Apples Competitive Advantage

Apples Competitive Advantage Apples since its inauguration brought an easy to use computers to the market. So that users would not face any problems while using Apple products. Apple practiced horizontal as well as vertical integration. Apple relied on its own designs and refused to authorize its hardware to third parties. Apple used superior software which made help them to grebe the market share. Apple offered a complete package of desktop solution which includes hardware, software and other things. Apple always used typical design for its products. In the era of Spindlers (1993-1996), he opt the strategy to expand Apple products to international market. Apples competitive advantage are its control of software, Hardware, retail strategy, product differentiation and most important one is Steve Jobs strategically decision making. For the distribution system, Apple launched a website for direct sales for the first time. Apple also spent more money on its Research and Development. Apples current competitive advantages can be linked to its initial competitive advantage because users now-a-days value the user experience just like when Mac was initially introduced (Bajg, 2012). Personal Computer Industry and dynamics IBM brought PCs into mainstream in 1980s. Microsoft and Intel products dominated the personal computer industry and more people owned their personal computer. Overall industry continued to boom through early 2000s. In 2000 and on wards PCs were very fast, have more memory and storage. But the prices of PCs continuously dropped. As a result, PC manufacturers average profit margin fell down. New PC emerged as well. Also more expensive laptops gained the attraction of the market. But as the price of PCs fell down, their sales volume increased. As there is expansion of growth so competition in the market also increased (Rich, 2012). Due to the increase in competition, prices of the products fell down and it provided consumers with more options. There are five categories of Pc buyers: Home, Small and medium sized business, government and corporate education. The biggest segment is represented by home consumers. There are four main vendors of PC: HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo. There are two types of suppliers; one who make product with many sources and other make products such as microprocessors and operating system (Aquino, 2012). By viewing the PC industry it can be said that dynamics are very favorable for the Apple. There are good signs for Apple due to certain reasons. Competition is very high in today era and every company wants to provide best products or services so that customer can be retain. Mostly top four vendors are dealing with desktops and laptops. The preferred personal computers may no longer take the form of a desktop or laptop. Indeed a portion of the personal computer industry has already shifted their preference from a desktop or a laptop to a tablet or iPaD. There are many reasons for this change, including convenience and mobility. So there is chance for Apple to come up with new products and capture the market (Rich, 2012). Apple competitive position in Personal Computers Since its inception, Apples mission is to bring as easy-to-use computer, difference in design elegance to market. Apple also practiced horizontal and vertical integration instead of open system. It relied only o its own designs ad also rejected to license its hardware to the third parties. When Sculleys was the CEO during 1985-1993, Apple targeted low cost computer. Apple also made an alliance with IBM for OS development on Intel platform, but that ended without any result. One of the Apple main strength is to offer its customers a complete desktop solution; which is simply Plug and Play. Apple target market is now increasing. Because people want convenience and they need products which are easy in use (Bajg, 2012). The creation of Mac boasted Apple sales. And Mac customers allowed Apple to sell its products at a premium price. During 1993-1996 Splinder made the strategy to expand Apple to international market but it did not help Apple in long term. Steve Job took over as CEO in 1997 and restructured company on the original strategy. Jobs also launched a website for direct sale and also he increased its spending on RD to get further knowledge about the products. Exhibit 3 shows Apples worldwide PC market share from 1980-2009. In 1980 Apple has the very high market share. But with the passage of time its market share started to decline. And during 1994 market share fell down substantially. When Steve Jobs joined the company again it started to increase gradually. Now Apple is gaining market share slowly (Rich, 2012). Apples Competitive positioning in MP3 players Ipod set Apple on the high growth path. Initially iPod was the portable digital music Players based on the Mp3 standard. It has very good design, large storage and a simple user interface. Early MP3 players only stored hour music, can stored up to 1000 songs. But with the passage of time Apple launched new and innovative design one after another. In 2010, Apple has more than 70% of the MP3 market share. Gross margin for IPod is around 40% in 2007. The cost of main component is flash memory which is more than half of the billing material. In MP3 market there are very less competitors for Apple so it will easy o gain more market share for Apple. So in MP3 market Apple performance is very good and it is increasing as Apple delivers innovative designs which are very attractive to the customers (Aquino, 2012). Apple Competitive position in Smart Phones Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone and smart phone industry began. Apple smart phone Market share is high. More than 2 billion applications have been downloaded from the Apple iphone App Store. Apple mission is that iPhone gets better with every new app. Apple has just great job of continuously improving the iPhone with new features and capabilities. Also Steve Job did excellently with I Tunes and iPod. And now he is doing it with it iPhones. Apple iPhone created a new class of phone. Apple invented the market and other mobile device maker is chasing Apple. The main competitors of Apple are Google Android, Nokia and Blackberry. Apple provides the best services in iPhones (Bajg, 2012). iPad and new iPad mini iPad is the mixture produced by Apple after lending iPhone and iPod technology. iPad is the best way to experience the web. It has revolutionized traditional ways of surfing the internet. It views whole pages in portrait or landscape on the screen of large multi-touch. Its also deals with checking e-mail and sending email as well. It is also worlds largest cookbook. Storage of iPad is very great and also it has large display. It is also easy to access different books from iPad. iPad is use in businesses, education, health and consumer usage. So iPad is very useful in different areas. And its demand will be increasing in next days. As now a days consumer wants more convenience and mobility (Aquino, 2012). According to Rich (2012) iPad mini is a another amazing product launched by Apple. It has a smaller screen as compared to iPad. iPad is cheaper than iPad. Nd the reason for its cheapness is that it has no retina display. iPad mini is lighter and thinner than iPad. Also it has less powerful processor and it uses a nano SIM. It has fewer functions than iPad. But due to its size and thickness it is very easy to keep in the pocket. In future it will be very helpful for the people to some extent.

