My executive
Overview of Apple
As a group, we have selected Apple Inc. to be our company. Apple is an American manufacturer company that has revolutionized the technology within the cellphone and computer industry. The company started after Stephen G. Wozniak, an intern engineering who was looking to build his own computer, partnered with Steve Jobs to pursue his dream. At the time, Steve and Stephen decided to use Steve’s garage as their production plant (Levy).
Regarding the history and growth of the company, Apple’s headquarter is located in the city of Cupertino, California and currently employs at least 13,000 people. Also, as of February 2017, Apple has opened over 492 stores across 19 countries such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, China and Australia, becoming a top-40 retailer in the world with one of the fastest growing retailers in decades (Dunn, Business Insider).
Apple has always been characterized by their innovations and it is no secret that their success has been a consequence of their great creations and the way they have handled product marketing, inventory and delivery. We can easily track down the success of the company by analyzing charts such as the one provided by Fortune magazine in which Apple is listed as 9 out of the 500 largest companies that together have 27.7 trillion in revenues and employ 67 million people. It is also important to note that out of those 27.7 million in revenues on 2016, Apple company made $215,639 million (Fortune Global 500 List 2017).
As far as the people that control every corporate move of the company, we can talk about the board of directors. The board consists of 4 main officers that take full responsibility for the growth of the company. As the Chairman of the board is Aruther D. Levinson, former Chief executive officer during 1995 to 2009 and chairman during 1999 to 2014 of a biotechnology corporation named Genentech. Apple’s chief executive officer is Tim Cook who has been the in charged since August 2011. Tim was Apples Chief Operating Officer and was responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales. Also, the chief financial officer of Apple is Luca Maestri and is also Apple’s Vice President. Luca has over 25 years of experience building and leading finance teams in global companies. The COO of Apple is Jeff Williams who has overseen Apple entire supply chain service and support since 2010 after joining Apple in 1998.
Apples Vision statement have changed several times and its currently version was introduced by CEO Tim Cook who stated,
“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self- honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.” (Roland)
Also, Apple current mission statement is
“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.” (Roland)
Apple has created many strategic alliances with many companies. It has ten strong and well-known partnerships. Two of the strongest alliances is with AT&T and Verizon since 2011. Another alliance that Apple has is with a company called Foxconn Technology Group. Foxconn Technology Group is one of the largest, if not, the largest electrical manufacture in the whole world. Foxconn is the trade name; the actual name is Hon Hai Precision Industry. This industry is the largest exporter in the greater china region. The partner for touch panel comes from TPK Holdings. TPK Holdings is the largest touch panel supplier in the world and seventy percent of its revenue, which is over $1.12 billion dollars, comes from Apple. The largest manufacture for notebook computers is Quanta. Quanta helps Apple manufacture iMac and Macbook line of computers. One out of every three PC comes from Quanta. Quanta also supplies companies like Hewlett- Packard and Gateway. A relationship that Apple has kept strong connections with since 2005 is with Intel. Apple announced that the microprocessors would be by Intel in 2005 and in 2006, the very first generation of Macs came out.
A shocking partnership has been Samsung. Samsung electronics is the largest memory chip maker. Samsung supplies flash drives and chips to Apple. Even though Samsung acts as a competitor and supplier towards Apple, they have still continued their partnership despite all the lawsuits and rocky relationship. Toshiba provides Apple with the LCD panels which are used for iPhones and they help with improving the retina display. Catcher Technologies provide the metal casings that are used for Macbooks. Operations based in China and India, Wintek supplies the touch screens for the iPhones (Naidu). Recently it has been said that Apple is going to be partnering up with Paypal (Aouad).
It is said that Apple may have future mergers and acquisitions. It may have the top three media firms: Netflix, Hulu and Disney. It may have the top three video game developers: Activision, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two; and the auto maker: Tesla. These seven companies are the targets for the future mergers and acquisitions.
