Apple - Needs, Wants, Demands, Utility & Value

Apple was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne with the goal of being able to develop and sell personal computers. (Richardson & Terrell, 2008) ?On August 20, 2012, Apple?s rising stock rose the company?s value to a world-record $624 Billion. (Svensson, 2012) ?Apple offers a wide range of mobile communication and media devices, to include digital music players?. (Reuters, 2015) Some of the products offered by Apple include the iPhone, iPad, OS software and also services such as iTunes, iCloud and an App Store to name a few. Between 2005 and 2014 the number of employees of Apple rose by an astonishing 77,800 employees, 14,800 in 2005 and 92,600 in 2014 full time employees. Apple employees so many different types of specialist throughout its company; ranging from software engineers to technical advisors. The company averages paying their employees roughly eight percent above the average market salary for those jobs they fill in the company. (Payscale, 2014) With the passing of Steve Jobs in 2011, Tim Cook assumed the permanent position of CEO for Apple. A former Apple employee explains the difference between the two in one statement, ?Steve was a wartime CEO, while Tim is a peacetime CEO?. Meaning simply that Jobs led Apple in the rebuilding years and Cook is

Marketing occurs within an organisation when consumers needs, wants and demands are met with the exchange of a product (Kotler & Armstrong, 1991). The concept is organisation wide, and particularly important when new products are introduced within a market. Customer value is an important aspect of marketing, as it aids in exploring what the consumers perceived needs and wants are. Customer value can be defined as the benefits gained, and sacrifices made in order to purchase a product. The main sources of value created by the organisation are functional/instrumental value, experiential/hedonic value, symbolic/expressive value and cost/sacrifice value. In this paper we will be looking towards the fore coming Apple Watch as an example.

These are the five forces that determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market.

There are various threats in the external environment that influences Apple. Rapid technological development and change is a problem, the company might be set aside by a competitor who invents a newer technology. Tax increases have also influenced Apple. Apple’s profits went down due to new taxes. Patent breaches pose a huge threat, competitors might imitate their technology and make profit on these features. Appreciation of the dollar, Apple’s profits in foreign countries are reduced due to strengthening the dollar. The growing popularity of Android, widespread use of this operating system makes Apple’s infrastructure less attractive for customers. Increasing labor costs in Asia, the protests of workers in Asia, especially Foxconn

The iPhone proved the ability of the smartphone beyond businesses to everyday consumers, permitting users to gain easy access to email and mobile browsing. Unprecedentedly, consumers felt like their computer was mobile.

Today many companies do their business directly from the iPhones. Business people and non-business people alike are using the iPhone in order to achieve

Revenues are recognized in a net basis and only commissions they retain from each sale are reflected under the company’s financial statements.

With Apple being so far ahead of their competition, the only problem one can foresee in Apple’s future is how long they can sustain such innovation before they plateau. Apple does a phenomenal job at releasing their innovative products before their competition, but if their innovation cannot hold steady, this may lead to changes in demand for their products considerably. This can be seen with their release of the iPhone, the first successful touch screen cellular phone. Although people swarmed to the iPhone when it was first released because of its advanced technology, as the years have passed, other similar designs, including those with android and windows based operating systems, have drawn a considerable portion of the market. A clear representation of Apple’s attempt to regain some of this market can be seen when the iPhone was released to Verizon Wireless’ customers in

Analyzing the computer industry from 1995 to 2005 seemed to be like analyzing a game of chest between the major competitors. The development is noticeable and the shaping of different corporate strategies could be sensed easily thanks to the different approaches toward the movement of the industry that the companies had; some of them shaped it, some followed it and some helped it grow. In order for us to analyze the computer industry during the up said time period, we will consider porter's five forces analysis, though static, it helps improve one's understanding of the setting and the conditions of such. Porte's five forces constituted the analysis of the new entrants to the industry as the

When looking for great employees Apple strays away from the norm. Instead of looking for great salespeople who have a great track record of using sophisticated technology Apple has decided to do it differently. They look for people who love their product and enjoy using it. Apple is looking for people who, “isolate true enthusiasm and believe in the Apple products” (Jason Colquitt, 2011). Black cards are the new invention at this company. Apple has a new strategy to have their people hand out black cards t employees at other organizations. These cards have the apple emblem and have something written on each side. On the front of the

According to the wiki dictionary, “a value chain is a set of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market” (Michael E, 1985). Having a value chain is very important for companies nowadays because value chain analysis can assist companies in becoming more competitive in the intense market. Globalization decreases the time and cost between companies in different countries. It also provides convenience for companies and customers. If Chinese customers took an order on Amazon.com, they might receive the goods in less than a week including completing the economical transition. Briefly speaking, the value chain analysis is a strategy that analyzes the inner

The fourth, possession utility, “the utility of possession refers to the benefit customers derive from ownership of a company 's product once they have purchased it.” In this case, transfer ownership not only transfer the

Adopting a low-price strategy is often a key positioning technique marketers use when selling goods and services consumers do not have an emotional attachment to, like toilet paper or soap. However, technology is often priced at a premium. The strategy of high-cost, high-image marketing is adopted by Apple, whose products are traditionally more expensive than its competitors, but offer perceived added value, along with the social cache for the user of being seem as an 'Apple' type of a person. Phones often become a very personal part of someone's identity, as manifested in the way people use special ringtones, cases, and styles to express themselves.

Value is the customer's perception of all of the benefits of a product or service weighed against all the costs of acquiring and consuming it. Benefits can be functional (the performance of the product), experiential (what it feels like to use the product), and/or psychological (feelings such as self-esteem or status that result from owning a particular brand).

On the other hand, there are also contradictions of the value theory, the real essence of value revolves around the tradeoff between the benefits a customer receives from a product and the price he or she pays for it. More precisely, customer value equals to customer-perceived benefits without customer-perceived price. So, the higher the perceived benefit or the lower price of a product, the greater the likelihood that customers will choose that product. This means that, people are not solely buying a product considering a value yet also based on a low price. Since, this situation frequently happens, the marketers repeatedly fail to invest adequately to determine what the