Discuss about factors affecting the implementation of the plan and these include: Money,people,time, etc.However the marketing planning process or steps should precede the application of the marketing mix elements. You are expected to discuss the ethical issues affecting apple and this should include the narketing mix elements as a basis?
Apple Inc. is considered as the World’s topmost innovative industry and always works for the development in initiating new products. Boston Consulting Group is a company that performs surveys for listing the most innovative technological industry among 50 companies in the same field since 2005 and Apple Inc. has topped the list ever since their establishment and remains in the same position until now with 7% profit in their revenue (www.bcgperspectives.com 2015). This company spends 35% of their annual profit in Research and Development segment in order to bring changes for the development of their products and introducing new products that the world is waiting for to experience.
Image 1: BCG perspective of the Top 50 Most Innovative Companies
(Source: www.bcgperspectives.com, 2015)
The world is demanding a lot new products that could fulfill their patron’s requirement in terms of technology as well as relies on their good looks. Starting their technological industry with the telecom products Apple Inc. has already introduced clock gadgets as part of their innovation. However, Jun and Sung Park (2013) depicts that to fulfill the needs of the further innovations Apple needs to bring more innovation in their research and as a consequence Apple has started planning for further gadgets. They took initiative for Apple Black Hole Concept for the coming year of 2020. According to Pisano (2015) the innovation reflects in the concept that when the user open their hand the central ball of the phonic device will levitate and all the functionalities can be easily performed in the midair with the help of the holographic technology.
Image 2: Apple Black hole concept
(Source: Techulator, 2012)
As a part of the planned innovation for the year 2018, Apple will innovate their iPhone with a curved screen and will touch to endeavor their customer’s desire on good looking gadgets. Cooper, (2013) suggested that Apple should consider an evaluation for achieving knowledge regarding the current technological requirement. Bearing in mind Apple Inc. can also bring innovation in their telephonic device as Glassy phones that remain transparent in their idle state. Apple can also take initiatives for the Wrist PC after innovate iWatch (Peplow2013). Here the Apple can take initiative to provide ease to their customers so that they do not have to take their laptops with them. Regarding the laptop, Apple also introduces the sleekest gadget, which is 24% thinner than the Mac AirBook.
Image 3 : Innivative products – Transparent smartphones, Flexible smart phones, Smart Fingers
(Source : Garnier, 2014)
Apple Inc. can also innovate Solar iWatch in support to their Wireless Charging Technology. Berry and Schleser (2014) illustrates that achieving a level of such a brand fascination among their consumers where people are ready to sell their kidneys to purchase Apple products, Apple Inc. can bring new products like Smart-Phone Vehicles and Smart Fingers. Apple can also add innovation by making these products a battery or solar run creation.
Therefore, Smart-Phone Vehicles will be able to target people who emphasize more on the fitness and eco-friendliness and will use both in day or low lights. Smart Fingers will be able to target academic institutions for estimating general calculation like breadth, height and width of a product (Barth 2013).These two new ideas will be beneficial for the Apple Inc.as they can also target Sportspersons and academic institutions.
Lakhani et al.(2012) portrays that Apple products though meet the requirement of their user’s need they are very expensive and hence remain isolated from a portion of market, those who cannot afford their product. Other competitors like Samsung and Nokia has successfully targeted both upper and lower market segments with the help of low pricing strategies. . Hence, this criteria prohibits Apple for achieving the ultimate profit level .The User themselves have a concept that if an Apple product like Apple Black Hole Concept took ten more years to release, it will definitely be a super-expensive product. Thus, Nwosu and Mason (2012) depicts that Apple Inc. should adopt a market mix considering the balance among their Pricing, Promotion and Distribution strategy in order to attract people in all possible markets. In this way, Apple will fulfill the major two concepts for brand image and customer loyalty by providing a high-tech market in an affordable range.
Pricing: Armstrong et al.(2014) thought that Apple Inc. primarily focused on a limited range of products by targeting the high end customers only, which can spend any cost to purchase their projects and hence gives priority to achieve more profit. Proceeding in the way of innovation and introducing new hi-tech products for their customers by fabricating a wide range of advanced goods makes it impractical for Apple to keep the pricing low. However, they should adopt the strategy of lowering their previous products so that the customers who cannot afford their harvest at prior stages can purchase the same after a time interval.
Distribution: Apple should apply a strategy where they provide an additional 100 US Dollar discount on purchasing from genuine Apple Store. This way they can encourage clients to purchase from the authentic superstore. The Apple Inc. can also associated with online stores targeting the consumers especially youngsters who are fascinated by the technological devices and prefer to shop from their comfortable zone (Sun2014). In addition to that, to boost up their sale in other small markets Apple must develop a collaborative commerce with small retailers.
