Honda(a)

Competitive Strategy

Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Apple Inc., 2008

Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Apple Inc., 2008

Answer 1: Apple had the following competitive advantage over other firms : 1. Value – A first comer advantage to the "usable" PC market 2. Rareness – Controlled the only significant alternative to the IBM standard 3. Imitability –

1. 2. 3. 4.

Apple Computers developed their products from scratch through technology innovations done in-house, Not possible for competitors to imitate the user friendliness, the industrial design and the technical elegance of Apple's products. Combination of superior software with unmatched hardware A loyal customer base, which allowed Apple to sell its products at a premium price

4.

1. 2.

Organization

With Steve Jobs and Sculley at the helm, Apple moved to recognize its competitive advantage, and nurtured a vision of 'changing the world through technology'. Focused on staying innovative, and brining products superior in terms of technology and design to the market

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1.

2.

3.

Answer 2 : From 1992 to 1997, Apple lost focus on its key strengths: Value to market in terms of superior technology – Instead, Apple started focusing on slashing costs, and catering to the mass market, also cutting down heavily on R&D. Imitability of Apple products– Apple licensed other companies to make Mac clones, which meant that Apple's superior products could now also be developed by other companies Cancelling of key development projects – The key R&D which would have kept Apple innovative, including the project to run Mac on Intel chips and the project for the next Mac OS-X were killed, which meant that Apple did not have any exciting product in the pipeline

Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Apple Inc., 2008

Answer 3: Yes 1. Extension of Apple's product lines beyond the PC and to phones and music players 2. Launch of products that were compatible with Windows, and Windows compatible peripherals. 3....