Management Analysis
Apple has major plans for their products such as upgrades and quality. Apple products are intuitive and easy to use, which means they’re also easy for your business to support. The products that apple produce, their device come with powerful assistive features for vision, hearing, and motor skills that make it accessible to everyone. Their goal is to keep the design as simple as possible and design each product well enough that the user can’t possibly imagine it looking any other way. Apple has a generic strategy it is broad and different than their competition. The product that they develop is its main strategy for their growth because they are more attractive and new products are made with better upgrades.
The marketing goal for Apple is to work in a group across the world the strategy of enhancement of the technological products and launched for the customers by the medium of distribution. There main goal is to focus on the company and extend its product globally for telecommunication, personal computers and technology oriented products. Their main strategies Apple use is Market Penetration (expand to other countries), Market Development (attain the attention of customers), and Diversification Strategy (upgrade the equipment and have newer version better than the last).
Management plans for Apple is to overall view how projects are managed at Apple Inc. They check the quality of the product, get the scope on how their experience, and maintain the schedule for the product until the launch is generated called “Rules of the Road”. The operational business plan for apple covers all the areas of company including the finance, manufacturing, internet, human resources and marketing. Apple is known because of its lenient business thinking.
Apple finance had been under pressure from investors to find ways to return some of its $145 billion cash back. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, says “Apple is a company that could only have been created in America, “We’re incredibly proud to support more than two million jobs in all 50 states, and we expect to create even more”.
Apple has meet and exceed previous goals. Based on the Apple’s latest quarter report, the company has gathered revenue of 45.4 billion dollars and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.67 in comparison with 42.2 billion dollars in revenue from the 2016 fiscal year. We see a growth in revenue of 7.6% in a year. Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer, stated that they were very happy that the report showed their third following quarter of accelerating growth and an all-time record high in revenue for services provided by the company. Also, Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, said that the company has seen a unit and revenue growth in all of their products and services, resulting in 17 percent growth in earnings per share.
According to Apple Supplier Code of Conduct, Apple suppliers have to provide safe working conditions and have to treat them with respect. Some of the ways that Apple takes social responsibility is air emission management, boundary noise management, health and safety, and incident management. Apple expects the highest standards of ethics. Some of those ways are business integrity, disclosure to information, and protection of intellectual property (Apple Inc.).
Apple’s code of conduct on their suppliers goes along with their policies on ethics in most of their services. For example, the company is committed to ensure that every worker is well treated by making sure that all supplier follow certain guidelines, regulations and laws of the country in which they operate, Apple’s employees are allowed to visit manufacturing facilities with or without notice at random times. The company also ensures this code by punishing violations with the immediate termination of the facility being an Apple supplier and may also do some legal actions.
There are risks on international operations. Compliance are applicable U.S. and foreign grounds like import and export requirements, foreign exchange controls, increased costs of doing business in foreign jurisdictions. Apple can be affected by other risks as well such as, labor conditions, increased duties, margins on sale on Apple products in foreign countries. Apple is exposed to credit and collectability risk on trade (Annual Report).
Apple goal is “to obtain stellar products and services within tight timeframes, at a cost that represents the best possible value to our customers and shareholders.” That is their overall goal. They want to come up with new and innovated ideas for their next upcoming products that they plan on releasing in the future.
Looking into Apple second quarter reports, it is stated that sixty five percent of the quarter revenue is accounted for through international sales. Apple plans to “continue to access the domestic and international debt markets to assist in funding the program.” Since this is a new idea, they will provide an update on the program on an annual basis.
Product and Marketing Analysis
Apple belongs to the retail industry which involves a sector of the economy that engages in selling finished products to end consumers. Apple has been very successful in the retail businesses due to their innovation and great marketing capacity. It is also important to mention that retail company can be privately owned or also publicly traded on the stock exchange. Regarding the relation between retail sales and Apple, INC, “In 2009, retail sales declined around 2% overall while Apple retail sales rose roughly 7%. In 2010, Apple’s retail sales, excluding online, jumped 70% to $11.7 billion, or about 15% of its revenues of $76.3 billion, compared to the overall industry’s sales growth of 4.5% and continues to grow over the years” Stated in the article.
