Assi

SALES MANAGEMENT
Assignment I

Srishti Shrestha
BBA 4th Year ‘B’
 1. Select a Company that you are familiar with and give an overview

Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company based in the United State of America. The
company focuses on consumer electronic products, such as the manufacture of personal
computers (PC) and computer software, media players, mobile phones, computer hard wares, and
accessories among others. Apple is the second largest phone manufacturer in the world after
Samsung. In fact, Apple Inc is the largest IT Company in the world (by revenue). It operates
nearly 500 retail stores worldwide and employs nearly 120,000 people. The company was
founded in April, 1976 in Cupertino, California, by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs as Apple
Computer Inc. Apple Computer Inc. co-founders were 26 and 21 years old respectively by then
and had just dropped out of college when they started building boxes that allowed a long-
distance communication without any charges. Since then, Apple Computer Inc. has evolved to be
the leading company in developing high quality consumer electronics products. The company
focuses on manufacturing and designing electronics and other related consumer software
products. It is considered one of the Big Four of technology along with Amazon, Google, and
Facebook.

The core of Apple’s Vision is to provide customers with user-friendly, non-intimidating

technology at low prices. It understands the fact that not all users are computer experts and
makes the user comfortable with their interface.The Mission of the company is to bring the best
personal computing experience to all walks of people – from students to teachers and
professionals.
 2. List out and explain its product or services

The company's hardware products include the iPhone smartphone, the iPad tablet computer, the
Mac personal computer, the iPod portable media player, the Apple Watch smartwatch, the Apple
TV digital media player, and the HomePod smart speaker. Apple's software includes the macOS
and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media player, the Safari web browser, and the iLife and
iWork creativity and productivity suites, as well as professional applications like Final Cut Pro,
Logic Pro, and Xcode. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store and Mac
App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud.

3. Explain the sales strategy of the company

From its direct and channel pricing strategy to its retail and online storefronts, Apple sells its
products like no other company in the consumer electronics space. There are certain sales
strategy that Apple uses to make its sales and channel strategy unique:

• Apple never discounts through its direct channel. It does discount refurbished products and,
there are price changes, but there’s no “sale” pricing, for example on a holiday.

• Apple keeps reseller pricing stable. While it’s illegal to set dealer pricing (to its customers),
Apple still manages to keep retail pricing remarkably stable. It probably does that by keeping
dealer margins slim, offering no volume discounts, and keeping terms consistent between
resellers of the same product.

• Apple’s retail and online storefronts are unique. They’re more about education and support than
selling. They’re simple, even austere, with minimal signage and crystalclear messaging. The
pervasive feeling is that there are many people there to help you and nobody is there to sell you
anything.

• Apple products are positioned as unique categories. To the extent that it’s feasible, Apple likes
resellers to sell its products as unique categories, as opposed to side-by-side next to competitors,
either on storefront shelves or online. For example, Best Buy online has a section called “iPad
and Tablet PCs.” They’re distinct and separate.

The strategy of positioning a product as unique relative to competitors and maintaining tight
channel control and pricing to manage that positioning is nothing new. In fact, it’s sort of the
holy grail of selling. Many companies have tried to do it with various products and with varying
degrees of success, including Intel processors, Microsoft software, and certain “premier”
manufacturers of watches. In each case, it really comes down to the same five factors that enable
that holy grail of sales strategy that are: 1. Perceived or real high demand and limited supply 2.
Unique and superior value proposition or brand perception 3. Perceived or real monopoly 4.
High enough margins to support a robust channel support infrastructure 5. Clear, top-down
sales / channel strategy and disciplined execution.

4. Describe its target segment market profile

4.

Market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally
consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers based on some type
of shared characteristics. Market segmentation is based on variables such as behavior,
demographics (e.g., gender, age, education, and income), geography, and psychographic
characteristics, or those based on lifestyle and personality. In market segmentation customer
personas are formed that suit them best for their brand.

Targeting is when the company decides on which target customer segment they want to go after,
which they think will be profitable for them.

For Apple, the market segmentation and target are clearly defined as:

Age group: 22 – 55

Gender: Male and Female

Income: Being an affluent brand, Apple targets medium to high-income individuals

Lifestyle: Income becomes synonymous with lifestyle and since Apple has medium to high-
income individuals as segments, the lifestyle they target is to Modern, young, open to change etc.

