In the present business world, the global marketing plays the crucial factor. In present days, the international business as well as globalization has developed the business, management process, and economy. In the competitive market, different companies are applying different strategies to develop the business in the international market (Grant 2016). For the assessment, Apple Inc. is chosen which has the number 1 position in the international business. Apple Inc is the renowned name in the smart phone sector. The assignment discusses about the external influence on the international business as well as the strategies of the firm. The value chain analysis is done. The assignment focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of international business. In case of the global competitive strategy, star analysis plays an important role. The elements of star analysis are discussed.
The competitive advantages of Apple Inc depend on the five main drivers that are the home country, supplier countries, customer countries, partner countries, and competitor countries. Headquarter of Apple Inc is in California, which designs as well as develops their products. Steve jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak founded the Apple Inc in 1977. In present days, they have expanded their business in America, Europe, Greater China, Japan, and Asia Pacific regions, which are the customer country as well as supply country. The partner country of Apple Inc in present days is India. The products of Apple are outsourced for manufacturing unit, which is based in Asia. The operations of Apple include various segments that are America, Europe, Greater China, Japan, and Asia Pacific regions (Seabrooke and Wigan 2014). The mission of Apple Inc is “man is the creator of changes in this world. As such, he should be above systems and structures, and not subordinate to them” (Contacts and Hope 2017) Apple is a successful company as it follows the vision statement of the company. They mainly purchase the raw materials from different countries, in which they purchase their products as well. They always give preference to the demand of the customers.
They use high quality material in their products so that the customer can get satisfaction after using the products. They have strong income distribution infrastructure and their products are pocket friendly for the high and medium income people. The human resource management of apple Inc is very developed. The developed human resource management provides various benefits to the employees of Apple Inc. The HRM of Apple Inc tries to identify as well as develop the best talent of the industry. They always motivate their employees so that they can improve their talent and gain knowledge. The HR disciplines of Apple include HR management, staffing, compensation, employee relations, benefits, training and development, and human resource information service (Clarke and Boersma 2017). Apple provides various benefits to their employees, which include health, life, and disability benefits. They offer their employees flex benefits. This allows the employees to purchase various benefits, which fits to the personal needs. Other benefits are financial education, computer discounts, time to relax, health and fitness program. Apple Inc offers the wide variety of educational classes, which can help the employees so that they can meet the financial goals of the organization (Hofmann et al. 2014).
The local responsiveness need to seek the cost reduction via the scale economics. It is necessary to convey the consumer trends as well as universal needs. It is necessary to provide the uniform service to the international sourcing. They need to monitor the global competitors and respond according to it so that they can develop their strategies. Moreover, they need to take the advantage of the media with the cross- national reach. According to Contacts and Hope (2017), they need to find out the local talents so that they can attract more customers from the local places. They need to increase the rate of the local customers; hence they can launch various offers for the customers. As mentioned by Grant (2016), Apple need to adjust with the cultural difference and meet with the host government to avoid the issues related to the government. They need to know the rules and regulation of the countries before entering in the new places.
Different external factors influence the strategy of the international business. The external influence can affect the management vision, strategy, and firm performance. The external influence may include competitive dynamics, economic condition, political, legal, regulatory environment, technological standards and trends, culture orientation, and customer expectations (Yoffie and Cusumano 2015). Apple applies successful strategies to differentiate their products from other products of other companies in market. They are concerned about the unique features and characteristics, superior quality, innovation, and premium price of products.
The value chain management of Apple Inc is strong. The value chain analysis of Apple Inc is the analytical framework that helps to identify the business activities and provide the completive advantage to the business. Inbound logistics: Apple Inc has hundreds of suppliers globally (Hofmann et al. 2014). They maintain the supply chain management very easily.
Figure 1: Apple operations roadmap
(Source: Hofmann et al. 2014)
The inbound logistic has a connection with the economic scale. The outbound logistic of Apple Inc includes warehousing and distribution of the products like iPhone, iPads, and computers. They use the lower cost resources for the outsourcing. For the marketing and sales, Apple Inc use seven sales channels that are Apple retail stores, Apple online stores, direct sale force, third- party cellular network carriers, wholesalers, retailers, and Value- added reseller. However, from the previous time, the budget of the advertising system has increased. However, Apple Inc is famous for the quality of the customer care. They use three stages to retain the customer satisfaction that are pre- purchase, at the time of purchase, and post- purchase. They hire new employees so that they can expand their business. However, proper training is given to the young male and female employees. According to Martins, Rindova and Greenbaum (2015), the post- purchase customer service of Apple Inc is very impressive. The support activities provide the competitive advantage to the company. This includes the procurement, technological development, human resource management, and firm infrastructure (Seabrooke and Wigan 2014).