The current products Apple offers are iPhone, Mac, iMac, iPod, iPad, IWatch, AppleTV and all of their services are tied to one. They are known to have the best designed products with the highest software quality which creates a closer feeling from customer to the company. After the release of the IPhone X and Iphone8 later November, the newest product Apple have in the making is the new Macbook Pro and is said to be available in the US by April 2018. The main reason for the wait is because Apple engineering team has been attempting to redesign the Mac Pro so that it can be lighter, more efficient and easier to upgrade..
When we refer to competitors, it is important to point Apple’s biggest competitor, Microsoft. Both companies have been offering home computers, with Microsoft outselling Apple due to them having lower prices. Apple got ahead of Microsoft when they moved into the smartphone market. Then Microsoft did the same thing but had a lower price. Samsung is another competitor to Apple products. Samsung is known for their smartphone, tablets and TV’s. Even though Apple have all of these products but Samsung have it cheaper than Apple. Samsung tend to host 80% of Android operating systems which are licensed by Google. Company’s like Samsung and Microsoft are the biggest competitors of Apple and tend to work together to weaken Apple’s market share by lowering the price on the product.
Unlike other company’s Apple own its own hardware, operating system, applications and services, all tied together rather neatly with its new cloud architecture. Other company’s like Samsung and Microsoft have partnerships with Google and other name brand’s which means in order for anything to be published it have to go through all of its partners it involves. There are no silos inside Apple and all decisions are made by this single executive committee. It gives Apple a big edge over the competition.
Apple is pouring money into research and development in an attempt to improve products that don’t currently generate revenue but might in the future. In the year of 2016 the company spent $2.8 billion on research and development, bringing the segment to nearly $10.5 billion in the total year. Apple is able to spend so much money on their research and development because there product range is steady growing, and there greater focus is on in-house technology development.
Apple has spent billions upon billions of dollars towards research and development. Just in 2016 alone, Apple has spent $10.39 billion. As of last year, it seems that Apple’s revenue keeps decreasing so it is possible that Apple may spend less towards that department however, since the company quarterly reviews came out, it “dispelled” the notion. It actually looks like that Apple may be spending way more than they ever had. Just because Apple is going to be spending way more than ever does not mean that they are the company to spend the most on research and development. If anything, Apple is one of the lower companies to spend money in this department. It lags behind companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Although Apple did not confirm what they are spending their money on, it seems like there are a few predictions. The “long- rumored Apple car” seems like a possibility. For a long time, there has been a running rumor that Apple is going to create or is in the process of creating a fully self- driving software system car. Apple may also be spending their money on augmented reality, AR, glasses. Another rumor is that Apple may be spending their money on something medical related.
Apple does a great job when it comes to advertising. They keep their commercials simple. They have been the minimalist. They, unlike their competitors, do not list the features of their phone. They keep it simple and straight to the point. They have also valued feature over prices. They do not usually list the prices on their advertisements. They make sure the value of the phone is known to the people. Lastly, they love being mysterious. Their commercials are very linear with great shots of people. Or they emphasize a new feature added to a new product and leave the people wanting more. They are nice, clean and non- cluttered commercials that speak to the people’s needs rather than to their pockets.
Financials
Annual Income Statement 2014-15-16-17
Balance Sheets 2016-17
Operations Statement (a summary of sales, net income, assets, liabilities, earnings per share)
Stock for Apple
Stock Prince since last year so far is set for $170.15 with a volume of 21.9 million people
SWOT Analysis
An SWOT analysis lists the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats that a company has.
