Assignment 2 1

COURSE NAME:

INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING

ASSIGNMENT 2

SUBMITTED TO

PROF. ADESINA BAKARE

SUBMITTED BY:

GURSEWAK SINGH
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ASSIGNMENT 2
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Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................................................. 5
Question 1: What is Apple’s competitive advantage?.....................................................................5
Question 2: Business environment of apple....................................................................................6
(i) SWOT Analysis.............................................................................................................................7

(ii) PESTEL Analysis of Apple......................................................................................................7

(a) Political environment..............................................................................................................8

(b) Economic environment...........................................................................................................8

(c) Social environment.................................................................................................................9

(d) Technological Environment....................................................................................................9

(e) Legal environment................................................................................................................10

Question 3: Best channel for generating quality leads for the company product........................10
(i) Great way of advertisement........................................................................................................11

(ii) Privacy and security................................................................................................................11

(iii) Different operating system......................................................................................................11

(iv) Apple ecosystem.......................................................................................................................12

Question 4: what’s the best marketing strategy for Apple?...........................................................12

Question 5: How well does Apple satisfy their customers?...........................................................13
Question 6: What to improve in Apple’s marketing?....................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 14
Reference List............................................................................................................................ 15
Apple Inc. PESTEL/PESTLE Analysis & Recommendations...............................................................15

Apple Business Environment Case Study..............................................................................................15

3 Ways Apple Sets Itself Apart from the Competition.................................................................................15

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Why is Apple’s Marketing Just So Darn Good?....................................................................................15

What really is the Apple Ecosystem?....................................................................................................15

How Customer Feedback Surveys Help Apple Maintains Industry Leadership? .........................15
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Introduction

The concept of marketing is explained as the idea of approaching and satisfying

customers’ needs. This is subject to being achieved using a product initiating a solution to

varying problems and needs of consumers. Marketing is the significant representation of major

changes witnessed in the orientation of today’s organizations. This assists in laying the

foundation for the achievement of competitive advantage. This assignment is based on providing

appropriate answers to the presented 6 questions. It is understood that the topic of focus for this

assignment will be Apple corporation.

Question 1: What is Apple’s competitive advantage?

The competitive advantage is what separates your business from your opposition. It

features the advantages a client gets when they do shop with you. For instance, do you offer

home delivery, meet your promise, quality, and so on. So, coming to the competitive advantage

of Apple, there are a lot of things in which apple is way better than others which set them apart

from other brands. Apple is already satisfying consumers with smartphones, tablets, and music

players. It is in this business since 1976.

The competitive advantages of Apple are:

(i) Brand strength

Apple was the world’s biggest brand in 2017. It was ahead of Google, Coca-Cola

and other companies. Brand strength gives organizations like Apple extraordinary

visibility in the commercial center and helps build customers’ trust. The

organization's solid marking, and the interrelationships between its items,

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encourage customers to get another Apple item. Items like the iPhone, iPad and

Mac share similar programming and applications, and work correspondingly,

settling on Apple a characteristic decision when customers are thinking about

another gadget.

(ii) Innovative products

Apple always thinks out of the box. This is the reason Apple always manages to

invent their products with greater innovations. A key competitive advantage of

Apple is that all the devices share the operating system even if they are completely

different from the other products in the field of innovation. Apple always focuses

on bringing innovation rather than launching a lot of products.

(iii) Premium pricing strategy

Apple always sets their products at the premium end when it comes to price and

neglect the discounts. It always keeps the price the same for all the series same. For

example, the price of the iPhone 12 pro was $1399 which was the same as their

newer version of the iPhone 13 pro. Even in some countries like India, it is seen as

a status symbol. People in India buy apple products to show their status to others.

No matter whether they need that particular product or not. This is only because of

the apple premium price strategy.

Question 2: Business environment of apple.

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Apple always scans analyzeslyze its business environment very carefully because they know

it is very important to run the business in the long run. For scanning their business

environment apple use different techniques such as PESTLE, SWOT, and Porter’s five forces

analytical tool. Apple uses all these techniques to scan their internal as well as external

environment.

(i) SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis helps Apple scan its internal environment efficiently

and the result of the analysis helps apple to make changes in their decision

and goals. Therefore, the company’s strengths and weaknesses almost

depend on this analysis. However, this analysis does not consider any

outside forces and factors.

