Strategic Management

（战略管理）
Lecturer : Huo Mingkui （霍明奎）
Student : Jabri Bin Juhinin （加比利）
Apple – The world’s most innovative company
 Company background
• Apple is one of the most successful companies in history. Even
during periods in which the company struggled, it was known
for being innovative. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Apple
began its rise to dominance in a range of technology areas
and established itself as the trendsetter in mobile devices.
• What is it that makes Apple so desirable and so special? How
does the company keep up its formidable status even decades
after the introduction of its first desktop computers, and what
is it about the company that inspires such excitement and
loyalty among its customers? Here is an analysis of some
aspects that set Apple apart from its competition.
1. Diverse Range of Products
Apple has released a number of
diverse and stylish-looking
products since the late 1970s. The
company that started from humble
beginnings in a garage grew steadily,
introducing the Apple II series of
personal computers, the Macintosh,
and then the much sought-
after iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple
Watch.
New releases of products, and even
updates to its operating systems,
inspire excitement among
customers, developers, and the
industry. Though the showmanship
aspect of Apple announcements has
waned slightly with the passing of
Jobs, interest in what Apple will
revolutionize next continues to
energize the company's events.
2. Dynamic Business Plan
One major reason for Apple’s success is
its dynamic, constantly changing business
plan. Jobs intently studied the market and
tried to ascertain the pulse of the
audience. Apple originally started as just
another computer company. But Jobs
always knew that it was meant for much
bigger things.
Apple had to expand its offerings if it
was to grow. The team, therefore,
changed its business plan to introduce a
greater variety of products. Starting with
the release of Final Cut Pro, the company
expanded beyond desktop computers to
experiment with MP3 players, mobile
phones, tablet computers, watches,
digital assistants, and more.
Jobs also changed the name of the
company from Apple Computer Inc. to
Apple Inc., to reflect this broadened
vision of what the company was all about.
3. Branded Retail Store and Experience
Apple felt that traditional retail
outlets were not providing the
experience with its products that
Apple knew would drive sales and
inspire customer loyalty, and decided
to open its own retail store. The
launch of their brick-and-mortar
stores proved to be a huge turning
point for Apple. 
As of 2015, Apple boasted more
than 460 retail stores worldwide.
This move gave the company
the push to surge in the mobile
market.
4. Partnerships
Steve Jobs arranged an unexpected
but important early move for Apple.
In 1997, he announced a partnership
with rival Microsoft and Bill Gates,
securing a $150,000,000 investment
in Apple. With the deal, Microsoft
would support Microsoft Office on
Macs. "We have to let go of this
notion that for Apple to win,
Microsoft has to lose," stated
Jobs. This rescued the company’s
flagging reputation in the early and
mid-1990s, stabilizing it, and helping
it back on its feet. 
Later, Jobs partnered to
manufacture mobile parts for rival
companies such as Samsung. This
further enhanced the company’s
profits and reputation as a supplier
of mobile components.
5. Careful selection of employees
When it is about recruitment, Apple
is very much aware of selecting
sincere and confident employees
who work hard to ensure quality.
Apple tries to find employees who
strongly follow their passion and
have idealism. According to forbes,
“Apple look for positive thinking
people who don’t say ‘no’, people
who can think out of the box, and
people who can make impossibe
possible.
This ensures that Apple will always
be able to keep the quality high and
offer classy and innovative products
to its customers. This also helps
Apple to reserve a strong brand
image.
6. Financing strength
It has very strong financial, as a
result it can finance all of its
investment and research to develop
its product and services. In february
2015, Apple reported the revenue of
$74.6 billion and an amount of $18
billion in profits for a single quarter.
It is said to be the highest income in
the history. It has big amount money
as its retained earnings. It is as large
as USD 96.36 billion as of September,
2016. This retained account will help
them recover any financial downtime
in future. Also, this can be used as a
backup of better research and
development department.
7. Excellent hardware performance
The performance of the internal
hardware of its product is excellent.
Customers were highly satisfied on
the longevity of Apple hardware
performance.