As the strengths, Apple has been the leading company in innovation by releasing products such as the IPhone, the Apple watch, the IPad and the MacBook pro. Apple has been able to keep creating new value to its consumers by always providing the best technology available. Also, Apple owns about 475 stores across 17 countries in which the company provides tech support directly to customers. Apple’s stores are design to promote the use of their products in their stores. They even provide customers with a one in one session with a employee to better answer concerns about the use of their new technology.
It is also important to highlight the value of their brand. Apple has set a high quality standard which lets them charge any amount of money for their products without affecting their sales. Also, they business was built with a focus on the customer experience rather than revenue. Apple designs their interface and their products with a deep focus on consumers needs.
As weaknesses, we can talk about the expectation that comes from customers. It is extremely hard to come out with an innovating idea and it’s even harder to create new things every single year. Therefore, it is possible that some customers can have unmet expectations. It pushes Apple to keep up the innovation and it will get to a time where they will fail.
We can also reflect on their over dependency between their product line. Apple’s products can only be linked or syncs between one another while Microsoft products have an open door to most third party software and accessories.
As the opportunities, we have a large variety of markets in which Apple can get into. For example, electric cars are a new technology trend and Apple can easily own a great share of this market. While there are some well-known electric automakers such as Tesla already in the market, I believe Apple would be able to take advantage of its reputation and brand position as a reliable technology maker.
I believe Apple’s biggest threat is the Apple itself. They need to be able to keep up with such a fast changing world. They need to work with customers’ expectations.
Work Cited
“AAPL Income Statement.” NASDAQ.com, www.nasdaq.com/symbol/aapl/financials?query=income-statement.
“Annual Report” Apple- Annual Report, investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1193125-14-383437.
“Apple Inc. – Code of Conduct (Ethics Statement) BUS100mImuseAppleInc.” Google Sites, sites.google.com/a/email.vccs.edu/bus100mImuseappleinc/home/apple-inc-code-of-conduct.
“Apple Reports Second Quarter Results.” Apple Newsroom, Apple, 3 Oct. 2017, www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/05/apple-reports-second-quarter-results/.
“Apple Reports Third Quarter Results.” Apple Newsroom, Apple, 3 Oct. 2017, www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/05/apple-reports-second-quarter-results/.
“Fortune Global 500 List 2017: See Who Made It.” Fortune, fortune.com/global500.
Aoud, Ayoub. “PayPal and Apple enter major partnership.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 13 July 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-and-apple-enter-major-partnership- 2017-7.
Apple – Annual Report, investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=320193-17-70&CIK=320193#A10-K20179302017_HTM_S36812B06546955C98502CC5CBCD663E9.
Cheng, Evelyn. “Here are the 7 companies a Citi analyst thinks Apply could buy.” CNBC, CNBC, 5 May 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/05/citi-the-seven-companies-apple- could-buy.html.
Dunn, Jeff. “Here's How Apple's Retail Business Spreads across the World.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 7 Feb. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/apple-stores-how-many-around- world-chart-2017-2.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apples-cfo-explains-the-companys-10-billion-rd-budget-2017-2
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/06/17/apples-retail-stores-more-than-magic/#39a0d6928a2c
Kahn, Jordan, and Jordan Kahn @JordanKahn Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co- authors 9to5Mac’s weekly Logic Pros seri. “Apple Begins Hiring Staff for New Campus 2 Ahead of Move-in Early next Year.” 9to5Mac, 11 Nov. 2016, 9to5mac.com/2016/11/11/apple-campus-2-hiring-staff-move-in/.
Levy, Steven. “Apple Inc.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 17 Aug. 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/Apple-Inc.
Naidu- Ghelani, Rajeshni. “10 Significant Apple Business Partners.” CNBC, CNBC, 3 Feb. 2012, https://www.cnbc.com/2011/08/25/10-Significant-Apple-Business- Partners.html?slide=12.
Rowland, Christine. “Apple's Vision Statement & Mission Statement.” Panmore Institute, 29 Jan. 2017, panmore.com/apple-mission-statement-vision-statement.