Narrative Flow Of The Current System

Narrative Flow of the Current System GO Computers opens at 8:00 AM until 7:30 PM and is open from Monday to Sunday. The persons that are involved in the company are the Manager, Technician's and the Cashier. The Manager is responsible for the overall operation of the business. He is responsible for overseeing and supervising the company's activities and employees. He hires, train and evaluate new employees. He drives the work of employees in order to run the business efficiently and make a large profit. And specializes in marketing, public relations and sales.The Manager checks the Daily Sales Report kept by the Cashier to keep track Of the products sold in a particular time. The Technician installs hardware and software systems, maintain and repair equipment's, troubleshoot various computer or laptop issues and offer technical support on-site, setup PC's for home users or fix customers faulty equipment's and prepare the cost estimates for repair or new installations. The technician is responsible in opening the shop and should be present at all times in order to attend to customers entering to get their equipment's checked or repaired.The Cashier provides the last-desk customer service by taking payments from customers in exchange of goods or services. The cashier accept and processes cash, exchanges and managing the cash drawer. The cashier is also responsible in registering products in the inventory and in making and encoding the customers receiving slip. And before the closing time, the cashier is the one who makes the Daily Sales Report. The company's workplace is divided into 2. One is the technicians repair area where all repair equipments used are found and product testing, preparing, assembling and troubleshooting takes place.Second is the cashiers work desk, it is where cash related topics occur like exchanging, purchasing and also in making the daily sales report for the profit acquired by the company on the specified date. In product registration, t he cashier opens the file document named GO Computers Inventory using Microsoft excel then encode the product's brand name, model and quantity and retail price basing in each products respective category. After encoding and finalizing the product registration, the cashier eaves the document in a specified location on the computer.For product purchase, the technician checks the unit or product and presents it to the customer to make sure that the item is working properly before leaving the establishment's premises. And makes sure that all parts included for the product to be purchased are organized and tested. On services, for customers who entered for their gadgets or equipment to be repaired by the technician they are given estimated time and cost of the repair after the checkup. If the customer agrees and go with the repair, the unit will be achieved using a receiving slip.The receiving slip is an already printed format to receive items of customers for repair. The slip has the cu stomers name, address and contact number, date of receive, number of the slip for the unit received, specifications of the unit in order to easily locate and make sure of the protection of the customers item and for organization, problem description, price and customers signature. The technician writes down using a ball pen the present date, specifications of the item with its corresponding serial numbers, description of the units problem and price given. Then the slip is handed to the customer to fill up the needed information.There are two papers used as receiving slips, one is issued for the customer the Other is for the company. The technician uses carbon paper in between both paper in writing down the needed information. Once the repair is successful, the technician burn tests the unit for the next few days to make sure the product is working properly. The customer will be contacted by the technician to inform if the repair was successful or not. If successful, the customer wil l be directed to the cashier for the receipt and moment of the service rendered. In customer payments, the company use BIRR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) cash invoice.The cash in voice is a small piece of paper used as receipt and is given to customers. Its format has the brand and name of product, quantity or the number of units, name of customer, and date of the specified time, and price of product and a blank space for cashier's signature. In encoding, the cashier writes down using a ball pen filling up all the information needed and is handed to the customer as proof that they purchased the item. And as for product warranty, the company provides a specified format to be used and given for the customer. It is called warranty slip.The warranty vary upon the category and price of the product or service. For purchased laptop or a computer set the warranty given is one year. For computer and laptop parts and accessories the warranty given is three months. And for items with price tags ranging below five hundred pesos are given two weeks of warranty. The warranty slip issued format has customers name, date, brand and name of product, products specification and serial number, quantity of product, detail price, price discounted, total price, signature of the cashier whom prepared the slip, approval signature of the technician or the manager and signature of the customer.The slip is encoded by the cashier in the computer with a file format of Microsoft excel. After filling up the required information the cashier prints out two warranty slip to be signed by the cashier, by the technician or manager present and the customer. Product exchange, the product bought by the customer will be checked by the technician. And the receipt together with the warranty slip given should be resented to the cashier in order to validate the complaint.If the product was found defective, it could either be replaced if there are available products or it would be sent back to the products r epair center to determine whether the product can be granted its warranty. And if not the product will be returned back to the customer. This privilege is available for laptops purchased only. Another option, is replacement for a new product as long as they are Of the same price and the warranty cover stated in the warranty slip is not void.For placement of product, the cashier takes the warranty and receipt of the customer and replaces it with a new receipt and warranty slip for the replaced item. But the warranty of the new product is still the same as the time when the defective unit was purchased. The inventory is divided into categories. One is name of product, retail price, quantity and date. In editing the inventory the cashier opens the file GO Computers Inventory which is in a Microsoft excel format. Then one by one adjusts the cells to add, edit and delete products. Encode number of units sold in a day in every cell.After finalizing, the cashiers saves the file document. A nd before closing, the cashier writes down the Daily sales report using a ball pen. The sales report has the present date, total profit from yesterdays report, income from services, accessories and down payment of customers, salaries and other expenses and the total profit earned for the day. In the sales report the cashier encodes the profit earned in the present day, salaries expenses, and the available cash. Then calls the manager after tallying to inform of the profit earned. After, then at 7:30 the technician closes the shop.

