Apple Environmental Scan and an Executive Summary

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STRATEGIC CHOICE AND EVALUATION

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STRATEGIC CHOICE AND EVALUATION

Strategic Choice and Evaluation

In this paper the alternatives that should have an organization to achieve its growth were evaluated. The best discipline of value is identified, generic strategy and grand strategy for your organization. Finally a strategy or combination of strategies that the organization must implement is recommended.

When it comes to value discipline should be mentioned that it is essential that companies maintain this constant discipline at all times. It enhances the functionality of the company and allows them to be more efficient than its competition. Companies must maintain a constant search to improve its services each year. This will allow them to create value to your customer, dominate the market where you work and maintain high standards. The value discipline consists of three rules that are operational excellence, product leadership and customer relationships (Pearce & Robinson, 2013).

Operational excellence is based on the efficiency of processes having the focus on business operations. The company must achieve to be efficient in all processes to ensure a competitive price and in turn keep costs low. By being able to offer better prices to its customers and a better product you can get better results and better market positioning. To be effective with this discipline is important measurement of all processes. The company must have the ability to constantly measure their efforts and determine whether it is effective in all its processes (Treacy & Wiersema, 2016).

Product leadership is key to the success of the company. The company must maintain a constant innovation to guarantee the life of the company. Their products must maintain a continuous development in its style, quality and can meet customer needs. The company must maintain a flexible culture in the development of its products so that it can respond to changing market demands. The company should be able to market their product with the attributes necessary to be competitive and even to have a good positioning. It is also important that its products are accompanied by a good service at all times (Treacy & Wiersema, 2016).

The customer relationship is vital for the company as it should be your primary focus. If the company fails to identify his client well and can respond to their needs effectively you will get great results. This discipline is essential to maintain a good image and positioning of the company. The market every day demands more and less loyal to brands, is why companies have a big challenge on their hands. The company must have the ability to respond to the needs of its customers and should offer variety of products or services. It is important that the company has the ability to meet and exceed customer expectations (Treacy & Wiersema, 2016).

Apple’s technological items are considered in luxury items which cannot be sold in low cost because this can affect the company's products quality as well as reputation. Apple’s products should be planned to attract customer’s interest with an exceptional sensitivity for a core design or feature. By giving emphasis on the feature over other product qualities, Apple can strive to build customer loyalty. Many times such loyalty changes into a company's facility to charge as additional price for its product. Apple’s product feature must also depend on its marketing channels through which the product will be delivered, its fame for good quality, the design, and the service network that will support it (Pearce & Robinson, 2013).

Apple needs master plans of strategy for the company. The conditional and sustainable efforts of Apple can be achieved through the use of grand strategies and this will help the company to achieve long term business objectives. In using grand strategies to achieve a competitive advantage Apple will be able to grow and performance will excel. Apple’s innovative new products can give the company other original or novel ideas, can also develop the existing products to make them better based on product quality and style of United States and international market. All different countries people have their own choices styles. Apple can keep this factor in mind and develop the existing products based on the market demand. In many organizations, it has become highly risky to not keep up with the markets demands and innovate the products/services. Both consumer and industrial markets have come to expect periodic changes and improvements in the products offered. As a result, some firms find it profitable to make innovation their grand strategy (Pearce & Robinson, 2013).

For an organization to realize growth, it has to adopt certain strategies so that it can maximize both profits and shareholder wealth. Some of these strategies include the generic strategies as well as the grand strategies.

Differentiation strategy; this strategy includes making the products or services offered different and more attractive than those of the competitors (Greenberg & Kates, 2013). This can be done in many ways like in the way they will function, which will need that they are of the best quality in workability. They will as well need to be durable in addition to a good brand image. When this is done it will make the customers be attracted more to your products than the products of your competitors, and hence you will make more profit.

For an organization to succeed in the implementation of this strategy, good research is needed. This is because the organization has to be sure of the products the competitors are selling, their qualities, their workability and even the brand. This will then give an insight on where to change. Ability to deliver good and high-quality products and services are also required in addition to effective selling and marketing. This will include how you handle your customers to motivate them to come another day.

This strategy focuses and concentrates on a particular niche market. It is sometimes related to target marketing. It needs the trader to understand fully the dynamics of that market and the unique needs of customers within that market (Swaim, 2011). This strategy is the most applied by big companies. The organization does enough research to know the changes that take place from time to time and they look for a way to adopt the changes in a rapid way. In this way, they can keep their customers.

Also, the organization understands the needs of the customers as to what kind of products they need, of which quality and quantity. By knowing the needs of customers, an organization can plan earlier for the sales so that when the customers come, they find the products ready for a good price and the services that are offered are the ones that fit the customers. This makes the customers be fixed in that organization.

This strategy focuses on exploration rather than exploitation. It is concerned with investing heavily in research and development to create new and innovative products. In an insight, this strategy is almost related to the differentiation strategy. By creating new products, the market will be advertised, and the product will get new customers who will enable the organization to make big profits within a short time. This is useful when customers are tired with a given product or when it is considered that it is no longer working well.

The manufacturer can decide to change its way of working, its colors, its scent or even the chemistry that is involved in its make. This will make the product new, and customers will need to test it. In the process of testing the new product, they are generating profits. When the organization makes a product innovative, it leads to the increase of its price. For example, if a company is making computers and decide to install a program that is not in other computers produced by other companies, this program will make the product to be sold at a higher price and still be liked or preferred by customers. This is another way to pull customers to you.

This strategy focuses on making grow the market for a current product. This is best applied to eliminate unnecessary competition (Ryan & Jones, 2012). This can be done by carrying your merchandise to places where they do not exist or where they are rare. By so doing, you will be avoiding direct competition as well as making interests at a rapid rate. This needs that an organization first does a research on the various places that the products are not available, how they can arrive there, the costs that are to be incurred to reach there as well as sell so that the organization will not run at a loss.

In reality, this strategy needs that the organization adds a given margin of interest on each product to see to the costs of displacement and transportation that will be done. If the home market is jammed, an organization can decide to carry the products to the outside or foreign countries where the products or the services are rare. For example, the computer processing cooperatives can take their products to the less developed countries where technology is low. Because there will be few people who will have the same products, the organization will make a big profit and open other markets as well.

References Greenberg, E., & Kates, A. (2013). Strategic Digital Marketing: Top Digital Experts Share the Formula for Tangible Returns on Your Marketing Investment. McGraw Hill Professional, 2013. Kane, Y. I. (2014). Haunted empire : Apple after Steve Jobs. New York: HarperBusiness. Lombardo, J. (2016). Apple Inc. Pestel/Pestle Analysis & Recommendations. BMI Research . O'Grady, J. D. (2009). Apple Inc. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Ryan, D., & Jones, C. (2012). Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation. Kogan Page Publishers, 2012. Swaim, R. W. (2011). The Strategic Drucker: Growth Strategies and Marketing Insights from the Works of Peter Drucker. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.