Apple’s financial strength remains the most important out of all internal

environments. In the year 2015, Apple announced that they generate the

biggest revenue so far in history. At that time, Apple earned $53.4bn only

from the sales of the iPhone. The reason for this success was only because

of their successful scanning of the business environment.

(ii) PESTEL Analysis of Apple

The PESTLE analysis evaluates the political, economic, social,

technological, and legal factors. These all factors affect the business

directly. Effectiveness in addressing these environments is very important

to run the business. So, how is apple dealing with that?

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(a) Political environment

Political factors are those which are closely related to government rules

and regulations related to business. Political factors have a direct and

immediate impact on Apple. There is not too much to do with this

environment because the guidelines come directly from government

officials. These guidelines can have a positive or negative impact on the

business.

For example, In Europe, the European commission going to

standardize the ports on all mobile phones. While Apple has been stuck

on their lightning port for so long. But due to government intervention,

Apple must change the port of their phones. For this Apple has to

manufacture customized iPhones for the European market. As a result,

the cost will rise.

(b) Economic environment

Economic factors refer to external factors in the market. It is a very

broad factor out of all the business environments. It may include the

economic condition of people in an economy, income, GDP of a

country, and much more. So, it becomes very important to understand

this environment carefully and take action accordingly.

Economic factor also has two parts:

1. Microeconomics
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2. Macroeconomics

Based on this PESTEL analysis Apple manage to grow and expand its

business operations because the competitor also targets these factors.

(c) Social environment

The social environment is the third type of environment that companies

do have to analyze carefully. This environment is directly related to the

expectations and behaviours of consumers towards the brand. The social

environment may not have an immediate impact on business but it

affects the business a lot in a long run. Apple analyze this environment

very carefully and had made changes to their business operation in past.

For instance, earlier there were not many colour options available in

iPhones but when Apple analyze and scan the business environment,

they come to know that the consumers are willing to buy iPhones with

different colour options. So, as a result, Apple made changes to their

operations accordingly which can now be seen clearly.

(d) Technological Environment

The technological environment is generally linked to technological

factors such as technological advancement, change in technology, use of

better technology by the competitors, outdated technology, etc. Apple

has been adversely affected by this environment. This environment

forces Apple to bring in innovations in their products. As recently,

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Apple had recently launched their new iPhone 13 pro and for the first

time, Apple offered 120 hertz display in an iPhone because its

competitors were already providing 120 hertz in their smartphone for a

while. So that’s why Apple doesn’t want to stay behind. Due to this

Technological environment, Apple was forced to offer this in their

smartphones.

(e) Legal environment

Legal environment refers to that environment that is related to court

decisions or some strict guidelines from government officials. This

business environment has an immediate effect on the business.

For example, in Australia, the European Union, and the United States,

among different nations, the organization has confronted solid analysis

and fights in court in regards to its strategies on outsider fix

administrations. In light of this piece of the PESTEL/PESTLE

investigation model, Apple should underscore security insurance and

administrative consistency in its items in general, and consider changing

its arrangements and practices to address current legitimate tensions on

the business.
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Question 3: Best channel for generating quality leads for the company product .

Apple has always thought out of the box. It always does something different from its competitors

and stays one step Ahead of them. This is the reason apple is a king in today’s smartphone

market. So, what are the steps apple took to stay ahead of others? Let’s delve deep.

(i) Great way of advertisement

Advertisement plays a vital role in generating revenue for the company and

apple has understood this very well. So that’s why it is doing the advertisement

for their products efficiently. Apple always advertises its products in such a way

that it pops out in people’s minds. For example, in 2008, when no one can

imagine having a device that can have more than 40 songs in their pocket. Apple

offers a device named the iPod touch which was able to store 1000 songs. So,

apple advertises this feature to increase their revenue.

(ii) Privacy and security

Privacy and security both are very important in today’s world as people

are more conscious about it. So, what are privacy and security is? Both of

these are the same. Both are interdependent. Privacy refers to the

personal information of a user whereas security refers to how secure is

the user’s privacy or personal information. Apple is always ahead in this

field. Apple created its name in privacy. Everyone knows how secure is

iPhones are. For most people, it is the only reason for having apple

phones. Due to this, Apple manages to earn more.

