Apple Case Study done

Table of content
Week 1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
1 Apple Case Study
Week 2…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Swot analysis
Week 3………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
SBU
Week 4………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Information system
Week 5………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Innovation
Week 6………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Approach to system development
Week 7………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Outsourcing and cloud computing
Week 8………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Assessing IT investment
Week 9………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Organisational change
Week 10………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Disaster recovery and business continuity plan
Reflection ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
References ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Week1
1 Apple Case Study

I chose to write about apple as case study but apple itself is too big so I chose to answer the questions researching about apple electronic market.
In term of gadgets, Apple product and technologies are very part of my life, there is not one day that I don’t use their products such IPhone etc… for this reason I can say that I am very familiar with this company through the daily use of their products. However this familiarity is only a customer point of view because in term of how the company is managed I have a little knowledge about it.
Apple has many rivals in the market of smart phones for each product and services they provide, a similar one is released by other companies for example apple recently released their latest phone the IPhone 6 , other companies such as Samsung and HTC have anticipated and released the S5 (Samsung ) and M8(HTC) .
The ICT is always about innovating, improving, and protecting businesses’ interest. Today, each company wants to be the leader on the market; they invest a lot of money on research and development and that allows them to innovate and release their latest products they also raise the level so that it can be a huge task for other companies to compete with them.
It should be not difficult to find information about my chosen company within the industry, for example if I want to make a research about iPhones and then compare with other rival’s smart phones , I am able to investigate because there are range of sources .

Although the information on their website is about the advantages of their product, there are many fair and honest reviews about the company and its product; therefore, I believe there is enough information about the company.
6 months before he died, Steve jobs wrote an email which highlighted the IT strategy used by apple, he suggested in the email he sent that apple should “tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem”.
Apple is well known for always bringing something new , they are one of the top companies when it comes to innovation ,every decade , they shape a market and force other companies to be more competitive , for example in the 2000’s they came up with the iPod ,not only they took advantage of MP3 player industry but they also innovated it and the credit goes to all the effort and money spent on R&D , which allow them to explore untapped markets ,However for every innovation from Apple other companies release a similar products or services ,for example, the voice command called Siri was innovative but Samsung release its own voice command or the iwatch the smartwatch , Apple’s competitors are now selling smartwatches . In one hand, Apple’s is known for its uniqueness in term of product on the hand I believe apple does not provide a distinctive product or services as their competitors sell similar products or services .

Week 2
2 Swot Analysis for Apple.

2.1
Swot
Strength
Known as the most stable OS
Customer loyalty
Unique design and products
Brand Name
Dominating most countries
Apple App store
Touch Screen Technology

Weakness
No external memory
Very expensive
Cost structure
Customer service
Opportunity
Potential and Unexploited market
More Innovation and features
Improve the actual product and services
Threats
Cheap Androids and windows
Lack of choices for customers
Technology evolving
The entrance of new companies

2.2 Strength: Customer loyalty is one of Apple’s strength (Gallo, 2012) and thanks to the hype around apple products specially the smartphones, every time a new iPhone is on the verge to be released the loyal customers speculate about what new features may be included in the new iPhone but this hype is also due to the work of the media. Apple has a Strong brand loyalty with customers who are willing to queue up for hours just to get the most recent IPhone, The telegraph.co.uk reported a comparative research on apple and blackberry customer loyalty, and the study found that 84 % of people who own an iPhone would buy an iPhone again while 48 % of blackberry would remain loyal to blackberry. The customers are not only attracted by this unique design of Apple’s products which add value to the brand name of Apple but because we also know that Apple has always commercialized high-end products in term of hardware and software.
2.3 Weakness: There are many weaknesses in apple which could be less or more significant to the company, for example the fact that apple products are very expensive is a weakness which at the same could be the results of a strength, what I mean is that if apple wants to continue to produce high-end quality products they also know it will always impact of the price which ultimately makes their product expensive to produce and the customer will eventually have to buy an expensive product. Finally, when dealing with an apple store you don’t always get a good customer service, a lot people have experience bad customer service with apple in general(Mail Online, 2013).
2.4 Opportunity: Apple is aware that there is untapped market out there where they could use their resources and invest in it (Financial Times, 2014). Market like china , India would allow to expand their audience in term of gaining new customers across the globe and it would significantly increase their sales ,however , it would also force apple to make some considerations in term of what customers they are targeting in these potential countries , considerations such as cultural differences but apple may have to be more innovative because there is different audience so this is a huge opportunity to be more innovative because a customer from America or Europe has different taste in term of features of a product compare to a customer from India or china .
2.5 Threats: Seeing new companies making their debut means that they will share the market with Apple that will have less profits (Hill and Jones, 2009).The main threats of apple are the rivals selling cheap products such as Google and Microsoft but Apple must also consider the constant change and evolution of technology which could be categorized as a threat because it will force apple keep investing more money so they can be competitive. The Lack of choice for customers is regarded as a threat.