Behavior: Hardcore loyalists. These customer groups become very loyal to a brand and hardly
change their brand.

Apple uses mono-segment type of positioning and makes a positing appeal towards a single
customer segment. The multinational technology company positions itself as a premium brand
offering products and services with advanced functions and capabilities for additional costs.
Accordingly, Apple target customer segment comprise well-off individuals who are willing to
pay extra for technology products and services with advanced design, functions and capabilities.

5. List out and explain how that company has been using the modern characteristics
of the sales

Apple has used the some of the modern characteristics of sales as follows:

1. Design a Better Customer Experience

Apple fans often create videos of themselves unwrapping their new Apple products and upload
the video to YouTube often known as unboxing. This happens because Apple has created a
customer experience that goes far beyond the actual purchase in a retail store. They no longer
even need to be in charge of a huge part of their content marketing since their target market is
doing it for them. The “Apple experience” includes elements from every aspect of the purchasing
process – comparing different product versions, trying out products in the retail store, actually
buying the item, receiving it, unwrapping it and setting it up. Each of these elements doesn’t just
happen by chance. They are all carefully crafted, revised and refined to appeal to the consumer’s
every sense. The Apple retail store experience isn’t just a quick trip for most people. Most people
who enter an Apple store end up staying in the retail store, trying the products, asking questions
of the “geniuses” who work there – and many of them walk out with a new purchase. The Apple
retail store inspires purchases.

2. Emotional Intelligence
Recalling back to the first ads for the iPad, after its launch in 2010, we can see how simple their
content marketing was. There were images of people relaxing in the living room with the strange
new gadget looking happy and comfortable. They weren’t talking about display dimensions or
processing power, they were just enjoying their iPads. Those ads, as with all of Apple’s
marketing, hit their consumers where they really live – not in the pocketbook but in their hearts.
Emotional connections are the key to successful marketing strategies. It’s what makes certain
stories, videos, and memes go viral. Marketing strategies must start with emotion, and if you can

6. Explain the sales organizational structure and sales practices of that company

quite literally make your readers happy with your content, you’ve really hit the target. Apple
used emotional language in their copy to evoke and build on their customers’ emotions where it
makes sense to do so.

Apple Inc. has a hierarchical organizational structure, with notable divisional characteristics and
a weak functional matrix. The hierarchy is a traditional structural feature in business
organizations. The divisional characteristics refer to the product-based grouping within Apple,
such as for iOS and macOS. The weak functional matrix involves inter-divisional collaboration,
while the hierarchy is preserved.

The hierarchy in Apple’s organizational structure supports strong management control in the
organization. Theoretically, hierarchy empowers top leaders like Tim Cook to control everything
in the organization. Through the hierarchy, business functions and product-based groups are
effectively controlled through the decisions of the CEO and other top executives. This advantage
of Apple Inc.’s corporate structure facilitates rapid and effective strategic management
implementation, and helps in establishing coherence throughout the entire organization. Apple’s
corporate structure has the downside of low flexibility. Hierarchy typically prevents lower levels
of the structure to flexibly respond to current business needs and market demands. For example,
the company’s product-based divisions must wait for directives from the CEO or other top
executives to proceed in implementing changes that address trends in the market for consumer
electronics.
Apple has a tight control over sales and marketing plans for its devices, in particular at the
launch stage. Some of the sales practices of Apple include setting up a very smart retailing. It has
around 450 stores within the US. And these retail outlets are such that they are more focused in
helping the customer and making him comfortable with using Apple rather than selling the
product and stuffing the product down customers throat. Apple has also introduced the Apple
Genius Bar, which is a walk-in service center and can help any customer in problems they are
facing in MacBook or Iphone or Ipad. Overall, the company owned Retail and Service outlets are
great.

Along with company owned stores, Apple has set trade partners like Ingram Micro and
Redington which are responsible for the sales and distribution of the brands. These trade partners
will buy in bulk from the brand and then distribute the product in the market. Thus, besides its
own retail stores, Apple is found present in other modern and premium retail stores. These stores
are covered by its retail partners.