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(iii) Different operating system

We all know that Apple has a different operating system named “IOS”.

This operating system is way better than its competitors. There are

several reasons which make this operating system better such as:

(a) Easy to navigate

(b) Good interaction

(c) Fast

(d) Secure

(e) Apple’s ecosystem

(iv) Apple ecosystem

For better understanding, I would like to explain that what an Apple

ecosystem is? It is not a product from Apple. We cannot just go to the

Apple store and buy the Apple ecosystem, but it is something different. It

is the customers’ way of life experience which they get as a result of

using few Apple products. This is ecosystem is created by the interaction

between the different apple devices that brings the user experience to a

different level.

Question 4: what’s the best marketing strategy for Apple?

Apple always keeps the advertisement of their products simple. Apple does not want to confuse

their customers by showing them complex and repetitive ads. They know very well that excess
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advertisement makes choosing the product difficult. Apple wants its products to speak up for

itself. Their products do not rely on ads but on the quality, utility and comfort they offer the user.

Apple loves simplicity in everything and this simplicity can be easily seen in their logo, their

marketing strategy and their OS. Have a look at Apple’s logo. It’s simple; just an apple with a

missing corner. Even in their retail stores, users can experience the product by actually using it

because they want their customers to check the product than just buy the boxes.

Secondly, they keep their product’s names simple and easy to remember, so that they comply

with the design of the product. Moreover, they are also advertising their products on their

website but in a very simple way. This is done to reduce the confusion by simplifying their web

and sales copy as they use direct and simple words.

According to my perspective, these two marketing strategies are the best one that benefits

apple the most.

Question 5: How well does Apple satisfy their customers?

Apple and customers’ satisfaction are two different words with the same meaning. People know

very well that Apple products always result in complete satisfaction of customers. Apple listens

to the customers’ feedback and designs its products according to what they want.

In 1997, Steve Jobs spoke to attendees of the Apple worldwide developers Conference where

he clearly stated that customers must be placed at the center of operations. “One of the things

I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to

the technology,”
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Apple values the customer’s feedback. Because by listening to their customers, Apple manages

to give their customers what they want and can create their product simple and easy to use. These

small things make a lot of difference.

In a survey done in 2018, a group of people found that 97 out of 100 customers are satisfied by

the purchase of their Apple product. All this is achieved by Apple due to their good listening the

feedback from customers.

Question 6: What to improve in Apple’s marketing?

Apple is already doing very well in terms of marketing and satisfying their customers but there is

always room for improvement. No company can be 100% perfect. The only thing which Apple

needs to fix in their market is that they should also target the customer with a tight budget. As we

all are aware that apple’s products are always at the higher end and those who are rich can only

afford those devices. For example: In India, the cost of the latest iPhone is Rs 1,39,000 and the

average salary of a person in India is Rs 20,000 India. That means a person needs to save his

entire salary for 8 months to buy the latest iPhone.

So that’s the area in which Apple is lacking behind. These are the only things that Apple needs

to improve.

Conclusion

The significance of marketing and the implementation of the marketing mix are observed to be

vital. The PESTAL analysis done by Apple is also in very efficient way. It is prominently
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understood that the prospects of development of company totally depends on the perception of

external, as well as , internal factors. It is also concentrated on the initiation of systematic

understanding aligned with growth and advancement. Thus, the questions answered in this

section are impactful and insightful in regard to the context of the marketing mix.

Reference List

Apple Inc. PESTEL/PESTLE Analysis & Recommendations

http://panmore.com/apple-inc-pestel-pestle-analysis-recommendations

Apple Business Environment Case Study

https://ivypanda.com/essays/apple-business-environment/

3 Ways Apple Sets Itself Apart from the Competition

https://techland.time.com/2012/07/30/3-things-that-set-apple-apart-from-the-

competition/

Why is Apple’s Marketing Just So Darn Good?

https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/why-is-apples-marketing-good/

What really is the Apple Ecosystem?

https://techjourneyman.com/blog/apple-ecosystem-explained/

How Customer Feedback Surveys Help Apple Maintains Industry Leadership ?

https://www.myfeelback.com/en/blog/how-customer-feedback-surveys-helps-apple-

maintains-industry-leadership
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