2.6 The Five Forces analysis for Apple

(Porter, 2006).

“The five forces were elaborated in 1979 by Michael Porter , he had a theory about how forces would shape a company’s strategy .The purpose of this tool is for an organisation analyse the level of competitiveness within an industry then use the findings to use an effective strategy.
2.7 Rivalry with many competitors
Rivalry with Samsung, Google, Microsoft.
Rivalry lower profits
2.8 Threat of New Entrants Constant and rapid change of Technology Rival companies selling products as good as apple’s but with a competitive price
The fact that apple Invest a lot on R&D
The fact that each product of apple is unique
The low switching cost

2.9 Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
Supplier increasing prices
Cost of switching suppliers
2.10 Bargaining Power of Buyers:
For apple suppliers have no bargaining power because there is competition among suppliers.
2.11Threat of Substitutes:
Consumers switching to alternative

Week 3

3 Strategic Business Units

For a company to evaluate its own strategic business units, Marketers require some type of portfolio performance framework (Boone & Kurtz 2013). The Boston Consulting Group developed the SBU, it consist of four quadrant chart plotting the growth rate against the market share.
3.1 Apple's research & development as a SBU.

The success of apple is a result of the research and development strategic (Curtis &Gobham, 2005). Apple invests a lot of money in research and development because they believe that focused investments on research and development are vital to its future growth and position in the industry (Appleinsider.com, 2014).

3.2 BCG matrix

Source statista.com

According to this above chart the sales of the iPod decreased from 2006 to 2014 as they the sales of the ipad and iPhone increased.

Source theatlantic.com
This chart describes which apple products are growing and which are not.

3.3 Start: The rising start would be the iPad

3.4 Cash flow: The IPhone, without doubt, is currently the leading smartphone in the market since 2008, we have witnessed the success of the iPhone series in the mobile industry but their latest iPhone confirmed the domination of the mobile industry with record sales, the iphone 6 was a hit with a record sales , they sold 10 million on the first weekend (Forbes, 2014).

3.5 Dogs: The iPod touch is a dying product which could also be consirered obsolete product , it looks like the end life cycling is approaching .in 2012 appleinsider.com reported that Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said "has entered the final stage of its product life cycle."
3.6 Questions marks: According to appleinsider.com “Apple TV sales topped $1B in 2013, becoming Apple's fastest growing hardware”. However apple TV is not successful as iPhone or iPad but it is believed that there is hope and it is highly connected ecosystem which could a major role researcher AND Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said” "Considering the high cost involved in creating a TV supply chain, we don't expect the it to debut before the TV ecosystem improves,".

3.7 structure of the company
When Steve Jobs left Apple Inc. in 1985, the company lost its reputation as an innovative product developer, And when he returned in 1997 as CEO , he changed the structure of the company and introduced a product called the iMac which became an immediate success (Crandall, 2014) but his return was so important to Apple who has lost the value of design oriented company . And he later came up with iPod, iPhone and ipad which changed the course of many industries. According to Denning, Steve Jobs’s method was not considered to be radical; however he identified some aspects which could be considered that the company run in a “dictatorial fashion, which infringes the principle that communications should be horizontal and collaborative.” He then went on to highlight the fact that Apple is a leader in term of focusing on both making money and customer satisfactions (Denning, 2010). Before Steve Jobs passed away, he appointed Tim Cook as the new CEO, many argued that apple would not succeed without Steve Jobs; however, Apple has been doing quite well under Tim Cook, only time can tell whether the success of apple will last.