Image 4: Distribution procedure of Apple
(Source: Techulator, 2012)
Communication Mix: The communication mix concerning Apple comprises of effective advertising strategy for attracting customers via entertainment media like – T.V. commercials, audio advertisement etc. This helps Apple to provide information to the target audience. In accordance with their high pricing products, it is obligatory for Apple to target well-established institute, which additionally proves to be beneficial by building a strong relationships with them (Van Reijen et al. 2014).They can also take initiative to aware the customers about the benefits of their company’s product. They can also utilize their brand fascination for increasing their sale.
Many factors affect the marketing plans of the Apple that is considered crucial for them in order to evaluate an effective strategy for the development of the selected organization. Well-known industries like Apple Inc. also have some factors that affect the effective marketing strategies. Some of these factors are:
Money: The involvement of the liquid cash the Apple Inc. invests in the initial stages for commencing their business with enough resources requires effort. These investments are important for manufacturing startup. Apple Inc. requires a huge sum of amount of around $5,000,000 to initiate their innovating products in the markets. Other crucial Stakeholders like owner co-owner Tim Cook also collaborators will also have to invest in the procedure with $150,000 into the company. This star-up investment will be used to cover the manufacturing built out capital, equipment costs, utilities and Taxation cost and most importantly building software and initial operating capital.
People:. According to their strategic plans, they fabricate very expensive products and hence it is rather impossible for middle class person especially in developing countries shrinking the potential market of Apple (Shin2015). Another reason that affect the financial condition of the overseas people like in China and Europe when the exchange rate becomes high and that results in the disability of the customers to purchase their items. There are many people in the society who are not too fond of the technological products and hence do not prefer to invest on such items like advanced telecom devices etc. (Percy2014). Another group of community prefers another brand as they are getting additional feature in the similar products in an affordable price range with equal guarantee.
Time: A crucial factor to emphasize on is the time by which the innovative product gains desired popularity. However, Lobel et al.(2015) illustrates that Apple’s new products can popularity within a short interval say 6 months of their release, of time due to their existing brand image and other is that they initiates the approach that will less harmful to the environment. Designing solar or eco-friendly products not only helps in attracting environment concerned person; however, also follows the ethical consideration that will lessen the overall adverse impact on the atmosphere. Exampling a scenario where the iPhone6 is adopted as the most popular iPhone Model that gains popularity in the 3rd month of their release and attain $ 10.7 Million on the products sale (Lee et al. 2014).
Every business after manufacturing products have some set of expectation concerning the business relationship and how the operations will be conducted Ethical issues that affect the marketing plan of the Apple Inc. is defined as follows:
Apple Inc. considered the Market Research Ethics that includes their product’s privacy and labelling so that the rivalry companies will not get knowledge about their future plans. Opting for Market Audience Ethics also another aspect the Apple is focusing on, that illustrates rejection of target group like Transgender person, plus sized markets or ethnic minority groups etc.
Furthermore, Hsu and Lin (2015) stated that, high reputation companies like Apple Inc. also followed the Promotion Ethics that discourages the negative advertising techniques that will somehow can motivates the individual to harm the environment if not taken the advertisements in a correct way. As a result, the concerned company chooses straight forward advertisements without any offensive movements. Delivery Channels Ethics gains the most of the attention nowadays. Moreover, Shin (2015) stated that Apple also follows this ethics for not promoting their advertisement in the spam mails of the users and causes a result to infuriate them. Product Pricing Ethics is the ultimate factor that the Apple follows which comprises of the practice to lower the price of the products after gain their profit. This lowering in price will not only drive out the existing competitors out of the market; however, it also results in the creation of barrier for potentially new contenders.
A purchasing practice and service utilization that minimizes the environmental and social damage by avoiding products that hampers the society depicts the Consumer ethics. These are the consumers giving more value to the safety of the environment. Just like in the previous year 2015, Apple Inc. received the Worst Rating of Environmental Reporting (Ethicalconsumer.org 2016). The adversity become higher when the company does not show any desired movements for future amendments in the environmental performance. The particular news makes the end-customers to avoid their products; however, in the later stages Apple Inc. reported that they desire to use 100% of the renewable electricity (Gobble 2013).
Their marketing strategies also get affected when the company got the blame for not paying the tax and repeatedly avoiding the situation in the same year of 2015 (Ethicalconsumer.org, 2016). In 2014 noticed in a report printed by China Labour Watch bring forward numerous numbers of health and environmental problems that encourages the customer right violation in the set up factories for Apple in China. Liedtke and Hohmann (2015) portrays that these violations are Dumping of the hazardous industrial fluids into the nearby river bodies, extra working hours for the labors if the factories and most importantly unsatisfactory personal protective equipment(PPE) like metal cutting fluids etc. (Ethicalconsumer.org 2016). All this factors affect their marketing plans by making the end-customers not to opt their products.
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Garnier, M. (2014).Apple about to make texting while walking safer? | L’Atelier : Accelerating Innovation. [online] Atelier.net. Available at: https://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/apple-about-make-texting-while-walking-safer_428413
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