Complementary Strategies For Turnaround Situations

Apple's Complementary Strategies

Discuss about the Complementary Strategies Turnaround Situations.

Apple Company is a manufacturing company that focuses mainly in consumer electronic based products. Being a worldwide known company for various electronics products, it faces a great competition from other companies like Samsung, LG, Nokia and Microsoft. However, Apple stands out in the market against its competitors through focusing more on broad product differentiation. The firm also produces user friendly and well-designed products that enables it cover a wider market. In this way, the company is able to maintain market leadership as high-value business and high-end company. (Pretorius, 2008) According to the case study, Apple company adopted various strategies in order to penetrate and survive in the competitive market of consumer electronics.

 First, the company built a good reputation with its customers by  making  personal computers that were easy to use compared to what their competitors produced though they priced it higher than their competitors price, however this did not made the company not to sell since most customers mainly look at the quality of the product and not only the price. This strategy was as a result of visiting Xerox company research laboratories  by founders of Apple where they observed that Xerox had developed an early version of computer interface screen with drop-down screen  widely used by personal computer users today. They decided to adapt this strategy in order to make personal computers that are easy to use compared to their competitor’s computers that still have complicated technical interface features.(Kotorov, 2001)

Secondly, Apple manufactured innovative computers and other products that are more competitive like the Mac2, Powerbooks and Pagemaker, a world’s firstclass desktop publishing programs. Page maker has remained to be the leading publishing program of its own unique kind widely used  around the world in publishing and fashion houses. This strategy has made the company to remain exclusive because most consumers nowadays need technological advanced products which they believe they are the most effective to use .the strategy have also enable the company to have a specialist market where it has a great competitive advantage.

In 2000, Apple adopted another new strategy that enabled the company in penetrating the competitive market and exploit the growing world market of personal electronic devices including the mp3 music players, CD players and digital cameras. They launch their own version of the three products and changed  them to user friendly software and of high value in order to make their product unique and highly competitive. This innovative idea helps the company grow as well as developing its market hence making it more competent. This is as a result of a good reputation that the company created by manufacturing the unique products that when sold to customers they feel special as they believe no other company had produced such unique product.

Nokia's Strategies for Sustaining Dominance

The fourth strategy the company adopted was the launch of iPods in 2001. This is a personal music player that stores hundreds of CDs, later in 2003 and 2004, they launched an iTune  music store in USA and Europe respectively which was rated as most innovatory development because iTune was used widely around the world for downloading music tracks at a cheaper charge  of 99 cents. This also made Apple more competitive since there was no other company manufacturing such innovative products. Later in 2007, Apple launched iPhone, a mobile phone which has the same characteristics like iPod. This strategy helped the company penetrate the competitive market as many consumers opted for this type of phone because it is designed with characteristics that are user friendly and the mobile phone is widely available hence rated the most effective. In addition the company reduced the mobile phone price to enable it to gain a large target volume and it also expanded the company’s global market reach where competition was massive for the past many years.The iPhone mobile device however achieved a significant technical breakthrough with its touch screen feature that was highly preferred by users as compared to its competitor Nokia, which has handsets designed with fixed buttons and small screen.

Moreover, Apple launched another iPhone model in 2010 the iPhone 4 which was designed with a further technology advances. This is another strategy that has enabled Apple company remain more competitive in consumer electronic market since everyone is moving to an advanced technology world that Apple too is moving towards. Innovative products being the major point of making a company competitive in this case, it always go in hand with technology and embracing technology advancement place a company at a great opportunity of surviving in a competitive market. Therefore, Apple strategy of designing the iPhone 4 with advanced technologicalfeatures helps the company survive in the competitive market. Lastly, Apple hit back and negotiated on supply contract of  flashmemory for its iPod that were cheaper than its rivals, this strategy has eventually helped the company survive in the competitive market as the reduction in price enables the company reduce its prices of the product thus attracting more customers.

However, for Apple company to survive in the competitive electronic consumer market,it should focus more on product differentiation whereby it emphasis on manufacturing innovative products with different unique features and design compared to those of its competitors.The company should also focus on penetrating markets especially on areas where it is limited to reach and expand on its market coverage for it to survive in the competitive market environment and increase growth and company development. (Chesnokova, Radina and Serdyuk, 2014)

Competitive Strategies

In order for Nokia to sustain its initial dominance in the technology industry, the firm could have done the following; first, the firm could enforce strategies that ensuresit remains competitive in the industry. The main strategy it could have put in place is competitive strategy. This is a strategy that should greatly evolve in the firm which is high technology Company where industries, market and technology changes rapidly. The strategy helps a company to be competent in the industry in order to gain competitive advantage over other firms. In this case, Nokia could set have set a strategy whereby the firm set a long term direction of the products it intends to produce and the technology to use. After setting the direction, the firm then determine the market of the product to enable the firm determine what price to use for the product and still remaining competitive.The company could also put in place technology strategy which could have guided the firm in developing and acquire new technological advances to enable it make advanced device design and stand out over its competitors.

Nokia could also set a good market strategy to help differentiate its products from that of its competitors, the market segments of the products and the customer’s needs. Producing its own unique product without an imitation of its competitor’s products could have enabled the firm dominate the market.this strategy could help Nokia succeed by manufacturing unique mobile products with advanced technology features which will make customers feel they are offered something unique and special that other firms do not offer, in the long run building a good reputation that will help Nokia sustain its dominance in the technology industry. In addition, for the firm to sustain its initial dominance, it could have made sure to be the first to market any new product identified in technology field. This is because, being first to market any new innovative product enables a firm built a good reputation as a market leader that in the long run attracts more customers and increases its marketing effectiveness. The reputation will also make the company to remain top competitor once it has become a consistent market leader.  (Burgelman, Christensen and Wheelwright, 2009)

Lastly, the firm could also engage in producing well designed products which are user friendly that leads the company to cover a broader market.By doing that, the company could have been able to maintain market leadership as high-value business  and high-end company just like what its competitor Apple does. Nokia could also employ strategic planning to help identify potential problem the firm faces in the technology industry that hinders the company from dominating the market. This will in turn enable the firm create a framework to help achieve its goals of dominating the technology industry. (Berman and Hagan, 2006)

References

Burgelman, R., Christensen, C. and Wheelwright, S. (2009). Strategic management of technology and innovation. 1st ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Berman, S. and Hagan, J. (2006). How technology?driven business strategy can spur innovation and growth. Strategy & Leadership, 34(2), pp.28-34.

Chesnokova, A., Radina, O. and Serdyuk, R. (2014).Consumer Loyalty as a Factor of Establishing the Competitive Advantages in a Company under the Market Conditions. Asian Social Science, 10(23)

Kotorov, R. (2001). The strategy wheel: A method for analysis and benchmarking for competitive strategy. Competitive Intelligence Review, 12(3), pp.21-30

Pretorius, M. (2008).When Porter's generic strategies are not enough: complementary strategies for turnaround situations. Journal of Business Strategy, 29(6), pp.19-28