Apple

Apple Inc

Assignment 5: Capstone Project – Apple Inc.

Contemporary Business – BUS 499

1. Identify the company’s mission, vision, and primary stakeholders.

Apple’s mission is a commitment to bring the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings (Hamilton, 2011). Apple’s vision is the commitment to bringing the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software, peripherals, and services (United States Securites and Exchange Commission, 2011). Apples stakeholders consist of 28,543 individuals as of record (United States Securites and Exchange Commission, 2011). But more than that, it is the millions of individuals who come to rely on Apple for employment, products and services.

2. Identify the five (5) forces of competition and how it impacts the company

a. Threat of New Entrants:

The threat of new entrance in this industry is low. Thanks to the standardization of PC components and to the economies of scale, the prices have come down significantly in this industry. In the last ten years prices have dropped 90% (Perry, 2009). This represents a great barrier to new entrants who have to decide to incur or not in the costs of entrance. The PC market is divided and occupied by big firms like Hewett Packard, Dell, Apple, Acer, Lenovo, etc. which brings a great brand identity and also a barrier to entrance.

b. Bargaining Power of Suppliers:

The bargaining power of suppliers is high. Apple´s personal computers have Intel microprocessors in its structure. Intel is the leader firm in the microprocessor industry and controls a big market share (Laptop, 2010). These chips enable Apple´s computers to be faster and to use less energy, also allow them to run a Windows operational system and its applications, this eliminates the Mac´s disadvantage of only being able to use the Macintosh OS....