ANALYSING APPLE’S STRATEGIES TO BUILD

AND SUSTAIN COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

BUSINESS STRATEGY
MODULE CODE: 6WBS0009
ACADEMIC YEAR - 2015/16
SEMESTER - A

MODULE LEADER – RON WELLS

HASHTAG GROUP – IRELAND

HEMERSON MACALÃO-RAMOS – 14159869
JEAN CARLOS VISENTAINER – 14159879
LUIS FERNANDO MARTINS SANTANA – 14159872
SANDRO ALENCAR MROWINSKI – 14159880

WORD COUNT – 3493

Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................................................3

SWOT Analysis.........................................................................................................................4

Strengths.................................................................................................................................4

Weaknesses............................................................................................................................5

Opportunities..........................................................................................................................6

Porter’s Five Forces...................................................................................................................7

Value Chain Analysis.................................................................................................................9

Support Activities...................................................................................................................9

Primary Activities................................................................................................................10

Three Horizons Model.............................................................................................................12

Conclusion................................................................................................................................13

References................................................................................................................................15

Bibliography.............................................................................................................................23
Introduction
In December 1980, Apple Inc. went public presenting an initial price share of $22. Within
minutes, the company’s market price was worth $1.78bn, marking a financial trend that
culminated in Apple’s actual worth value of $1 trillion (Neate, 2015). The company’s core
values, base for the formulation of Apple’s strategies, are undoubtedly responsible for its
current success in the high-tech market, being perceived by stakeholders worldwide as a
disruptive company in terms of innovation, technology and design (Gustin, 2015).

Gendron (2012) notes that in order to evaluate the success of a company, it becomes
imperative the utilisation of business analysis tools. Therefore, this report will discuss how
Apple’s strategies have been used to build and sustain competitive advantage, allowing the
company to become a benchmark to all players in the technological market.

Moreover, while not offering recommendations, this paper intends not only to highlight
Apple’s strategies for success, but also to present some of the issues faced by the company in
the adoption of certain strategic decisions.

Finally, the methodology employed in this investigation consists in the utilisation of

theoretical tools such as SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain and Three Horizons. An
evaluation of the usefulness of these strategic tools is presented, proposing a discussion in
relation to the effectiveness of frameworks created in an ‘analogic’ world in the current ever-
changing reality we live in.

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SWOT Analysis
The process of identification of the inherent strengths and weaknesses of businesses is vital
for the understanding of strategic decisions formulated by these companies. Following Davies
(2003), the SWOT analysis offers basic outlines for businesses to design corporate strategies;
although the investigation of each of the SWOT elements might eventually lead to dichotomy
considerations (Chermack, 2011).

Furthermore, Marti and Cabrita (2013) remind us that the classical SWOT analysis may not
be currently effective per se, suggesting adapting the tool to a more modern approach
emphasising on resource-based and activities-based elements. By shifting the focus of the
tool, it is possible to enrich the SWOT analysis by adding external suppliers (supply chain) to
the equation towards success.

For these reasons, we evaluate Apple’s strategies employing the SWOT analysis below,
analysing internal and external variables to the organisation.

Strengths
 Customer loyalty
Goodson (2015) suggests the Apple strategy towards loyalty comes from a series of
vectors such as social media interaction, customer service, etc., emphasising an
intangible aspect of its products (design, status, etc.) instead of technological
specifications.
According to Pinson and Brosdahl (2015) Apple reinforces customer loyalty
promoting a clear strategy of brand personality, and even its product design
strengthens this point, eg. By simplifying process, maintaining beauty as iPhone
advocates (Bonetti, 2010).
 Apple is a leading innovator in mobile device technology
Factually, Apple is a leading company in innovation (Griffith, 2015), and the
company strategically uses of its position to keep its market share safe from
competition. As an example, although the iTunes media player was not the first in its
kind (Schramm, 2015), Apple occupied the leadership in the music market in 2013,
with 64 percent of the market share (Bostic, 2013). Apple’s image as an innovative
brand and its leadership in the market allowed the company to strategically wait until

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 satisfactory digital-rights-management solutions were put in place, before releasing its
successful digital music retail software.

 Strong financial performance

Apple displayed the highest profit per quarter ever in 2015 (Golson, 2015), and the
revenue per employee presents steady growth since 2006 (Carlson, 2015). Jones
(2015a) points as an issue the company’s debt of $32bn in net cash flow in the US.
However, the company’s international reserves and its worldwide cash flow of
$100bn available overseas help to explain Apple’s strategy of not equating this
inconsistency in its balancing sheets. As pointed my MacWorld (2015), repatriating
cash would mean to Apple the loss of considerable amounts in tax rebates in the US.