Week 4
4 Information system
McFarland’s Strategic Grid is a tool which was introduced by McFarlan et Al. (1983), it was not only used to identify the type information systems used within a company but was also to assess the business/IT alignment and how a strategy impact on the organisation as a whole . There are four different elements used by McFarland’s Strategic model.
The factory is about high operational impact; the aim is to keep the production cost low for profitability. But also aim at making improvements as performance, Strategic is about high operational impact and high strategic impact
Finally, Turnaround is about making improvements for consumers as well as to support the company, it has a low strategic. This support Quadrant is about low operational level however with a high strategic impact. The aim is to explore new technologies as Apple invest lot money on research and development and the outcome would be more opportunities in term of strategy. For example, when Apple introduced Siri the intelligent personal assistant and voice command it was an innovation as it was the first smart phone with an intelligent voice command, this was the product of an intense research and development. Apple is very enthusiast on concentrating best user experience for its customers with innovative hardware, software and services.
Week 5

5 Apple An innovative company
If I would consider apple as an innovative company, the answer to this question would be a big yes, because apple has always been a pioneer in term of innovating and introducing new product to the targeted market for a particular or general audience. Apple is the most innovative company in the world (Businessweek.com, 2014). For instance, Apple did not invent the smartphone but they have innovated the way we use a mobile phone by introducing the iPhone with the touch screen with useful applications .Although the term “smartphone” was not yet coined until 1997 ,we could say that IMB created the first smartphone and released in 1995 as the “ANGLER” , not as advanced as the present iPhone , the IMB smartphone was able to perform many tasks such as making and receiving calls ,sending emails while using the touch screen .therefore we could acknowledge apple for being innovative and for usually being one step ahead of its rivals . Although some companies are really ahead of others in term of design and innovation which make their products very attractive and that’s one the reason we are always excited before a new product is released ,however I also believe that there is a hype around some products ,for instance , every time a new iPhone is released people get excited because they cannot wait to use the new features , a new operating system and new apps while some other products are just less attractive because of their design .so innovation is a key principle to make an attractive .There are many type of I.T innovations introduced by apple and changed the way we listen or buy music such iTunes .
5.1 innovative practices are green and sustainable.
On their website, Apple Cleary states that they care about the planet and the environment, they said “that they have come up with innovative ways to minimize the environmental of raw materials by using more recycled, recycle and sustainable plant-based material.” Apple claim that they design everything for the durability, according to apple making small and lighter products is ideal for the nature. However, apple has recently faced criticism over the pollution of a river from one of apple suppliers in china.
5.2 breakthrough projects in the last 5 years
Breakthrough contactless payment technology
Apple recently introduced ApplePay a new method of payment which could potentially replace the credit and debit in the future. According to Apple we will no longer waste time searching our wallet, a single touch ID will be enough (Apple, 2014). This service has been available since October 20 2014, if you own an iPhone 5 or 6 and if you wish to use the service then you are able to pay with apple in any store.
Smart watch
The iwatch will be available in 2015, they are aiming to compete in the market of smartwatch , Apple made a smart move in term of strategy as they looking to increase the profitability . The targeted customers can range from the lovers of gadgets to people who are aiming to achieve goals in term of fitness. the watch comes with health monitor app and fitness tracker but the iwatch is not only aiming the fans of fitness , they are also targeting professionals athletes who could monitor their fitness and health .According to Apple the iwatch represent the complete picture of your fitness and activity .
Week 6
6.1 Build systems in house, buy off the shelf or commission from 3rd parties?
Apple does build system in house but also buy off the shelf a but I could not find any information whether they commission from the third parties.Every product start with a design at apple from the moment the board give the green light for a new product to be built , a start-up team is organised , while they working on this new project which is labelled as sensitive one , only the team working on product and the executive know about the architecture this is a strategy used so no information are leaked to the public otherwise the rivals would take advantage of it . After the design is completed, the production begins in China.

