Strategic Planning: Apple Inc. and Industry

Apple Inc. is global technological corporation based in California, America. The company's business operations encompass the designing, developing and retailing of computer software, electronics and also provision of online services. In particular, Apple Inc. is set within the technology industry, competing on different fronts such as the mobile sector and computer sector as well. Technology transformation and change has completely altered the mobile industry and the manner in which it used to function. The internet specifically has changed the way in which people view business and make transactions. The current business model of Apple Inc. can be categorized broadly into three sectors: Retail, Software Engineering and Hardware Engineering. Apple can be said to be a multinational corporation as it is involved with three major companies; Microsoft, The Gap and Dell which lie in different industries and that makes it even more successful. The software engineering sector is innovative and brings out the success in the hardware and retail businesses.

Apple's basic approach to the business is through diversification by designing different products and venturing into different businesses. The company strategizes in globalization by marketing its products globally and also through retail and individual markets. The company adds value to its customers by providing a specific design to its products. It has also opened retail stores such as the apple store for customers. Apple is best known for designing its products. The company adds value to its shareholders by maximizing the profits of the company. The value of the employees is added by the companies by being given employee perks such as personal time to work on their own products. Apple Inc. competes in multiple businesses. This includes hardware (PCs and laptops), software (Cloud services, Adobe, Safari), and retail business (Apple Stores and Genius Bar). This venture into multiple businesses has great significance as it increases the revenues of the company in overall. For example, the iPhone generates a great majority of the revenue generated by Apple. The purpose of this paper is to undertake the strategic planning of Apple Inc. offering suitable objectives that the company implement.

Vision Statement, Mission Statement

Just about every organization across the world has a vision and mission statement in addition to business strategies that are geared towards achieving the long-term and the short-term goals of the organization. Different from majority of the other organizations and companies, Apple Inc. does not have a published vision statement. However, the organization's vision statement is conveyed to the public by its leaders. This is completely dissimilar from any other company. However, this can be deemed to be radical and avant-garde meaning that the vision of the company is changing at all times which might be perceived as a significant aspect as the global technological world today keeps changing. The mission statement of Apple Inc. states that "Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad" (Blodget, 2013). The business strategies of the company are indeed aligned to the mission of the company. This can be seen by the constant innovation of products almost every year. For instance, Apple recently unveiled its latest smartphone iPhone 5S and is in the preparation of unveiling iPhone 6 in the forthcoming. The company has also involved itself with iCloud, which is yet another innovative product (Zylla-Woellner, 2010).

Analysis of Objectives

Apple is dedicated to control the industry with its amazing products such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, its operating system OS X and even cloud services with the iCloud. Apple's main goals and ambitions follow the company's mission and vision as well as its internal and external environments. Continual investment in research and development is critical to facilitate innovation of new and improved products and technologies. Apple is also committed to expand its digital footprint in the music industry, and worldwide expansion of its retail operations. The company's strategies are in line with its mission, objectives, and both internal and external environments.

Internal Environment and External Environment Analysis

1. SWOT Analysis

This is a technique utilized to analyze both the internal and external environment of a company. In particular, the approach assesses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and growths that the company faces. The main objective of this particular method is to aid the company in having total cognizance of all the factors that are to be involved in making a decision. In addition, this helps in the identification of change required, examination of new initiatives, and decision making on policies (Bohm,...

Internationally Renowned Brand
Apple has been proclaimed and is very well-known across the globe for being one of the most innovative companies. In particular, the company's brand is renowned for inventive diversity across its products.

2. Loyal Consumer Base

Apple Inc. has a very strong loyal consumer base that sticks to its products. This offers it a competitive edge over other technological companies.

3. High Level of Innovation

The company is largely acknowledged for manufacturing and unveiling innovative and groundbreaking products, for instance iPhone, iPod, iMac and also the iCloud.

4. Strategic Alliances: Apple has created strong strategic partnerships with different mobile providers such as AT&T as well as T-Mobile.

5. Strong Marketing and Advertising: This is one of the strong suits of the company. Irrespective of is high-end products, the promotion level of the company is top-notch, which appeals to consumers (Bohm, 2009).

Weaknesses

1. Costly and High-end Products

The company prices its products at considerably higher values compared to rival firms. This might be a downside for the company with consumers opting for cheaper products. For instance, Chinese smartphones that are almost $200 cheaper (Swartz, 2016).

2. Great Responsibility Levels

Being such a major company and brand as Apple, the firm is obliged to produce top-notch products and surpass the expectations of the consumers at all time. A lack of this simply implies a downgrade in the brand.

3. Incompatibility with Different Operating System

Apple products are solely compatible with iOS and OS X. For this reason, the consumers might opt to remain with their respective preferences of hardware or software.

4. Patent Infringements

Apple Inc. has experienced several litigations regarding the breach and transgression of patents. Such aspects are a downside as they tarnish the brand (Fine, 2009).

Opportunities

1. Increased Growth in Smartphone and Tablet Demands

Owing to increased demand, this poses as a great opportunity for the firm to expand its markets into the BRIC nations and Africa.

2. Mergers and Acquisitions

Apple Inc. is a large and well-known corporation. Its status and market capitalization give it the prospects to merge with or acquire smaller innovative firms.

3. Demand for New Products

Apple faces demand from consumers for technological products such as new iPhone versions, iPads and iMacs. This implies that the company has the chance to increase revenue generated and at the same time solidify market share.

4. Obtaining Different Suppliers of Materials

At present, the major provider of application processors of Apple Inc. is Samsung Electronics, which happens to be one of the company's biggest rival. It is imperative for the company to source another supplier to preclude dependence on its major rival (Fine, 2009).

Threats

1. Pressure from Competitors and New Entrants

Apple Inc. faces stiff competition on all fronts from competitors such as Samsung as well as new entrants like Huawei. These offer a threat as the company might end up losing some consumers.

2. Dominance of Android Operating System

The Android OS continues to offer a serious threat to iOS with increased dominance in market sales across the world. This increased growth and predilection dissuades clients from buying Apple products.

3. Fast-Paced and Changing Technology

Being set in the technology industry, companies such as Apple Inc. face the threat of incessantly coming up with new, innovative and superior products to prevent them from becoming obsolescent quickly.

4. Appreciation of the Dollar

Majority of the revenue generated by the company are attained from overseas. The appreciation of the dollar implies increased prices for the products and might cause a decline in the revenues (Fine, 2009).

2. Porter's Five Forces Analysis

Porter's Five Forces Analysis Model is an approach that is used to analyze the external environment of an organization. In particular, this technique enables the firm to assess its capacity to be able to create or sustain a competitive advantage. These five forces include threat of rivalry, threat of substitutes, threat of buyers, threat of suppliers and threat of entry.

1. Threat of New Entrants: Low

The threat of new entry is a major concern because new entrants into the market are easily able to imitate the product and restrict the competitive advantage. Despite the fact that several companies are popping up in the market with new apps just about every day, this does not imply that the threat of new entrants is high. This is largely for the reason that in order to enter and compete with companies such as Apple Inc. there is a great need for capital for entry, which deters several…