Price and Channel Strategy

Running head: MARKETING PLAN 2

MARKETING PLAN 2

Researching Marketing - Marketing Plan

Name

MKT/571 Marketing

August 19, 2018

University of Phoenix

Faculty:

Company Apple Inc.

Location: Cupertino, CA

Product: Portable Computers

Apple Inc. is headquartered in Cupertino, CA but is operates internationally in Europe, China, America, Japan, and the higher parts of Asia. The company deals with the manufacturing, designing and marketing of mobile communication, media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players. The company currently has 123,000 employees (full time) working at its stores worldwide as of 2017. The annual revenue for the company is approximated at $248.1B, and net income attributed to Apple Inc. is $47.567B using the 2017 financial statement of the company (Apple Inc. Company).

Apple Inc. ownership accounts for 61.08% institutional holdings with a total value of 641.9B holdings. The top five owners of the company include Vanguard Group Inc., Blackrock Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc., State Street Corp. and FRM LLC (Apple Inc. Company).

Apple manufactures communication devices that are used globally. The portal personal computers are the electronic devices that are used by many businesses and individual to type, store and send documents and even to communicate with others. The computers are essential for many firms, and thus the company controls a significant share of the market. As the name suggests, they are comfortable and light to carry when traveling and using them anywhere (U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis).

References Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. Apple Inc. Company. (n.d.).Christopher, M., Payne, A., & Ballantyne, D. (2013,32). Relationship marketing. Routledge. Menon, A., Bharadwaj, S. G., Adidam, P. T., & Edison, S. W. (2015). Effective Marketing Strategy-Making: Antecedents and Consequences. In Proceedings of the 1997 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 224-224). Springer, Cham. Mohebbi, B. (2014). The art of packaging: An investigation into the role of color in packaging, marketing, and branding. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 3(2), 1-3. Nickels, W. G., McHugh, J. M. & McHugh, S. M. (2013, 55). Understanding business (10th ed.). New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis. (n.d.).

MEMO

To: Senior Vice President of Marketing

From: Name

Date: August 19, 2018

Subject: Marketing Analysis

Good afternoon, SVP Marketing,

As the senior analyst, I would like to take this opportunity to bring to your attention the marketing analysis report with insights and commentary as proposed changes in the analysis of the company. The summary of the data and the changes are presented below by the data presented.

Summary analysis – In the review of the summary analysis completed by our marketing analyst, I have put together some insights from the report that will help further explain the statement in detail. The information provided includes features on the significant areas of increase and decrease in revenue. It will also cover trends regarding revenue and insight that will further growth as well as any additional analysis I would build for the marketing plan if I were the Senior Vice President in the marketing department (Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R., 2015).

The Revenue analysis – Given January to June 2015 versus January to June 2016, revenue generated during this time frame showed an increase from year to year. Furthermore, in all the three-time structures of the overall report, revenue increased with a more considerable contribution raised from the from domestic sales. These sales are the strongest in the company and the average between all timetables around 87 percent of the business. This does, however, lead to a negative trend in international sales explained later in the memo. There overall are no significant drops in revenue by any specific customer class. However, there were small drops in revenue from particular clients such as Delta Appliance (Menon, A., Bharadwaj, S. G., Adidam, P. T., & Edison, S. W., 2015). Overall the company is showing average gains but could compete more and increase profits through a few suggestions found in the additional analysis.

Trend analysis – Gross Profit is an issue with the top customers as for the Month to date figures it has decreased significantly with many of the top customers showing a negative gross profit percent. Though the bottom line gross profit percent is unchanged, continuous negative percentages will result in an adverse effect on the bottom line. Additionally, international sales across the board are down in comparison to domestic sales as these two in all prior months averaged a close to 50 – 50 spilt but now are heavily leaning towards the local markets with an almost 90 – 10 splits (Nickels, W. G., McHugh, J. M. & McHugh, S. M., 2013, 55). The reasoning behind the change is not clearly explained by the report but it does provide insight as to where to make future adjustments.

Additional analysis - It is recommended that Marketing begin to research and focus on the trends going on internationally and focus on impacting those markets. With gross profit being relatively close for either market, driving sales globally will increase sales to the company as the whole. Goals should be set to maximize the reach of the company and improve the customer base to coincide with businesses generating the most revenue for the company. The marketing team should ensure that the current customers are retained. Therefore, relationship marketing should be encouraged among marketers and customers (Christopher, M., Payne, A., & Ballantyne, D., 2013,32). Additionally, marketing segmentation should be vital in achieving company goals.

I am confident that this information has provided a better understanding of this matter and you will found it helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require additional information.

Marketing Senior Analyst