The Business and Management of Small and Medium Enterprises

Case Study 4: Apple case study

Table of content

1) What is Apple’s position in this industry and what are Apple’s competitive advantage? 3 a. SWOT’s analysis 3 b. The TOWS Matrix 5 c. Porter’s Five forces Model 6 d. The strategy clock by Bowman 7 e. Ansoff Matrix 7 f. Product life cycle 8 g. Porter’s value chain analysis 8 h. Conclusion 9 2) Describe Apple’s development over the years and highlight any key stages 10 3) Can Apple be seen as a strategic innovator today? 11 4) How would you describe the way Steve Jobs runs Apple? 11

1) What is Apple’s position in this industry and what are Apple’s competitive advantage?

Apple is a multinational which is famous for competing inside the Consumer Electronics Industry. Apple is an American company which is hugely admired around the whole world. As an American company, it can keep up with competing in this fast moving industry as it is dominated by American, Japanese and South Korean countries. This industry sets its focus on electronic equipment which is anticipated for day to day use covering the segments of entertainment, office productivity and communications.

As overall the aim of a business is to create value as it is for Apple as well. Value can be then translated into profit (Grant, p.35, 2010). The resource based view theory states that the profitability of an industry is linked to the profit of the company. In order to analyse Apple’s profitability in this industry, one can look at various frameworks that will determine Apple’s position in the Consumer Electronics industry as well as give an outlook on its competitive advantage.

a. SWOT’s analysis

To start, one can use the SWOT tool analysis to highlight the link between Apple and its industry environment (Grant, p.12, 2010). It classifies the various influences on a firm’s