Food Chemistry Essay

The chemical processes that take place inside food determine its nutritional value, taste, texture and freshness. Like any other organic material, food can decompose over a period of time. The importance of food chemistry lies in its ability to counter the effects of decomposition and spoilage and extend the shelf life of foods. Food chemistry is a science that studies the chemical processes that take place in food. All food products are made of biological materials that react and interact in different ways, and under different conditions. Carbohydrates, lipids (or fats) and proteins are the main components that make up food. Other components such as enzymes, water, minerals, additives and coloring are also areas of study within food chemistry. This branch of science plays a significant role in food processing methods designed to preserve and enhance availability and quality, according to Ohio State University. An understanding of the chemical processes that take place in foods has made food supplies available on a global scale. Methods designed to counter the decomposition process are a central area of study. The principles underlying food chemistry create the methods that make it possible to harvest, preserve, distribute, store and prepare foods for human consumption, according to Ohio State University. Grocery stores are able to provide fresh milk, canned goods, microwave meals and frozen foods because of the knowledge gained through food chemistry studies. Food chemistry plays an integral role within the food science technologies that make global supplies available, according to Ohio State University. These technologies draw from biology, physics, microbiology, nutrition and engineering to put food chemistry principles into practice. The methods used to package and label end-use products must also comply with Food and Drug Administration requirements. Also of importance is the testing and experiments that go into creating flavorful foods for consumer consumption. Foods such as meats and vegetables can contain anywhere from 50 to 95 percent water content, according to Ohio State University. Water activity involves the amount of water available, or susceptible to chemical and biological reactions within a food product. The amount of water activity present can determine the likelihood that bacterial growth and spoilage will develop within food materials. Chemistry methods work to reduce the amount of water contained in a material, or else counter its effects within a food product. Food quality, consumer satisfaction and government requirements are ll factors taken into account when designing food processing and preservation methods, according to Ohio State University. And while minimal processing enables foods to retain their original nutritional content, the need to extend the shelf life of end products makes processing and preservation methods necessary. The pH level present within a food product is another variable that influences flavor, texture and freshness. A pH level refers to acidity, or the lack thereof, with high acid contents being less susceptible to decompos ition, or spoilage, than low acid content foods.

Business Plan Rice Dealer - 1616 Words

1. Executive Summary Molino Rice Dealer will be a sole proprietorship owned by John Paul B. Rabuya. The store is a start-up as the owner will rent a place. Upon paying the rental fee we will set-up a rice dealer store. It will be a standard rice dealer that offers wholesale and retail. The primary focus of our store is to supply the basic need of people. The focus of this business plan is to put forth objectives to launch operations, work efficiently and effectively, and expand internal operations giving the store the opportunity to grow with sales growth in the surrounding community. Molino Rice Dealer is ready to the next step. [pic] 1. Objectives Molino Rice Dealer has the following objectives, 1. Give†¦show more content†¦Products Molino Rice dealer will be a standard Rice dealer that offers wholesale and retail. The primary focus of our store is to supply the basic need of people. 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