Finally, its profit margins also have been growing consistently, achieving 25 percent
in 2015, granting an excellent return rate to its investors (Warren, 2015). All these
positive numbers give Apple and its CEO Tim Cook the flexibility when it comes to
change the company’s financial strategies. For instance, in opposition to Apple’s
previous CEO Steve Jobs’ strategy, Tim prioritises reinvesting the company’s money
through buybacks and dividends (Lashinsky, 2015), safeguarding its financial position
‘independently of the value of money, exchange rates and tax burdens’ (Yarow,
2015a).
 Strong supply chain
Since 2013, Apple has been in the top list of Gartner Supply Chain Leaders (Rivera,
2015). This competitive advantage will be discussed further in this paper when
analysing the company’s Value Chain strategies.

Weaknesses
 Higher prices than competition
While a price differentiation strategy can be seen as a strength when we analyse the
historical Average Retail Price (ARP) of the iPhone and iWatch (Sheehy, 2015), the
approach represents a weakness to other products of Apple’s portfolio. iPad’s sales
have decreased year by year because of cannibalising competition, where competitors
are able to manufacture cheaper alternatives for customers. Apple’s launching of a

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 more affordable version of the product, the iPad Mini, has also contributed to the
negative impact in iPad’s ARP.

Despite Apple being the leader in the smartphones market in the US, it finds difficult
to enter new markets because of its premium prices. In order to keep its growth, the
company has defined a strategy of launching entry versions of its iPhones (iPhone 5C,
for instance) in order to reach new niches around the world. However, the company
has already considered the possibility of depreciation its position as a prime brand,
hindering its leadership position in markets such as the US (Blodget, 2015).
 Incompatibility of Apple products and services with other systems
The famous (or infamous) lock-in strategy Apple imposes to its customers does
represent a potential strategic risk to company (Dörr et al., 2009). By ‘locking-in’
iPhone users to iTunes music store, Apple did not anticipate the advent of Spotify.
The streaming music app, which replaces the need for buying the digital version of
the songs, impacted directly iTunes sales, causing a decrease of more than 13 percent
in one year (Thompson, 2015).
 No major improvements in latest product versions
In 2014, Apple saw its brand value decline by 20 percent after 12 months of none new
products being launched (Gilbert, 2014). The company’s strategy of investing
massively in Research and Development (R&D), which will be explained further in
this paper, seems to have considered this weakness. In 2015, Apple releases its
iWatch generating a big hype in the market, seeing sales going up by 90 percent in the
period (Heisler, 2015).

Opportunities
 Investments in Research and Development
If innovation can be considered one of Apple’s core competencies to achieve
sustained competitive advantage over its competitors, it has not been sufficient to
sustain the company’s growth (Ramsey, 2015). For that reason, Apple’s R&D
department has received a major increase in fundings, from $500M to $1.3bn in 2015
(Hughes, 2015). This aspect will be further analysed in the Value Chain analysis.
 Strategic partnerships
Steve Jobs defended that Apple should not aim to specialise its manufacturing and
research too broadly, needing to conglomerate with other companies in order to

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 maintain its competitiveness (Pandey, 2011). In this sense, we can cite Apple Maps’
partnership with Microsoft to produce a better user experience; or Microsoft’s request
for cooperation for Zune, Microsoft’s version of iTunes. More recently, this strategy
can be noticed as Apple and IBM are working together to solve corporative
challenges such as development of apps and cloud solutions (Apple Inc, 2015a). With
that, Apple aims to expand to new markets, optimising processes and reducing costs.
 Dynamic Pricing
While dynamic pricing is seen as a weakness for some companies, the analysis of the
strategy as an opportunity for Apple finds resonance in Yeoman and McMahon-
Beattie (2004), as the authors point that, in certain cases, the approach does not lead
necessarily to the reduction of profits.

Apple’s strategies in this area can be exemplified by the reduction of app prices by 25
percent in Australia, keeping prices at the same level in other countries (Moses,
2011). Another example is the price of iPhone 6, cheaper in the US than anywhere in
the world (Jones, 2015b). This price strategy is understandable due to the elevated
market penetration in US, where Apple represents 44 percent of market share
(Rossignol, 2015). Consequently, customer perception of Apple as a ‘premium brand’
in the US reduces as the product becomes more commonly spread (Yarow, 2015b).
While it makes possible for the company to keep its internal growth by reducing profit
per unit in US, the global pricing strategy reassures Apple’s ethos worldwide.