8. Amazing design
The designing of the products apple is
unique. The look of the iPhone is very
much unique and stunning.
 Weaknesses of Apple
1) Higher prices than other smart-phones – As
Apple uses premium pricing strategy, the prices
of the Apple product always remain beyond the
general people’s reach, especially for iPhones.
The price of products was always higher than
other recognized brand in the market such as
Samsung, HTC etc. There is huge market of
middle class people. Apple totally ignores this
segment to preserve its brand image.
 Weaknesses of Apple
2) Limitations – it is not flexible while you want
to connect it with devices that are from other
brands. Apple iPhone does not allow you to
get software installed from other sources than
its own providers.
3) Less variety in the phone design – iPhone 1
and iPhone 7 do not have much difference
while it is about their look. It did not deviate
from its first look much. This creates a feeling
using same products with unique and
attractive looks when it is about smartphones.
 Weaknesses of Apple
4) Narrow production line – In the weakness section of the SWOT
analysis of Apple inc, we have found that the product line is
very narrow. For last decade, it has been developing same
looking iPhones with updated features.
5) Niche customer target – When a company target niche
markets, their market becomes small. In this case Apple’s
market is not big like other smartphones or computer brands.
They only target high class customers that let them avoid the
middle class customers which is really a big market.
6) Limited distribution network – Apple distribute its product by
itself. And kept its distribution channel narrow. For most of the
time they do not use any third parties to sell their products.
Apple uses own website and Apple stores to sell their products
Alibaba – One of the world’s highly valued
companies today
 Company background
• Alibaba Group Holding Limited (also known as Alibaba Group and as Alibaba) is a
Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet,
and technology. Founded on 4 April 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company provides consumer-
to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services
via web portals, as well as electronic payment services, shopping search engines and cloud
computing services. It owns and operates a diverse array of businesses around the world in
numerous sectors, and is named as one of the world's most admired companies by Fortune.
• At closing time on the date of its initial public offering (IPO) – US$25 billion, the world's highest in
history – 19 September 2014, Alibaba's market value was US$231 billion.It is one of the top 10
most valuable and is the 59th biggest public companies in the world by Global 2000 list.In January
2018, Alibaba became the second Asian company to break the US$500 billion valuation mark, after
its competitor Tencent.As of 2018, Alibaba has the 9th highest global brand valuation.
• Alibaba is the world's largest retailer and e-commerce company, is on the list of largest Internet
companies and artificial intelligence companies, is one of the biggest venture capital firms, and one
of the biggest investment corporations in the world.The company hosts the largest B2B
(Alibaba.com), C2C (Taobao), and B2C (Tmall) marketplaces in the world.Its online sales and profits
surpassed all US retailers (including Walmart, Amazon, and eBay) combined since 2015.It has been
expanding into the media industry, with revenues rising by triple percentage points year after
year.It also sets the record on the 2018 edition of China's Singles' Day, the world's biggest online
and offline shopping day.
 Core competitive of Alibaba
1. Scale of operations
Scale of operations – One of the
first strengths of Alibaba that come
to my mind is the sheer scale of
operations and the market which it
majorly operates. China is the most
populated country in the world and
is one of the leading economics and
to have a strong hold in such a
market and be a market leader is no
mean feat. This kind of a success
story is sure to go a long way in
scripting Alibaba’s growth trajectory.
2. Market Share
As of 2015, Alibaba had a market share
of 58% in China and its closest rival was
far away at 22%. One of the major
strengths of China is that this market
share dominance comes because of the
backing of solid manufacturers who are
capable of manufacturing at mass levels
and supplying across the world.

3. Visionary Leader
Another strength, though qualitative in
nature, is the presence of a visionary like
Jack Ma at the helm of the company. We
all have heard the visionary ideas of Steve
Jobs and many often attribute Apple’s
success to him. It’s important to have an
iconic founder/leader who can lead from
the front and Jack Ma’s popularity and
visions for the company are not letting
them down on this count.