6.2 Service-Oriented Architecture
The SOA which stand for Service-Oriented Architecture is used for a strategic capability in term of integrating business processes, data, and organizational knowledge. Indeed, Apple does provide a Service Oriented Architecture which is the app store , there are all sorts of free applications made available for the consumer , some app are and some app you have to pay for it , this service also allows third party developpers to design and built theirs application and sell it on the app store , however if you wish to develop apps using this service then you will have to pay $ 99 for the SDK for 12 months .
6.2 Business Process Management

There are many objective in term of using BPM such as measure and monitor performance of the company , setting targets, coordinate continuous improvement , communicate strategy , align business strategy and many more . (Saxena and Bharadwaj, 2007) .Apple uses Appian a software which provide all the tools for business management software , with Appian you can access your business process on your mobile , Appian is considered to be global innovator in enterprise , this software is very popular around the globe with over 3.5 millions of users .
6.4 large systems failure
Apple never really experienced a large system failure such as Blackberry in 2011 where blackberry users have complained and most likely had consequence on their business and customers maybe that explain why blackberry is no longer in the competition as they used be . however , for apple a recent system failure which in my opinion was a minor , occurred on their cloud service , Apple reported that the service was down for some including account sign-ins , mail , storage etc… Apple did not communicate what caused the system to be unavailable for some.
Week 7
7. IT Acquisition
The R&D is critical to big companies such as Apple or Google; there is a necessity in keep investing on the research and development for new or improved products and services. For instance apple, recruit talented designers, programmers and hardware engineers and managers to maintain their position in the competition.
One way for them to acquire technology is that they collaborate with companies such as IBM but apple also design their own computers, mobile devices and more. In term of collecting data, apple and Google both the store data of their users and analyse as for the sake of their business. In 2011, both companies were gathering data of their user’s location the reported said that “Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

Companies within this industry also acquire technologies but buying or investing on potential start-ups, Google bought YouTube in the past

7.1 Company outsourcing and benefits
Apple have adopted the strategy of outsourcing theirs goods to countries like China or India for a while now because, they aimed at reducing the production cost , Chinese Manufacturers charge less , this is how apple is able to save money and make decent profits .
Benefits of outsourcing: specialised expert produce and assemble the products
Save money
Make decent profits

7.2 cloud-based services
Apple provides its own cloud computing service which is called icloud , the services was released in 2011 and has over 320 millions of users around the globe, consumers are able to save their documents , pictures or song and more . Third party ios and OSX developers use the services to work on their project.
Week8
8 Benefit Management
Tangible is defined as something that is physically touchable or easy to measure whereas intangible refer to something which is not physically present therefore more complex to measure (Hansen, Mowen and Guan, 2009).
Tangible Benefits: increasing market share
Improving data accuracy
Improving HR efficiency
Improving sales efficiency
Reduce procurement costs
Improving project management efficiency
Improving on-time delivery Intangible benefits:
Increase customer satisfaction
Improving employee morale
Improve receivables management
Reactive to changes faster
Depreciation:
Depreciation happens when a product loses value over time and indeed, Apple does experience depreciation, the main causes of depreciation are results or consequence product aging . For example the value of IPhone 4s has decreased in term of price because of iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 (plus), if you bought an iPhone 4s two years ago , the value of your phone has kept and will keep decreasing .
Opportunity Cost:
Apple opportunity take the road that has been taken , take the chance of investing on a particular market so the opportunity cost would be targeting new customers based on their preference , for example when apple released the iPhone 6 , many were expecting that they would release one type of phone , in fact they Apple had a strategy in mind attracting customers who usually opt for a larger phone such as S5 of Samsung and the M8 of HTC , by releasing two different type of phone they could increase their market share in the smartphone industry.
Break-even point:
Breakeven Point is when predicted revenue is equal to the estimated total costs; where loss ends and profit begins to accumulate. This is the when a business, product, or project is considered to have become financially viable. (BusinessDictionary.com, 2014). Apple sell attractive and high quality products, for the last few years apple enjoyed high profitability . Dominating rivals on different markets, however apple was forced to inject $1.3 billion per year the online to run the online service.