Porter’s Five Forces

Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson (2012) argues that the awareness of the five competitive forces of
Porter’s (1979) framework enables a business to stand out in its industry and to create a
competitive advantage, becoming less vulnerable in dynamic market.

In 2001, Porter rethinks the application of his existing model considering a rapidly changing
economy, correlating strategy and the internet culture (Porter, 2001). Nonetheless, authors
such as Karagiannopoulos et al. (2005) criticise the approach adopted by Porter, influenced
by his initial overestimated expectations of the expansion of the new economy. The current
reality of the digital market, where Apple’s financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter of
2015 reach $51.5bn in revenue (Apple, 2015b), seems to validate Porter’s preliminary
outlooks. For this reason, this tool will be employed to identify the attractiveness of the

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industry Apple is inserted; and the competitive advantage strategies adopted by the company
in order to thrive in this environment, focusing on the aspects below:

 Threat of new entrants: Medium

As Vaccari (2010) notes, technology has acquired a commodity status in the 21 st
century. While this booming industry fosters the appearance of new players in this
dynamic arena, it correspondingly forces competitors not only to fight for profit
margins, but also for their survival in such a mature market. Greenwood and
Jovanovic (1999) and Hobijn and Jovanovic (2001) add that volatility of the
technological industry can be fatal for new entrants, with less resources for
investment. The systematic increase in Apple’s R&D budget, as explained in the
SWOT analysis, seems to evidence the company’s understanding of the importance
investing in this area in order to build a competitive advantage and stopping new
entrants.
 Bargaining power of suppliers: Medium
Apple exerts a massive influence on its supplier’s revenues, being accountable for 30
to 50 percent of the revenues of most of its suppliers (Tan, 2013). Therefore, a simple
shift in Apple’s orders could impact severely a supplier’s economic health, giving
Apple a massive advantage over its suppliers.

Nevertheless, a major strategic issues in relation to Apple’s suppliers relates to the

dependence in relation to one of its main rivals. Vance (2013), affirms that Samsung
appears as an important supplier of Apple’s chips for iPhones and iPads. In this
scenario, the company has been forced to review its strategies in relation to its supply
chain, aiming to minimise the bargaining power of Samsung. According to Hughes
(2015), the redirection of 30 percent of Apple’s chip production to Taiwan
Semiconductors (TSMC) was one of the measures taken to reduce the company’s
reliance in Samsung.

 Bargaining power of buyers: High

According to authors such as Tan (2013:95) and Wakabayashi (2015), Apple is
shifting its main target consumers from individual users to corporate ones. As the

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 bargain power of buyers tends to increase with this move, Apple strategically
approaches itself from these customers in order to keep them satisfied, generating a
positive buzz and increasing engagement and loyalty among this corporate customer
base (Curtin and Tarnow, 2013 in Kats, 2013:196). Exemplifying, in Arkansas State
University’s new course “Making Connections”, where according to Kaufman (2013),
it is the essential to all freshman to use iPads, provided by the University in order to
increase student’s experience.

Ferguson (2015) also points out that individual buyers do not have the ability to
influence Apple’s entire price system directly to some extent, therefore constituting in
a low bargain power in relation to this customer base. Alternatively, consumers have
many substitute brands for every item of Apple’s product portfolio, and this
substitution incurs in a considerably lower switching cost (Tan, 2013). Nair et al.
(2010) defends that Apple’s strategy to minimise buyers’ bargain power in this sense
involves focusing in product differentiation with emphasis in branding, advertising,
design, customer services and quality (Grant, 2002).

Value Chain Analysis

The employment of the Value Chain Analysis to assess the Apple’s competitive advantage
can be justified as this tool allows the company to ascertain the means to generate value for
the customers (Manktelow, 2005). The approach also allows companies to trace product
flows, displaying the addition of value in each phase of production (Altmann and Veit, 2007),
thus the company can focus attention and resources onto those stages where the majority of
the value is aggregated and reduce or subcontract the processes that contribute less for the
final product (Sekhar, 2010).

The following analysis will be mainly focused in the activities that Apple invests to keep its
competitive advantage.

