Impact of Positioning on Operational Aspects of a company

Week 1. Discussion of how Operations and Supply Chain Management can benefit operations of Apple and its competitors

Apple knows for its innovative products that combine advance functionality, deliver exceptional experience to its users and give more attention over the designing of the products. It is very well known that cutting edge products need an innovative approach at the time of development. In this direction, Apple is one of the companies which understand this concept very well. At the ending of first fiscal quarter i.e. 26th December 2015, it has determined that the cited form has generated 58.73 billion pound and net profit has 14.48 billion pounds have recorded in 26 January 2015 after the sales of iPhone, iPad and Mac. Services. Along with this, the services such as app store, iCloud, AppleCare, and Apple Pay has grown by 26% year by year. This has only possible because of low cost manufacturing options that use by suppliers of Apple.

Apple has been took the steps in the direction of managing its supply chain and operations which has delivered several benefits to organization itself and its competitors. In this context, company has determined the list of expectations of its suppliers by creating exclusive agreements in the exchange of guarantees. The good developed relationships with the vendors have assisted the cited firm to carry out scale operations in order to meet the customers’ demands. This strategy has helped Apple to improve business operations and supply chain management process.

There are various competitors of Apple such as Samsung, Motorola, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Sony etc. Operations and Supply Chain Management can deliver several benefits to operations of Apple and its competitors . First one is a well managed operations and supply chain management will help cited firm and its rivals such as Samsung etc to ensure the quality of products from starting stage of manufacturing to deliver it to the customers. With the application of these, defects and rework situations that increase the costs of doing business will decrease . Along with this, operations and supply chain management concepts will deliver profit to Apple and its competitors like Samsung, Sony etc to manage their inventory level in such a way that can easily minimize inventory holding costs by completely meeting the demands of the end users. This will deliver enough flexibility to company and its opponents to complete orders of customers in the case of less number of available inventories because inventory buffer levels will assist in analyze the historical trends of the sales of products . On the other side, operations and supply chain management will facilitate Apple and its competitors to mitigate various risks levels by identify them in right manner. On the basis of determined potential hazards, different risks mitigation strategies will carry out by the firms and its rivals. Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be sated that operations and supply chain management can deliver several benefits to Apple and its opponents such as Samsung, Sony, Motorola etc.

Week 2. Role of Tim Cook in Apple and contribution of his disciplinary background informed his strategy

Tim Cook has the former COO of Apple and he has an industrial engineer and developer. He has given high contribution in the organization which has positively leaded the business at success direction. As per Tim Cook, there are two kinds of profit margins: charging high prices or reducing costs of final product. Company has applied both of them with the situation of marketplace. Former COO has wanted to keep operational costs under control by meeting the needs of the customers. He has depended over the tight team of operation executives who have been joined the company at the time of joining of Tim Cook. The role his has given various benefits to Apple in the terms of development of new technologies and systems . To serve the customers in more effective manner, former COO has decided to train the sales persons.

Tim Cook has focused over the opportunities to sells to enterprises where the result of this, the sales of the goods have increased and it has crossed all previous records of Apple. The level o revenue has risen with the passing of time. The same story happened with the profitability by increase the sales of Apple iPhone. It has the best selling products of all the time and it has given major contribution in enhance the level of sales. Tim Cook contribution as a COO has increased the sales of iPhone over the last five years.

Tim Cook has done his MBA from Duke University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering from Auburn University. His disciplinary education has helped in formulation of strategies. With the use of this, at the position of COO, he has changed the culture of Apple which has made work place culture more effective and positive. He has learned some operation skills during his education and work experience. On the basis of this, Tim Cook has developed an operational strategy by which the company has sole more than 300 million devices in 2015 fiscal year. On the other hand, Apple has come in the market with large screen iPhones as compare to its competitors. At the same time, the sales of iPad have decreased over the past seven quarters which has enabled the cited firm to maintain its market share in this area. But with the help of developed strategy, Tim Cook has suggested to make modifications in iPod and raise the number of production volume of Mac. The result of this, Apple has seen the growth in both the items in terms of sales and revenue.

Week3: Comparison and contrast of process design of Apple and Samsung store and its impact

Process design means developing a process or strategies to carry out the business. This is the activity through which workflow, equipment needs and particular process is design. Process design mainly consist of a flowchart which a company use to provide their services. Samsung store follow a process design in which customer calls at their store when the phone line is busy customer has to wait in a queue to get in touch with the customer service provider so after waiting customer hang up the call and service is not provided. The customer who are on the line problems are solved by the line manager but the problem of other customers are not solved. While in apple store the problem of every customer is solved with service desk all the cases are reported than problems are diagnosed by first line management. And then case is resolved and after resolving reviews of the customer are taken. The process which both the company are using should be continuous process so as to satisfy the needs of the customer. Customer should get 24*7 services which will increase the customer satisfaction.

