Introduction
The U.K. is a significantly special market for business establishments providing consumer items. The region comprises four states: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, all with stable political, social, and political systems. The U.K. generally features a highly industrialized economy and consumption-oriented citizens. Moreover, Apple is a 1970s American organisation and the ultimate smartphone and personal computers industry leader. The company operates in about twenty countries internationally and is a major introducer of new tech. Accordingly, the U.K. market faces substantial issues while competition in the economy grows gradually, which informs the present strategic analysis of the firm’s operations in the marketplace.
External Environment Analysis
The PESTEL analysis provides information about a firm’s external macro elements that affect operations. Political, social, economic, environmental, technological, and legal traits are the basic features of the PESTEL model (Marinović-Matović and Arsić, 2020). The following discussion covers two factors under each PESTEL component in Appendix 1.
Political Factors
The U.K. is a highly stable democracy with mature political systems. The region elects its leaders democratically through voting (Pan, Chen, and Zhan, 2019). The U.K. uses laws to secure its employees, culture, and taxation policies (Gilmour, 2022). The matter compels Apple to employ locals who understand the market’s regulations for compliance issues.
Economic Factors
The U.K. has low inflation and unemployment rates relative to many other markets where Apple operates. The area’s unemployment rate of 3.7% remains steady and within expectations over time (Mbah and Wasum, 2022). The U.K.’s inflation rate was 2.6% in 2021 (Schoon, 2020). The near-to-the-ground inflation and unemployment rates ensure high purchasing power, favourable for Apple’s intermittent innovation.
Social Factors
The U.K.’s large young stars population and unmatched smartphone demand notably affect Apple’s business in the area. About 60% of the U.K. inhabitants are below sixty years (Youth Health Data, 2022). The group exhibits cult-like smart device consumption regarding the newest technology in the market (Martín-Martín et al., 2021). The two aspects inform Apple’s constant search for new technological inventions.
Technological Factors
The ‘app’ economy and tech battles impact Apple’s operations in the U.K. substantially. Most young people in the region depend on mobile apps to survive, as per Tsai et al. (2022). This aspect leads to multiple emergent consumer needs that require incessant solutions.
Environmental Factors
Environmental conservation concerns and renewable energy adoption are leading ecological features affecting Apple’s activities in the U.K. The region has stringent environmental protection laws (Inês et al., 2020). Apple must comprehend emergent laws regarding the matter for continued compliance.
Legal Factors
Labour laws and import-export regulations affect Apple’s operations in the U.K. Carriere (2020) notes that labour unions are real in the region. The U.K. operates the European Commission’s 2018 proposal that charge American tech firms more taxes (Svensson-Hoglund et al., 2021). The two elements require Apple to plan effectively on cost reduction tactics to ensure profitability.
Micro Environment Analysis
Porter provides a five-force framework for analyzing an organisation’s micro-economic conditions. According to Juliana and Nyoman (2019), micro refers to the industry-based parameters that affect players operating within that specific sector. Appendix 2 provides a summary of the micro environment factors analysis.
The Threat to Market Entry
Apple operates in the electronics industry of the U.K., where the multinational serves as the market leader. The sector requires high capital that many young firms lack, making threat from new market entrants low.
Power of Suppliers
The smart devices sector requires numerous elements to make quality functional products that meet consumer expectations. For example, Apple requires gold and rare elements to manufacture the iPhone (Balaram, 2019). Most of the items come mainly from a limited number of suppliers globally, making the power of suppliers high.
Threat of Substitutes
Apple supplies the U.K. market with smartphones, P.C.s, and other services, such as the online music store. The company is not a monopoly in the industry, despite being the sole innovator of such products. Samsung and other Chinese electronics organisations provide quality devices that can replace those of Apple (Stone et al., 2020). However, the competitors’ inability to match Apple’s continuous innovation strategy makes this factor’s influence moderate.
Rivalry
Apple faces almost cut-throat competition in the U.K. market. Samsung is the peculiar competitor that follows the firm’s steps keenly (Meena and Geng, 2022). Huawei and Techno are the other competitors in the U.K. market (Miles et al., 2019). Apple’s continuous innovation strategy cushions the firm substantially from this threat, which the firm must continue implementing.
Power of Buyers
The U.K. electronics customers embrace quality and modernity in consumer products. Any supplier meeting these aspects, plus the affordability and durability facets, wins the patrons substantially (Meena and Geng, 2022). Apple enjoys an unmatched market share due to the firm’s ability to sustain its requirements. However, some buyers, especially the middle-aged and elderly, gradually shy away from acquiring new phones every time, making the risk moderate to high.
Internal Analysis
The VRIO analysis shows an organisation’s internal capabilities that a firm can use to extend its competitiveness. According to Appendix 4, Apple exhibits at least eight core competencies that can be sustained for long-term competitive benefits. The seven aspects have ticks across the VRIO columns in the table. The first core aptitude concerns Apple’s worldwide popular exceptional brand, which is highly valuable, rare, and hard to imitate, and has all the operations organized to produce premium items. Equally, the company’s rapid innovation system is a unique feature that distinguishes it from competitors. The capability allows Apple to sustain an extraordinary degree of revolution that is particularly distinguished in hardware and software products such as the iPhone and iOS (Manser, Dahl, and Peltier, 2021). Equally, producing complementary items is a distinctive capability for Apple Inc. Thus, Apple’s products promote and match each other, unlike many other competitors.