Support Activities
 Infrastructure
Apple has plans to build its own high-speed communications network (Eadicicco,
2015). With this move, the company strategy aims to diminish the dependence on
competitors such as Microsoft and Google. Rosenstock and Huguet (2015) reveal that

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 these plans include an investment of €1.7 Billion in two Europeans data centres to
power the Apple Online Services.
 Human Resource Management
Following Tim Cook (2015), diversity is essential to innovation and so in Apple’s
future; thus the company is working hard to continue hiring talented people from
groups that are underrepresented in the industry. Lashinsky (2011) argues that Apple
focus in specialization as a strategy to have the best-in-class employees in every role.
According to Chen (2014), another strategic decision made by the company in this
area was the foundation of the Apple University, by Steve Jobs, in 2008. The
institution was designed to indoctrinate employees into the company’s business
culture, values and history.
 Technology Development
Beckmann (2014) explains that Apple has adopted the strategic decision of
maintaining its own team of technicians, designers and strategists; allowing the
company to focus in the maximum optimisation of its portfolio and keeping the
secrecy as a feature to success. Furthermore, as defended by Leswing and Villapaz
(2015), the investment in R&D allows the company to promote groundbreaking
innovations. For example, the new design of the company’s own chip for iOS devices,
reduces Apple’s costs and diminishes the reliance in other suppliers (Weinberger,
2015).
Innovation to Apple does not mean just an investment in mobile phones or music
industry. The company is investing heavily to develop technology for driverless cars
and regular cars incorporating Apple’s technology; what consists, potentially, in a $2
trillion industry (Chmielewski, 2015). Despite being a highly desirable market to any
entrant, the driverless cars industry still lacks regulation, characterising is a risk for
companies aiming to lead this market (Masunaga, 2014). Strategically speaking,
Apple R&D faces the issue of having to hold the advance in this segment in order to
comply with future regulations, despite the urge of having to deliver innovation for its
actual customers.
 Procurement
According to Glowick and Bruhs (2014), Apple has built a solid procurement network
with its main suppliers, becoming one of Apple’s main sources of competitive
advantage, as the company controls the entire chain. The company demands detailed

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 explanations about the costs of each component it buys (Spiller et al, 2013). When
necessary, Apple sends engineers to help the suppliers to change their manufacturing
processes, so the quality of the final product will be in accordance to Apple’s desire.
Mitchel (2014) explains that Apple excels in its strategy of Merges & Acquisitions
when more intricate partnerships are required for the design and evolution of Apple’s
products. As an example, the company acquisition of Beats Electronics in 2014
generated an increase of 5 percent in the company’s value by the time of its
announcement. The acquisitions add key components to Apple’s products, while also
helping the company update its skills.

Primary Activities
 Inbound Logistics
In 2014, Apple’s production relied on about 200 different companies (Mitchel, 2014),
maintaining a state-of-art supply chain management (see Fig. 1). As mentioned in
Porter’s Five Forces analysis, Samsung still stands out as a key supplier to Apple
(Hall, 2015), as the company has direct supply connections with three different
companies from Samsung Group (Mitchell, 2014).
Furthermore, Haslam et al. (2013), argues that this factor demonstrates the
vulnerability of the Apple’s business model, which relies on exercising power over
the supply chain, as has been suggested in the Bargain Power of the Suppliers
analysis. This issue can be noticed in Samsung’s increase in the chip prices for Apple,
in the order of 20 percent in 2013, thus creating the backbiting between Apple and
Samsung.

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 Figure 1 – Apple Supply Chain Management - Fonte: Research Methodology

 Outbound Logistics
Apple products can be purchased in several retail channels including online, big-box
retailers and in their own Apple’s retail stores (Montgomerie and Roscoe, 2013).
Parsons (2015) explains that, after the company’s products are manufactured in
China, the devices are shipped to Apple Stores, cell phone retailers and directly to
customers worldwide. Made-to-order devices have a maximum time of 15 days
between their manufacturing and shipment to the final customers. During the launch
of iPhone (Satariano, 2013), Apple executed a complex operation: after the gadget
was ready at manufactures in China, they were shipped by plane worldwide and
security personnel accompanied the devices from the manufacturers until their final
destinations. The secrecy once more acted as a successful strategy for the company.
These examples support Apple’s leadership in 2015 Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 list,
and the company’s competitive advantage in the supply chain face its competitors
(Howard, 2015).
 Marketing and Sales
Apple is taking corporate marketing to a whole new level in its industry. The
company is creating an internal marketing agency that will recruit, when fully

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 operational, one-thousand professionals in order to regain its creative edge (Diaz and
Morrison, 2014).