Week 9

9 I.T changes

We live in a world where the changes are occurring rapidly , there are always new ideas , new technology etc… the managers are required to be smarter if an organisation were to succeed , a t smart manager has the ability to analyse , redesign and make improvements where the business process require (Harmon, 2003).

9.1 Operating systems changes & Cloud service introduction

I have identified three types of changes which are Incremental, Organisational change and Continuous improvement. Apple uses both Incremental and Organisational change, in the last few years they have many times released and made available of upgraded versions of their operating systems for mobiles and computers devices such as iOS 8 for iPad and iPhone. Consumers who owned an iPhone 4s were able to upgrade their phone in term of software. iCloud was introduced to improve user satisfaction , consumers are now able to save their document on the cloud service and this service also provide the online sharing capability without worrying about losing data , because the desktop backup method is and always been unreliable Discuss how the identified changes have impacted on the organisation and its stakeholders. You may want to use a framework, e.g. Leavitt’s Diamond, to complete the task.
This continuous change that the company use is for their website, where minor changes are applied, this is part of their business strategy.

9.2 Leavitt’s diamond
Leavitt’s diamond tool allows a company to look at from an organisational perspective if they were to make a change , to see is made up of four main components: this model consist of four components : People, Task, Structure and Technology. The interaction among those components will play a role if the company were to succeed. The introduction of icloud had an impact on the technology level, the cloud service allow iTunes to be even more powerful with the capability of being access from anywhere and anytime (Dignan, 2011). In term of tasks, the programmers had to trained and learn a new programming language.

Week 10
10 Business continuity and disaster recovery
There is no official information released to the public by apple when it comes to plan for disasters, this type of information remain confidential, however it would be surprising if a Company such as Apple does plan disasters of any magnitude .Apple plan for everything in fact big companies such as Apple do practice risk management its part of their strategy. 40 % of businesses fail after a disaster (Snedaker, 2007).
BCP' which stand for Business Continuity plan , is strategy used by companies to predict and recognize potential threats or disaster , the aim of this strategy is to allow a business to keep operating in case a disaster occur , it is done by training the staff to use alternative tools in case a disaster strike the company . Apple employ specialist in risk Analysis, the staff are trained to be prepared in case a real disaster occur , they receive the knowledge which allow them to recognize threats and disaster .

11 Reflections on my Strategic IT Management Assignment
The aim of this assignment was to learn the challengers managers face when they are responsible to ensure the IT is used effectively and efficiently about the managerial but also Information Systems (IS) resources to assist business performance.

In the beginning I was unsure whether there was enough information about my company but internet is vast and there was in fact enough information ,I have used internet, journals , online newspapers , articles and eBooks to find potential information about my chosen company. The assignment was challenging because some questions were difficult to answer not only because the information was hidden or unfindable but some questions were not applicable to the company. However, the weekly exercises were helpful as I was able to understand the idea and then I would apply to my company and answer the question. This assignment allowed me to gain a lot of knowledge and research skills, to understand how a company operates and implement business and IT strategies. I have learnt how businesses use tools to measure or improve their business performances. I have also understood the importance of IT to business and business to I.T and how managers face many challengers in improving the business.

The materials that was made available by our lecturer for use were also very helpful, it allowed to understand the concept of Strategic IT Management, such as I.T Business Alignment, organizational changes .
Although this assignment allowed to gain knowledge about this topic through reading and researches , I’m unsure whether my knowledge about Strategic IT Management is enough for working in the type of environment perhaps , I will need to study more .This assignment allowed to grow my thoughts, gain knowledge about using tools and improved my research skills.

In conclusion , the weekly task was a challenge, which allowed me to gain further knowledge in information technology but more specifically in the use of IT with business in term , how IT help in term of business processing .

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