Customers who prefer Apple’s premium items can access an iPhone and a MacBook for a complete communication solution. Furthermore, having these two products automatically leads the patrons to enjoy a rare entertainment experience through iTunes creativity (Palusuk, Koles, and Hasan, 2019). The three products complement each other, meaning one product sells the other. Samsung, Techno, and Huawei do not have these balancing features, making Apple a complete consumer package. Apple Inc. further has a sustained competitive benefit involving accessibility to customers’ information. The company knows the model and type of device their patrons use and app utilization based on the individual operators’ settings. The acquired data helps Apple design new innovative products that are unique from those of the competitors. The knowledge further informs the organisation’s marketing strategies and planning to realize further competitiveness.
Siri is Apple’s unique artificial intelligence with unmatched competency among tech companies. The capability makes it hard for even governments to access personal consumer data, thus providing a rare security that serves as Apple’s core proficiency. The organisation’s worldwide distribution network for the produced items constitutes core competencies for the firm. Unlike some competitors, Apple Inc. has reliable, strategically located official merchants and vendors. The organisation maintains highly coordinated raw material sourcing agents in different parts of the world, who establish deals with grass root producers of the essential elements to support a lean supply chain system. The system streamlines Apple’s strategic procedures and determinations to reach and maintain constantly satisfied target consumers internationally.
Strategic Recommendations
Apple’s present operations in the U.K. exhibit strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats. The firm must adopt effective tactics to extend the positives, realize the available opportunities, and mask threats. The following discussion thus provides possible ways for the company to maintain growth and withstand pressure from without and within.
New Product Lines
Consumers presently know Apple Inc. for a significantly limited number of consumer products, including the iPhone smartphone, MacBook, and iTunes. The organisation’s history with these items dates significantly far back, with P.C.s being the first innovation for the business (Lin and Camara, 2020). However, remaining fixated on the three products limits Apple’s opportunity to avoid pressure from competitors dealing with identical products. Accordingly, Apple enjoys rare publicity in the U.K. and worldwide. The company can use this opportunity to introduce additional products not provided by the competitors for sustainable purposes. Watches, apparel, shoe ware, and household machines are all possible options the business can try. Making the products smart, unique, and constantly innovative promises the firm to realize more assured business. Consequently, the strategy can work via the existing complementary aspect between the company’s phones, computers, and iTunes. Arguably, a customer who prefers Apple’s items will choose the company’s fridge, mower, or electric motorbike to make life balanced.
Ongoing Aggressive and Rapid Innovation
The smart electronic devices market is an in-exploitable sector that grows almost daily. The new gadget uses emerge gradually, with users, especially those in markets with stable economies, looking for new experiences and solutions. Apple Inc. already understands this aspect, being the ‘app’ world pioneer (Rader, 2019). Accordingly, it is only sound that the firm continues with the aggressive innovation plan to maintain the sector lively. Mukhopadhyay and Bouwman (2019) say that many first absorbers using new phone models in the market continuously require new technologies with time. Speed, efficiency, and effectiveness are three critical facets troubling smart device consumers globally to date (Sony, Laventure, and Sadhu, 2019). Other vital elements necessary in the industry concerns power reliability, gadget dependability and strength, and storage capacities. Thus, the consumer electronic market remains budding throughout, allowing Apple to continue growing and realizing new heights. Nonetheless, the business must establish new, more stringent patent protection measures to eliminate products’ duplicability that worsens competition and exposes the entity to costly court cases.
Automation Enhancement
Profitability extension is the primary focus among all for-profit organisations, including multinationals. Noorazar et al. (2021) purport that Apple’s market leadership results from intensive R&D operations that involve high capital utilization. Cutting some costs thus becomes necessary for the business to achieve its long-term competitiveness objective. Enhancing automation in production and distribution processes will help Apple to cut down its operations costs. The technique will work together with the product expansion strategy to give the organisation more income with reduced expenditures. For example, automation will aid in thwarting pay slip expenses that eat a lot of organisations’ revenues. Flores et al. (2021) maintain that effective automation eliminates error risks due to fatigue exclusion. Consequently, merging this strategic undertaking with the other suggestions promises to help Apple dominate the market even more.
Distributor Partnerships
Apple’s global distribution network remains notably small, which affects the company’s market competitiveness. For instance, some U.K. consumers still travel far distances to buy the company’s gadgets (Sadare et al., 2023). A major issue leading to the matter concerns the manufacturer’s wish to control costs. Nonetheless, the proposed automation enhancement strategy stands to resolve the cost challenge, thus allowing Apple to establish more stores in the U.K. and worldwide.
Cause Marketing
Lastly, Apple can develop a substantially lasting solution to the cut-throat competition by adopting an effective cause marketing strategy. For instance, following TOMS Shoes’ marketing plan is critical for the firm to stand. Vrontis, Christofi, and Katsikeas (2020) maintain that appropriate cause marketing initiative converts products into non-competitive elements that cannot be challenged through mere duplication. Apple can donate a specific amount of annual sales or profits to a social course to implement the plan. Therefore, the availability of numerous strategic options for Apple’s future success shows the company’s bright future and ability to dominate the consumer electronics sector further.
Conclusions
Apple Inc. is the world’s leading consumer electronic supplier and the U.K. smartphones industry’s controller. The company exhibits unique features that make it unbeatable in this matter, including financial stability, continuous innovation systems, and unmatched user information. However, the firm never enjoys sectoral leadership due to excessive competition. Samsung is the primary market challenger in the U.K., using duplication tactics to match Apple. However, the U.K.’s population generally esteems Apple’s products, which have supreme correspondence. The iPhone complements MacBook, while the two work effectively with iTunes services. Consequently, Apple can extend its market dominance through effective competitiveness strategies, including marketing initiative implementation.
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