Apart from marketing campaigns, Apple’s sales rely in its own stores, where every
detail is designed to make the customers spend more money (Gmoser, 2015). The
open design permits easy flow and the lighting is projected aiming to make the
products look more appealing to customers. With all the products being connected to
the internet and displaying up-to-date versions of the company’s software, thus
encouraging complete interactivity throughout this immersive shopping experience.
As an result, Apple’s stores generated $4,708.82 in sales per square foot in 2014
(Wahba, 2015).

Three Horizons Model

The Three Horizons Model evaluates the company’s latent opportunities growth (Coley,
2009). According to Moore (2007), this framework is priceless to assure that the company
will sustain grow over the long term. In this paper, the focus of the Apple’s Three Horizons
model will be centred in the company’s products portfolio following the approach suggested
by Hubbard et al. (2015).

Mehrdad et al. (2000) explain the three horizons as it follows:

Horizon 1
Company’s core business,
accounts for the biggest share of
profits.
Horizon 2
Emerging lines of business that
could improve the company
revenue and customers base, but
needs substantial investment
first.
Horizon 3
Business' future opportunities.

The following table presents Apple products’ net sales and unit sales information for 2015
(Apple, 2015c) to support the products’ classification in Horizon 1:

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At the Horizon 2, as discussed previously in the Value Chain analysis, we might cite Apple’s
investment of €1.7 Billion in two Europeans data centres (Rosenstock and Huguet, 2015).
The facilities will power Apples’ online services including the iTunes Store, the App Store,
iMessage, Maps and Siri for customers across Europe. According to Burrows (2015), Apple
have been using currently traditional network providers and technology supplies to support
these services. With its own network, Apple will be able to assure another factor towards
acquiring competitive advantage.

Finally, Horizon 3 relates to new opportunities. According to Harris (2015), Apple has been
secretly working on a self-driving electric car, codenamed Project Titan. Wakabayashi (2015)
reveals that the expected shipping date is 2019.

Conclusion
This paper intended to offer a critical discussion on Apple’s strategies for acquiring and
maintaining competitive advantage in a highly competitive market, thus dynamic pace is a
thriving environment for the appearance of unexpected issues that force the entire strategical
decisions to be developed or realigned constantly.

While individually the analysis tools presented in this paper are insufficient for a
comprehensive identification of Apple’s strategies, the combination of approaches allows us
to understand how the company seeks a synergy between internal and external factors in
order to construct a successful strategy.

Ultimately, Apple’s success can be directed linked to the constant quest to fulfil customer’s
expectations in relation to innovation in technology and design. Through the utilisation of
strategic tools and data analysis, the company gathers the knowledge to support and
determine which directions are more effective to become successful. The secrecy created by
Apple from the architecture of its differentiated products until its debuts, creates a big

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expectation and frenzy in the market. Thus allowing Apple to get a large publicity,
strategically locking-in customers and aggregating intangible values to the brand’s
personality, one of the main competitive advantages of the company.

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HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 18

Harris, M. (2015) Documents confirm Apple is building self-driving car. The Guardian.
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Nair, A., Narasimhan, R., & Bendoly, E. (2011). Coopetitive buyer–supplier relationship: an
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Parsons, J. J. (2015) New Perspectives on Computer Concepts 2016. Boston: Cengage

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Rivera, J. (2015) Gartner Announces Rankings of Its 2015 Supply Chain Top 25.
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Wahba, P. (2015) Apple extends lead in U.S. top 10 retailers by sales per square foot.
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Thomson Learning.

HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 23

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HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 25

Appendix I: Group Log

Synthesis of Hashtag Group milestones:

9/11/2015 – Creation of a Facebook chat to serve as a log of Hashtag Group discussions in

relation to this assignment.

10/11/2015 – Definition of Analysis Tools to be employed in the assignment:

Hemerson – Porter’s 5 Forces

Sandro – SWOT

Jean – Value Chain

Luis - PESTEL

16/11/2015 – Decision is made in relation to exclude PESTEL to comply with the final word
count. Luis’ task is now helping with Porter’s 5 Forces analysis and conclusion.

17/11/2015 – Presentation of first individual drafts.

18/11/2015 – First group draft is assembled with Hemerson’s suggestions.

19/11/2015 – Jean’s suggestions are incorporated to the final draft.

Sandro raises his considerations and group members rewrite their parts
considering his suggestions.

Jean double-checks and corrects referencing system and reference list.

