Apple company overview and business operations

Apple in the Enterprise -- their role in B2B Markets

Apple in the Enterprise:

How They Are Succeeding in the Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketplace

Apple Inc., has shown through the consecutive series of innovations in the smartphone, MP3 and tablet markets that their propensity to create profitable business models is now a core competency. While investment and analysts debate just what the critical catalyst of their successes are, nearly everyone agrees on the ability to create products that deliver exceptional customer experiences (Brown, 2011). In addition, Apple has long been one of the most integrated companies within the network of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and engineers (Saxenian, 1991). Combining a unique new product development and design process with the intensive levels of engineering, social and technology-based connections throughout the industry has given Apple a defensible, highly profitable position in the industry. All of these factors are exactly what Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Directors of IT and Chief Financial Officers most evaluate when choosing a vendor to partner with for technology. Apple's financial strength, unique new product development process, focus on enterprise-wide system integration, and continued focus on device-level and network security have all helped the company to gain a strong position in the enterprise marketplace, also called Business-to-Business (B2B) (Kaneshige, 2011). Apple continues to innovate and aggressively pursue the enterprises market, even after the untimely passing of the founder, Steve Jobs, who led the company on a rapid journey to consumer markets (Vaughan-Nichols, 2011).

Introduction

Apple's momentum in the B2B market is multifaceted and primarily based on the adoption of its iPhone series of smartphones, now a market standard with over 80% share of the global smartphone market (Kaneshige, 2011). In departments that rely heavily on smartphones to do their jobs from the road, the Apple iPad has quickly gained mind- and market share. The initial iPhone sales created a foundation of user awareness and led to rapid changes in how presales, sales, service, marketing and field technicians all communicated with each other and customers while out in the field (Marko, 2011). This ability to stay connected with highly relevant messaging and communication led to rapid adoption of the Apple iPad in the industry as well. Today, the iPad is considered by many experts to be the replacement for the traditional laptop PC.

An example of how bullish industry analyst firms are can be seen in the Gartner sales history and forecast for smart tablets (iPads). Apple tabulated iPad sales reached 17.6 million units in 2010 (Henderson, 2011). Apple's iOS operating system (OS) commanded 83% of all sales in 2010 for table systems alone (Henderson, 2011). This figure decreased slightly to 73% in 2011 as new competitors joined the market. Google's Android captured 14% of the market in 2010, and Gartner expects its share to increase only marginally in 2011, to 17%.

These market dynamics led to the enterprise sales of media tablets continually ramping, with the B2B market now generating approximately 30% of all tablets sold by 2015 (Henderson, 2011). Gartner is also predicting that between 2012 to 2015 there will be a ready ramp in tablet sales into the enterprise, with double-digit growth rates achieved (Kaneshige, 2011).