pictures and make calls, they could use landlines to make the calls and digital cameras for the photos. In most significant cases, substitutes are offered at lower prices hence reducing the number of customers for Apple (Tasnim, 2018).
Competitive Rivalry
Apple Inc. has for years encountered competition from other technology companies. However, Apple Inc. has established itself as one of the top customer-based organizations. Contrary to Microsoft, Apple has offered its customers iPad tablets which serve as hand-held computers. Other than Microsoft, Apple encounters competition from Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, Huawei, Toshiba, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, among several others.
Future Improvements
To address the threat of substitutes, Apple Inc. can create and offer unique products that meet customers’ needs. These products could entice customers with additional features and benefits unavailable from substitute products, hence reducing the threats. Additionally, the company should establish concrete customer relations and effective communication. Proper communication will enable prospective customers to know about new and poor rival products, thus restricting their switchovers (Hitt. 2020). Apple Inc. could consider increasing its advertisement campaigns due to threats from competitors. That is because most of Apple’s competitors create more awareness for their clients via advertisements. Consequently, Apple Inc. should not hold back its advertising campaigns. Conversely, the company should engage in more profound innovations, although this may be more expensive than its rivals, rendering its products more attractive and of higher quality to customers.
Greatest External Threat
Apple Inc. is exposed to several threats. However, the main threats include new technologies, imitation, and copying. Microsoft’s newly developed mobile and computer software applications possess a similar graphic user interface to Apple’s IOS and Mac (Tasnim, 2018). Such applications from Microsoft are cheaper, which may significantly entice consumers to shift to the products. With more affordable mobile devices and personal computers being created with similarities in design and functionality, Apple Inc becomes an extensive challenge. Another major threat for Apple Inc. is Google. Google has an Android operating system reinforced by its massive financial base.
Greatest Opportunity
Although Apple Inc. encounters threats from its rivals, it has numerous opportunities due to its strong customer loyalty base attained through iPhone, Mac computers, and iPad. In addition, the organization has built its reputation in good quality products and services, which the firm can use to its advantage to control the market. Given the company’s strong customer base, Apple Inc. can launch new goods that can be accepted in the market readily. With extensive loyalty to the brand, Apple Inc. can further take advantage of product diversification, particularly in the computer and media areas.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The product development of Apple Inc. is key to its strengths. By manufacturing and producing unique products and services instead of inventing the market, Apple can put the desired market standards into place. Furthermore, Apple Inc. boasts of design and utility strengths. The company’s tablets, laptops, desktops, and iPhones are simple to use and portray smooth functioning (Zhang, 2017). Due to the intuitiveness of the products mentioned above, they are a preference of the majority of the consumers. Besides, Apple uses a concrete marketing strategy with hardware and software products from critical rivals that maximize customers’ frustration. Moreover, Apple Inc. has established an innovative base via visionary leadership, enabling it to stand above its competitors.
On the other side, the organization has its weaknesses, especially in the utility customization of its operating system. The company faces incompatibility challenges because other organizations are unable to adopt Apple’s hardware since its operating system can only use the firm’s hardware devices (Tasnim, 2018). Apple Inc. can work on its operating system incompatibility weakness by developing hardware that is compatible with devices from other designs. Another weakness of Apple is the high prices of its products, which attract only consumers in high and medium-income brackets. Consequently, the above restricts the extensive consumer pool from the low-income bracket. The company should consider using discounts that render the products more affordable for consumers from the low-income bracket to buy.
Strategy or Tactic
Apple Inc. can capitalize on its strengths in product creation by developing new products that would entice more customers. With a solid customer base, attracting customers would be easy since they have established their loyalty to the firm and its products (Hitt. 2020). In addition, with a concrete financial base, the organization can consider providing services and products at a relatively lower price to consumers in the low-income bracket. The above would increase the customers pool, hence incurring a higher profit and avoiding maximizing the advantages of its strengths.
Apple Inc. can work on its operating system incompatibility weakness by developing software compatible with devices from other designs. The above would render it easily usable in numerous places. The more the software program or hardware is consistent with other devices, the higher the demand from other businesses. Further, Apple should rectify the issue of selling products at a high price by using discounts that render the products more affordable for consumers from the low-income bracket to buy. Apple Inc. should not hinder people from specific socioeconomic backgrounds from purchasing their products. On the contrary, the company should produce affordable items for people from all income brackets.
Resources, Capabilities, and Core Competencies
Apple’s leading resource is its established name and reputation for producing innovative goods. The company can deliver goods on a large scale. Additionally, Apple Inc. has significant revenue that can be utilized to develop and research new products (Zhang, 2017). Consistently, Apple Inc. can create products that are not related to the computer industry. For instance, Apple can indulge itself in the music industry to generate income from the business. Customers compare the quality and attraction of products before making a purchase. Apple Inc. should fill the existing gap between users and technology to ‘create improved experiences for its users.’
Sources
Michael A. Hitt. 2020. Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization 13th ed. Cengage Learning.
Tasnim, M. (2018). An Organizational Analysis on Apple. European Journal of Business and Management, 10(11)
Zhang, Q. (2017). Research on Apple Inc’s Current Developing Conditions. Open Journal of Business and Management, 6(01), 39
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Question 
Overview
In this assignment, you are to use the same corporation you selected (Apple) and focus on the Strategic Management and Strategic Competitiveness assignment.
External and Internal Environments – Apple Inc
Using the corporation (Apple), you chose from the Week 3 assignment, Strategic Management, and Strategic Competitiveness, examine the industry in which the entity operates. Use any or all of the following resources to conduct research on the company:
Company website.
Public filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Filings & Forms page.
Strayer University’s online databases.
The Lexis Advance database.
Other miscellaneous sources. Note: the company’s annual report will often provide insights that other resources may not include.
Use the External and Internal Environments Template [DOCX] to ensure that your assignment meets the requirements.
Requirements
Write a 4-6 page paper in which you do the following:
Choose the two segments of the general environment that would rank highest in their influence on the corporation you chose.
Assess how these segments affect the corporation you chose and the industry in which it operates.
Considering the five forces of competition, choose the two that you estimate are the most significant for the corporation you chose.
Evaluate how well the company has addressed these two forces in the recent past.
With the same two forces in mind, predict what the company might do to improve its ability to address these forces in the near future.
Assess the external threats affecting this corporation and the opportunities available to the corporation.
Give your opinions on how the corporation should deal with the most serious threat and the greatest opportunity. Justify your answer.
Give your opinion on the corporation’s greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses.
Choose the strategy or tactic the corporation should select to take maximum advantage of its strengths and the strategy or tactic the corporation should select to fix its most significant weakness. Justify your choices.
Determine the company’s resources, capabilities, and core competencies.
Go to the Strayer University Online Library to locate three quality references. Note: Wikipedia and similar websites do not qualify as academic resources.