Final version is presented.

Files and articles uploaded to Facebook Chat:

As the original log currently displays more than nine thousand words, increasing the number
of pages of this assignment to ninety-nine, we condensed the main contributions as it follows.
The full file can be accessed on:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B79d8pkfv2mIb3laaVdHcUZ1b2M.

9/11/2015 Sandro Alencar Mrowinski - Apple strategy.doc

Sandro Alencar Mrowinski - Here you have a interesting and simple analysis

HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 26

http://wwwappleinc.blogspot.ie/2013/09/strategic-planning-for-competitive.html
Sandro Alencar Mrowinski –

Hemerson Macalao Ramos –

12/11/2015
Sandro Alencar Mrowinski - Reviews of the iPad Pro may be lukewarm, but
it's still the future of computing. Microsoft shouldn't get used to its time on
top. The Surface Pro 4 may look good in comparison to the iPad Pro right
now, but Apple has The App Store. uk.businessinsider.com
Jean Carlos Visentainer-
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/18/apple-incs-sustainable-
competitive-advantages.aspx. Apple Inc.'s Sustainable Competitive Advantages --
The Motley Fool. Apple’s closed ecosystem and brand appeal will protect its core
iPhone business from hungry rivals. fool.com
Why innovation could be the key to Apple's growth - Market Realist
Apple's business strategy leverages its unique ability to design and develop its own
operating systems, hardware, application software, and services to provide its
customers new products. marketrealist.com
Apple's Competitive Advantage: Multiple Products That Integrate as One
Apple's competitive advantage is growing in the smartphone, tablet and personal
computer categories. The company's strength is product, including the iPhone, iPad,
and Mac computers. But it's the advantage of the three combined that's pushing Apple
to marketshare dominance. ibtimes.com
Porter’s 5 forces model and value chain
Porter’s 5 forces Model And Porter’s Value Chain for Apple - slideshare.net
Apple Value-Chain Analysis - Research Methodology

HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 27

 Apple works with hundreds of suppliers around the globe and maintains a highly
sophisticated supply-chain management as illustrated in Figure 2 below... research-
methodology.net

https://prezi.com/a23yvk0pbhbc/apples-value-chain/

Is Apple Supply Chain Really the No. 1? A Case Study - supplychainopz.com

This was the beginning of 2014: Samsung remains a key supplier for Apple’s iPhone
despite patent disputes, competition

No matter which way you cut it, it remains remarkable that Samsung continues to
serve as…

Apple product magic value chain.pdf

Core of Apple Business Model.pdf

13/11/2015

Luis Fernando - Lads good documents with information about Apple's

PESTEL, SWOT, PORTER'S 5

3553-6309-1-SM.pdf

Apple 5porters Johnson_BA_MB.pdf

14/11/2015

Sandro Alencar Mrowinski - Apple strategies for success.doc

15/11/2015

Sandro Alencar Mrowinski –

Crainer_et_al-2014-Business_Strategy_Review.pdf

Jean Carlos Visentainer - BS - Apple - Jean CArlos.docx

16/11/2015

Sandro Alencar Mrowinski -

HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 28

 https://martinking.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/three-horizons-steve-jobs-and-
education/

Three Horizons, Steve Jobs and Education

“The three horizons model was first published in The Alchemy of Growth by
Merhdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White in 1999. The fundamental
idea behind the model is that we need to be thinkin...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2013/03/07/how-to-manage-
innovation-2/

How to Manage Innovation

VideoInnovation has become management’s new imperative. Everybody

wants to be the next Apple, Google or Netflix, nobody wants to be Kodak,
Blockbuster or US Steel. Go to any conference these days and some whip-
smart technogeek will declare that you must, “innovate or die,” and then
dazzle you a wid…

https://hbr.org/2012/10/how-apples-little-approach-leads

How Apple’s “Little” Approach Leads to Big Wins

Bringing discipline to design, innovation, and R&D isn’t easy, but it pays off.

http://gizmodo.com/apples-first-store-in-singapore-is-powered-by-the-sun-
1742726624?
utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebo
ok&utm_medium=socialflow

Apple strategies for success.doc

HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 29

 Jean Carlos Visentainer –

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/1027689957x0x861262/2601797E-
6590-4CAA-86C9-962348440FFC/2015_Form_10-K_As-filed_.pdf

BS - Apple - Jean CArlos.docx

HASHTAG GROUP – DUBLIN | BUSINESS STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT 1 30