Executive Summary
Strategic intent
Apple develops and sells innovative products at a profit and creates a customer experience
that change the way people work, think, communicate and learn. Market opportunities are
seized by redefining existing market concepts.
Customer knowledge and assessment provides Apple with the learning and understanding
to create desire for its products and provide value-added experiences to the users of its
products. Knowing how customers think, what they want and how they make decisions
provides the information to provide the customer with a value for money experience. The
Apple brand must create a desire to own and reward the user with more than just the basic
tangible product functionality. Good customer and product support enhances the value
perception and experience for the user.
This customer focus enables Apple to create innovative products in early markets. Apple
builds on its core-competency to integrate open standards or reinvent into a fit for purpose
product with necessary proprietary protection. Research and development allows Apple to
be innovative and not just imitate successful business solutions.
Good software solutions and ingenious peripheral interface products comes from an
environment and a culture where management has created the necessary space for
creativity to develop and succeed whilst maintaining a sense of urgency to deliver. By
attending to some of these basic principles Apple has ensured its place as a strong
competitor in the market.
Current Conditions Analysis
Current strategy
Apples current strategy in the PC market revolves around a business of software
manufacturing that drives the hardware and retail categories. The official focus is on
growth by concentric diversification into portable / mobility and wireless communications,
the digital lifestyle and music, iPod, iPod mini and iTunes Music Store (Evans, 2004).
Being second or third to market in the portable music industry has given Apple the
opportunity to do competitive innovation searching for loose bricks” (Hamel & Prahalad,
1989, p70). Apple could redefine the rules and successfully market the advantages of its
own product offers if compared to the first to market players products. Apple has a focus
on innovation and niche products that will appeal to selected users. An example of this was
the provision of leading software to capture a niche markets like iMovie for digital video
hobbyists.
Strategic alliances are needed for growth. The Motorola /Rokr iTunes phone and the move
to promote iPod units in major car brands will build business and brand (Xanadb 2005).
The strategic Long term move to use Intel Corp.s processors in Macintosh units could open
