英语论文网

ategy has been in the mobile phone industry.

As can be observed, even though the market leaders such as Nokia, Samsung and LG combined are selling an average of 23 units to every unit of an iPhone sold; Apple is still drawing in an astounding 39% of the industry total profits compared to the 32% earned by Nokia, Samsung and LG combined ( Sigal, 2010).

A real world view of Apple's competitive strategy in practice does raise an interesting issue; for instance, applying a structuralist approach such as Porter's differentiation strategy to Apple fits appropriately because Apple does indeed differentiate its products and services to gain a competitive advantage. But could it simultaneously be a cost leader? A recent study by Steve Cheney of Business Insider shows that in the span of the last four years Apple spent a total of about $4.6 billion on research and development (R&D) while competitors in the spent significantly higher in the same timespan - Microsoft ($31 billion), Cisco ($19 billion) and Intel ($23 billion) (Cheney,2010).

Perhaps Apple's ability defy conventional strategies may be a sign of how rapidly innovative products and business models are changing the traditional business landscape and so, while Porter's differentiation strategy is still applicable, it may not be capable of providing a sufficient explanation of Apple's competitive strategy in today's business environment.

建议-Recommendations

As a company, Apple has to continue to innovate in order to maintain a competitive advantage because its businesses are highly dependent on rapidly changing technologies and are also situated in dynamic industries where the average lifespan of products runs from about 7 to 8 months. These industries experience very high levels of competition due to the presence of many well-established players and so in order for Apple to survive it cannot afford to be complacent.

Though Apple consistently creates innovative products, it would be appropriate for it to aware of the risk of its products canibalizing on each other. For instance, the introduction of the iPad has garnered a large amount of praise for Apple and has increased it profit margins, recent studies show that the iPad phenomenom might be affecting the sales of traditional PCs or even Macs.

Apple is well known for developing products that are intuitively user friendly and a recommendation could be for them to continue to tailor their products in even simpler ways that make it easier for users of other platforms/software to build a comfort level that attracts them to Apple's products.This could be especially true in the PC industry where traditional users of Microsoft usually have a difficult time adjusting/switching to the Mac, better steps could be taken to make the transition from PC to Macs easier.

Though Apple's foray into the TV business has met with less success compared to its other initiatives and products, one could argue that the TV industry still holds a lot of potential especially in a continually integrative media environment where media can be easily shared across various platforms and devices. The recommendation here is for Apple to look at re-launching Apple TV but this time preferably building its own high resolution flat screen TVs embedded with the functionalities of the original Apple TV device.

结论-Conclusion<