4. Good relationships with partner
 Alibaba also provides a very
conducive environment to all those who
participate in scripting its success.
Merchants, Consumers, third
party dealers etc. all get access to
financial schemes, scalable platforms,
cloud storage and real time access to all
information. This makes it very attractive
for more and more partners to join hands
with Alibaba.
Weaknesses of Alibaba
1) Way too many sellers – Alibaba is not putting a cap on the number of sellers
who register to partner up with the company. This has resulted in a huge
number of sellers competing in the online market place. While this is good for
the buyers, it might not be so good to the buyers. Not being able to taste
success because of the huge competition will make the sellers withdraw from
the contract. When Alibaba went public a couple of years ago, there were
more than 8.5 million active sellers and the number has only been going up
ever since. Because of this, a few reputed brands have pulled out from selling
their products on Taobao and Tmall, the two websites by Alibaba.
2) Very high discounts – Not being able to allow sellers to sell at fair and
profitable prices is another weakness that the company has. It makes most of
its revenues by selling advertising spaces for the sellers. The sellers are being
suppressed now and do not have the freedom or opportunity to sell at
profitable rates.
Threats and opportunities in airline industry
Threats Opportunities
A global economic downturn negatively Airline market growth offers continual
affects leisure, optional travel, as well as expansion opportunities for both leisure and
business travel.The price of fuel is now business destinations. This is particularly true
for international destinations.
the greatest cost for many airlines. An
Technology advances can result in cost
upward spike can destabilize the business savings, from more fuel efficient aircraft to
model. more automated processes on the ground.
A plague or terrorist attack anywhere in Technology can also result in increased
the world can negatively affect air travel. revenue due to customer-friendly service
Government intervention can result in enhancements like inflight Internet access and
new costly rules or unexpected new other value added products for which a
international competition. customer will pay extra.
Link-ups with other carriers can greatly
increase passenger volumes. By coordinating
schedules, airlines can offer service to
destinations via a code share agreement with a
partner carrier.
 Advantages and limitations of
Resource-Based View(RBV)
Introduction
• Resource based view (RBV) analyze and interpret resources of
the organizations to understand how organizations achieve
sustainable competitive advantage. The RBV focuses on the
concept of difficult-to- imitate attributes of the firm as sources
of superior performance and competitive advantage.
Resources that cannot be easily transferred or purchased, that
require an extended learning curve or a major change in the
organization climate and culture, are more likely to be unique
to the organization and, therefore, more difficult to imitate by
competitors.
Advantages Limitations
RBV is best applied for the assessment of a Firstly, the resource-based theory is based on the
firm’s existing resource portfolio or when incapacity to do an empirical study on measuring the
exploiting the firm’s resources to move into new performance. Because of the heterogeneity of firms,
product markets. composing a homogeneous sample is hard or even
Firms as bundle of Resources - Threshold impossible.
resources are defined as the unique combination Secondly, the resource-based view is focused on the
of assets and capabilities within a firm that enable internal organization of a firm and it does not consider
the external factors like the demand side of the
firms to develop and implement strategies to meet market. So even if a firm has the resources and the
customers’ minimum requirements and to capabilities to gain a competitive advantage, it might
improve its overall performance. be that there is no demand, because the model does
RBV and Organisational learning - The RBV not consider the “customer”.
stresses the significance of developing and Thirdly, the resource-based view has a limited
enhancing those resources that are distinctive as ability to make reliable prediction. However, the
distinctive capabilities usefulness of RBV appears to be greater in terms of
 RBV emphasises on strategic choice, structuring generating understanding and providing a structure
the management of the firm with the important for strategizing. Resource-based logic can help
task of identifying, developing and deploying R&C managers more completely understand the kinds of
to maximise returns. resources that help generate sustained strategic
Empowers the firm to perceive or implement advantages, help them use this understanding to
strategies that enhance its efficiency and evaluate the full range of resources their firm may
effectiveness through lower costs and incline of possess, and then exploit those resources that have
revenue the potential to generate sustained strategic
advantage.