Figure 2: The strategy of international business
(Source: Zikmund et al. 2013)
Apple Inc provides various discount offers on the hardware and software of Apple for the employees. This helps the employees to be familiar with the products. The health and fitness program for the employees are very attractive. Apple provides the health education plan to the employees so that they can lead a healthy lifestyle. Apple offer saving and investment plan also for their employees. They share the annual profit with their employees. They match 6% of the contributed salary paying approximately 50% for the first five years whereas 100% after it (Kane et al. 2015). The matching contribution of Apple Inc is immediate along with the contribution of the employees. They offer the online investment advice so that the employees can expand their portfolio. The stock purchase plan of Apple Inc offers the employees opportunities so that they can purchase the Apple stock in every six months at 15% discount. The employees get 10% payroll at the time of enrollment period. Other offers that the human resource management of Apple Inc provide are the casual work environment, cool products at particular price, medical plan, summer events, and salary and relocation assistance (Bergvall-Kåreborn and Howcroft 2013).
Figure 3: Star analysis
(Source: Sanchirico 2014)
To achieve the global competitive advantage, various factors play the important role. They are efficiency, flexibility, and learning. The efficiency helps to build the efficient international supply chain. Flexibility is to develop and manage the diverse country that reduces the particular risks and increase the opportunities of the company. The strategy helps to provide ability to learn different skills from the international exposure as well as exploit the learning on the world wide basis (Haslam et al. 2015). It is necessary to check the localization on the global scale, economic scale. The economies of scope show that the average total cost of the production of the company decreases at the time of increasing the variety of the produced goods. This can increase the geographical reach of the core competencies. The global integration includes the coordination of the value chain activities of the company across the world so that they can achieve the worldwide efficiency, cross- fertilization as well as synergy to take the maximum advantage of the similarities in between the countries (Haslamet al. 2015).
Based on the above discussion, it can be said that they maintain the supply chain management very easily. They apply strategic plan to maintain the supply chain management. The economies of scope show that the average total cost of the production of the company decreases at the time of increasing the variety of the produced goods. They hire new employees so that they can expand their business. However, proper training is given to the young male and female employees so that they can work properly. Apple Inc offers the wide variety of educational classes, which can help the employees so that they can meet the financial goals of the organization. It can be expected that the international business can help Apple Inc to expand their business.
References
Bergvall-Kåreborn, B. and Howcroft, D., 2013, December. The Apple business model: Crowdsourcing mobile applications. In Accounting Forum(Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 280-289). Elsevier.
Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., 2017. The governance of global value chains: unresolved human rights, environmental and ethical dilemmas in the apple supply chain. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(1), pp.111-131.
Contacts, C. and Hope, C. 2017. Apple company and contact information. [online] Computerhope.com. Available at: https://www.computerhope.com/comp/apple.htm [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Haslam, C., Tsitsianis, N., Andersson, T. and Gleadle, P., 2015. Accounting for business models: Increasing the visibility of stakeholders. Journal of Business Models, 3(1).
Hofmann, H., Busse, C., Bode, C. and Henke, M., 2014. Sustainability?related supply chain risks: conceptualization and management. Business Strategy and the Environment, 23(3), pp.160-172.
Kane, G.C., Palmer, D., Phillips, A.N., Kiron, Dand B. uckley, N., 2015. Strategy, not technology, drives digital transformation. MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte University Press, 14.
Martins, L.L., Rindova, V.P. and Greenbaum, B.E., 2015. Unlocking the hidden value of concepts: a cognitive approach to business model innovation. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 9(1), pp.99-117.
Sanchirico, C.W., 2014. As American as Apple Inc.: international tax and ownership nationality. Tax L. Rev., 68, p.207.
Seabrooke, L. and Wigan, D., 2014. Global wealth chains in the international political economy. Review of International Political Economy, 21(1), pp.257-263.
Yoffie, D.B. and Cusumano, M.A., 2015. Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. HarperBusiness.
Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. and Griffin, M., 2013. Business research methods. Cengage Learning.
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