Business Decision Making Project - Part 2
Running head: APPLE’S BUSINESS PROBLEM
APPLE’S BUSINESS PROBLEM
Kellee Kelley
Mr. S. Graham
QNT/351
July 31, 2017
Introduction
Apple Inc. is a multinational company where its headquarter is in Cupertino, California. This company usually deals with designing, developing and selling computer software, consumer electronics, and offering online services (O’ Grady, 2009). This company was founded on 1st April 1976 by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne. It offers different hardware, software, and online services. Here are the hardware products that are offered by Apple Inc. namely: the Mac personal computer; iPhone smartphone, Apple Watch smartwatch, iPad tablet computer, Apple TV digital media player, and iPod portable media player. Additionally, it also offers consumer software such as iTunes media player, iOS and macOS operating systems, iWork and iLife Creativity. Moreover, Apple Inc. is also helpful in offering online services such as Apple Music; iCloud; iTunes Store, Mac Apple Store, and iTunes Store(Finkle & Mallin, 2010). This company is the dominating company in Europe in producing cell phones and other products.
The major problem that is facing Apple Inc. Corporation is the stiff competition from its competitors, namely: Nokia and Samsung. The Samsung and Nokia are the major competitors of the Apple Inc. Corporation. Competition rivalry can be defined as the pressure that a firm or company experiences within the industry because of pressure that is being put by other firms or company that are producing in the same line of production. This business problem has been experienced by the Apple because of intensified growth or expansion of its competitors’ market coverage (Finkle & Mallin, 2010). The competitive rivalry is experienced in the market environment since the smartphones that are manufactured by the Nokia and Samsung are almost taking the entire market thus posing a major threat to Apple. Apple has faced great threat since it is unable to penetrate their products in the market environment where its competitors have already made a firm foundation. Moreover, this business problem has become a prolonged challenge which ruined the progress of Apple Inc. products in different countries as possible since most of the people in a place such as Africa are using smartphones. Thus, the dream of Apple Inc. in setting this company and its products were just futile since there no good market environment for Apple products. The challenge has been rampant especially in China, Apple Inc. Corporation was unable to take their products and services since Chinese had already occupied its market with smartphone thus making it hard for Apple products to penetrate.
Additionally, the business problem is very important since it is among that factors that can affect the performance of the Apple Inc. Corporation. Thus, if the key reason why the Apple Inc. Corporation is experiencing stiff competition is identified, then it will be easy to find you the solution. In addition, it is important because this has been limiting the capability of the Apple Inc. Corporation to expand its market thus making it hard to enhance the growth of the Company and sharing itself the largest market share. Furthermore, having the largest market this will ultimately mean that there will increase in sales, but if there are fewer sales that are made due to stiff competition, then it means Apple Inc. will be unable make a large portion of profit which means that it is really performing. More so, stiff competition as the business problem is a great opportunity or chance that is being given to the Apple Inc. Corporation as a challenge. This challenge, in other words, can be termed as an opportunity that has been provided to Apple Inc. so that it can find a new way of handling and containing the situation. Thus, in the process of containing the stiff competition, it will discover new tactics and way to curb competition and come up with different ways of handling things.
In every problem, there must be different variables that are linked to it. The variable can be defined as an element that is prone to change over a given period of time. The variables can be categorized into, namely: independent and dependent variable. The dependent variable is the quantity one as the researcher get interested in while an independent variable is any element that is believed that affect the dependent variable (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006). Thus, in our case dependent variable is stiff competition while the independent variable is the availability of the substitute. Availability of the substitute is the reason why the competition was very high. It was very high since the competitors have been at the rush of manufacturing cheap cell phones and most of the users opted to buy smartphones instead of iPhone.
In collecting data about the availability of the substitutes in the market that are being brought by the competitors, there are different data collection methods that can be used, namely: qualitative and quantitative data collection method. According to Kothari (2004), there are various methods that can be used to collect data, namely: use of questionnaires; interviews; observation; use of focus groups, etc. Firstly, all users of the smartphones can be issued with questionnaires which aim is to figure out the reasons they prefer smartphones to iPhone. With the help of the answer, they will provide can help in knowing what makes the Apple Inc. Corporation experience stiff competition. Secondly, the interview is another vital data collection where different people can be interviewed on why they think Apple is experiencing stiff competition from Nokia and Samsung. Furthermore, observation will help in understanding the consumer behavior through figuring out what type of cell phones most people are using and why they prefer it over the other type of phone. In this case, it will be a comparison between Samsung, Nokia, and iPhone.
The data collection method will generate reliable results if most of the outcomes from the different methods of data collection are consistent. The consistency of that data makes it reliable for use by the researcher to make the judgment over a certain issue. In this case of reliability, the data collection method or tool will be figured to determine whether it measures what it was intended to measure as per the researcher. Here are different general estimators of the reliability of the data collection method, namely: observer; test-retest; parallel-forms; and internal consistency reliability (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006). Thus, the degree at which various observers are giving consistent answers will rule out if the data collection method is reliable or not. On the other hand, the data collection method will be termed as valid if it measures what it was supposed to measures. The key thing assessed in validity is an accuracy of the data collection method or instrument.
Reference
Finkle, T. A., & Mallin, M. L. (2010). Steve Jobs and Apple, Inc. Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 16(7), 31.
Kothari, C. R. (2004). Research methodology: Methods and techniques. New Age International.
O'Grady, J. D. (2009). Apple Inc. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.
Sapsford, R., & Jupp, V. (Eds.). (2006). Data collection and analysis. Sage.