Impact of Samsung store on customer is not good as the customer has to wait in line if the line is not connected to customer service provider and if the line is connected than the problem is solved otherwise the problem is not solved. So for increasing satisfaction of customer Samsung should work hard to provide good service while the customer are satisfied with the process of apple as they are very helpful to each customer as all the cases are reported and taken into consideration and firstly diagnose and than solved by the first line manager and after that reviews of customer are taken. Impact of Apple store is good but it can work more to improve their services so as to increase more goodwill of the outlet which will ultimately increase the profit of the outlet.

Process which both the outlets are using is directly affecting the competitiveness of Samsung and Apple as the satisfaction of customer is very important for success of any business. Samsung outlet must work on providing more customer service representative so that the customer can get the line and problems of the customer are solved so that competitiveness of Samsung can increase. Apple customer are more satisfied as compare to Samsung so Apple outlet is more successful than that of Samsung. Success increase the profitability of the business and trust of the customer also increase when the business is successful .

Week4: Impact of positioning on operational aspects of the company

Positioning is the effort which an organisation do to impress the customer and change the perception of brand. Every brand wants to occupy a unique and advantageous position in the mind of the customer so as to increase the selling and profitability. Same is with brand Samsung and Apple they are positioning in the market to increase the brand image. Samsung is selling both premium range and affordable range product so that both rich and middle class people can use the product . But Apple is the brand which sale only premium range products which only rich people can buy.

When it comes to cheaper" water down" products Samsung operational activities is not that much good as Samsung takes so much time to provide services to the customer when they are facing problems with the product while Apple provide quick services to their customer when they face problem with the product. They directly change the product if there is any defect in the problem. Even while reselling the Samsung product, the value of product get decreased very badly as Samsung launches variety of products every year so the product value become cheaper. While its opposite with Apple products the value of products doesn't decrease that much with the passing year. Apple maintain its brand image and sale only premium range product.

Positioning impact allot on business as the profit of the organisation depends on the brand image that is maintain by the company. In case of Apple the image is very good but all people can't afford this brand product so it affect the sale as only rich people can buy it. While in case of Samsung the brand image is good but the value of product is depreciated very quickly but all people can afford to buy the products of Samsung so the sale of Samsung product is much more than that of Apple. Increasing the profitability is the major objective of every business so Samsung should focus on providing good services for their product and should also give good value at the time of resale so that the goodwill of Samsung can increase more and While Apple can go for low cost product so that company can target more customer and sale can be increased. Operations of business depends on the customer reactions so to increase the satisfaction of the customer is very important to gain more profits and achieve the goals.

Conclusion

In attaining the business goals strategic and tactical decision play a vital role. Hence, it can be analysed that for success of business decision making of the firm must be very good. Apple and its Competitors must manage their supply chain for good distribution channel. Tim Cook contribution in Apple Company has a good which has help in success of the business. Process design also play a vital role for a successful venture. Positioning in market is also an important part because good brand image is very important for more profits.

Refernces

• Craighead, C.W., Ketchen, D.J., Dunn, K.S. and Hult, G.T.M., 2011. Addressing common method variance: guidelines for survey research on information technology, operations, and supply chain management.cIEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.
• Jacoby, D., 2010. The Economist Guide To Supply Chain Management. Profile Books.
• Schönsleben, P., 2016. Integral logistics management: Operations and supply chain management within and across companies. CRC Press.
• Rahman, S., Laosirihongthong, T. and Sohal, A. S., 2010. Impact of lean strategy on operational performance: a study of Thai manufacturing companies. Journal of manufacturing technology management.
• Mollenkopf, D. A., Frankel, R. and Russo, I., 2011. Creating value through returns management: Exploring the marketing–operations interface. Journal of Operations Management.
• Mahadeo, J. D., Soobaroyen, T. and Hanuman, V. O., 2012. Board composition and financial performance: Uncovering the effects of diversity in an emerging economy. Journal of Business Ethics..
• Gruber, M. and et.al., 2015. Managing by design. Academy of Management Journal.
• West, J. and Mace, M., 2010. Browsing as the killer app: Explaining the rapid success of Apple's iPhone. Telecommunications Policy.

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