Apple's Market Orientation

Apple, Inc. is both product oriented and market oriented. It can be labeled as product oriented because
it focuses on the quality of its products and uses innovation to break into new market segments. Apple
makes sure that the products have a competitive advantage over all the other similar products in the
market. They make products with attractive features which capture the market. The products that the
company produce are highly innovative. The company utilizes the strengths and capabilities of its teams
in creating products that are highly innovative and of a very high quality.

It can be termed as market oriented because it makes extensive use of market research to continuously
develop and improve its products and also because it uses innovation not only in the product quality but
also in the sense of coming up with new products like its Ipad. Apple has a very strong orientation
towards customers. They make sure that the customers are served in the best possible ways and
thorugh highly innovative products. They also make sure that the they maintain a string orientation
towards competitors and competition. It is the leading technology company of the world. The company
makes sure that it creates market for its products by introducing innovative products.

Building Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage or competitive edge is a business's core quality that differentiates it from its
competitors. It could be gained by setting lower prices from its competing products or by differentiating
its products from competitors' products.

Building a competitive advantage ensures competitiveness but to stay on top a company must be able to
retain the edge it has achieved. This means sustaining the competitive advantage in the face of constant
change. This is imperative for the success of a business in the long run.

Competitive advantage is divided into three categories: (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2011)

Cost leadership

As the name implies, the company becomes a leader in cutting down its costs of manufacturing the
product. This can be done by various methods such as purchasing economical raw materials, having
efficient manufacturing operations, etc.
Differentiation

Differentiation is done to set the product apart from its rival's ...

In my point of view, Apple tackles upon on a more product orientated approach than to market
orientation. Because of their highly sophisticated, innovative products that have received such good
responses over the past few years, yet it had never been a 'need' for the market. Before the first day of
the launch of the iPhone 4s Apple sold over 1 million pre-order copies. Like many other technology
firms, Apple tries to create new innovative products by utilizing the strengths of their production teams.
Apple knows what the customer wants before they do and they continue to produce products that sell
themselves. However, Apple is not only product oriented. They do take on a market orientation
approach as well as they also spend time figuring out what the customer wants through market
research.

Apple products are widely known to be an expensive yet, best quality products that most people wanted
to have whereas, Samsung has different products which do not only focus on gadgets but also different
appliances and equipment. Both companies are prominently known to the public today. Perhaps,
because of its gradual innovation and research of what market needs and wants, Apple Company is the
leading technology company in the world.

Apple is distinguish by its highly innovative product and thorough research to understand its markets
therefore, it uses product and market orientation approach. It is product oriented in a way that, it offers
a small number of products but, are high end innovative quality products. They make use of the
strength, potential and capacity of their teams in creating their products. They continuously create and
develop attractive, sophisticated and competitive products that captures the existing customers and
new markets. Competitive because their product stand out among all similar products in the market.
Attractive and sophisticated, for its every latest product, it offers new features and improves quality
which completely suits to the needs and wants of its customers. Their products are always in trend
which catches the intention of teenagers nowadays. It is market oriented because it prioritize its market
research development which they spend more time and effort in figuring out what their consumer
wants. Through this research they will be able to know what to develop and enhance in its product
which will help them in making new product and to ensure that it creates market to its product. They
create a halo effect that makes people eager for new Apple products.

Competitive advantage is an edge or business core quality that differentiate it from its competitors.
Apple uses many competitive advantage strategies, these are the product differentiation, strong brand
and high prices. Product differentiation is a marketing strategy which aim to distinguish company's
product from its competitors. Apple create products which are highly innovative that are advance and
unique from all similar products in the market. Their product has its own software which includes its
operating system that runs in all their products like iTunes Store, Apple Store and iCloud. Their products
are well-known for its high standard of security and having a strong brand that are remarkable or
already create an interrelationship with their customers. They used high pricing strategy, in a way that
they offer premium prices and minimizes discounts. In this way they aim to offer high-quality product
with attractive and unique features with high prices to enforce perception of value added and secure
profitability.

We already know the marketing strategies of Apple and through this we can come up that, as they are
one of our competitors we can consider them as a threat but, we can turn this threat into opportunities
in a way of using marketing mix. The marketing mix is a unique blend of product, place (distribution),
promotion, and pricing strategies designed to produce mutually satisfying exchanges with a target
market. We must have a product that is more durable and unique from Apple, since Apple products can
be quite sensitive. A product that has an attractive features and stand out from apple like the capacity of
the battery, its camera features and storage which really appeals to teenagers today, especially in this
time of pandemic that they are using gadgets for their studies. We all know that Apple products upgrade
every time there is a new product, with that we must take advantage in releasing the product advance
from them. A product that is advance and unique but with an affordable prices, in short we will give
what they want in what they can afford, simply by using the cost leadership strategy, for we all know
that Apple maintain their high prices. In place, our products should be available in different places
where it can be easily accessible by the customers. In instance, since it is hard to travel to different cities
nowadays, Apple products can only be bought in Apple store just like here in Negros Occidental you can
only find it at Bacolod City therefore, we must have different stores located in different towns to enable
our customer easily buy our products, in simply put we will be the one coming to them. We should
ensure that are products are in good condition and usable when delivered to our customers. We will
also offer freebies and other promotion strategies to capture more market. Together with the unique
blend of product, place, price and promotion we can take advantage from Apple.