Apple Inc.

Background

Apple is one of the best Companies that form a perfect description of a product’s life cycle. It is because Apple has been able to come up with more than four different product lines all that undergo a product life cycle. Apple associates have been able to engage in the production of new products into the market through product differentiation. Product differentiation is essential for any business organization that produces products, especially in a stiff industrial environment. Product differentiation is quite beneficial to any business organization in many ways. The most common usage of product differentiation is by the inclusion of different product lines from the same business organization. This way the organization is at a position to develop the perceived value of their products and pass them to the potential customers. This concept allows the production of products in large quantities and therefore stands a chance of minimizing cost effect but maximizing on returns.

Strategies

• Will use descriptive statistics to determine whether the customers profoundly reject, reject, no idea, accept and highly accept Apple’s product quality.

There is a different concept that allows the business organizations to compete without including price as a factor of competence. The differentiation strategy that is used and implemented in this context is embraced mainly to minimize cost. Besides, other small scale business can use product differentiation as a factor of improving product value and quality. It explains the success of many small scale businesses that face competition from large-scale companies.

Apple engages in competitive differentiation strategy. This strategy bases a Company to be different from the others in the same industry. It is achieved through an element of uniqueness that the Company will greatly indulge in as its ‘weapon.’ This identification involves one or two attributes that the consumers perceive as important that the Company uniquely position itself in through innovation and inventions. It is what Apple is applying to overcome the competitive industry. Since all the other Companies are involved in the process of developing PCs and software applications, Apple developed mobile devices (iPads, iPods, and iPhones) that the consumers love to use with the designed application software. Besides, they have also developed an online site where consumers would download music and Applications that are developed by Apple Company. This competition Strategy has made Apple make several steps ahead of its competitors and become one of the World’s leading marketing value holders with the most significant proportion of customer loyalty.

Even though there is the determination of the fact that the quality of services is a vital determinant of the success of a business organization, there is a reality that many business managers still way quality with resultant costs that will be incurred. Since many business organizations focus on maximization of profit, they tend to fix their way to the top of the management process by avoiding specific requirements that will cost them. It is the beginning of the vulnerability of any business organization in maintaining their pace towards achieving success in a stiff competitive Industry. This research paper focuses on the fact that there is a need for different business organizations to prioritize their quality service provision not just to meet the legal standards but also to maintain as well as gain consumer loyalty.

It is essential to understand that improvement of service quality is not only a duty for the manager but also equally the duty of their employees. Quality service management should be incorporated as a means of prosperity to be able to understand the evaluation of different components that form a complete business environment. It is to say that quality service management should be an organization’s culture rather than objective or goal. It means that the quality of services will start to be considered right from the beginning of a production process to the end of sales. This research will also put the focus on the contribution of employees towards achieving competitive quality service management programs for business organizations. An excellent example of quality management tool that will be employee oriented is the Shewhart model of quality assurance; PDCA which means Plan, Do, Check, and Act. Ultimately, the research will address the different stages and phases in a company’s quality management system and propose the best practice to enhance each of these stages (Vasconcellos, 2004).

Ethical Acumen

Privacy and protecting respondents’ right is the most important thing to consider before conducting field research (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Since this research study requires both primary and secondary data sources, ethical challenges are inevitable. In the case of obtaining primary data through conducting interviews, there will need to acquire IRB approval. Another concern is protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the respondents who agree to participate in the discussion. There is critical information such as age, name, and working designation among others that have to be kept and never disclosed during and after the survey. It is assured by the researcher just before the actual study begins. A final concern for this research is the fact that selection and involvement of respondents in the survey will be done solely based on the willingness and ability of the respondents to take part in the study and respond to the research questions provided in the interview session.

Through product differentiation, organizations can control the behavior of their customers that much need the freedom of choice and preferences. Through the implementation of this strategy, such organizations can develop brand loyalty amongst their potential customers. The understanding of this concept is understood by the fact that customers get a sense of boredom when they keep purchasing a single brand from the same Company. Besides, product differentiation and the introduction of varying brands enhances the perception that the newly introduced brand has undergone improvement of the original brand which leads to an increased sales – this keeps the customers buying different brands but from the same organization. It is, therefore, possible for the market itself to work out the amount of product differentiation through time. It is due to the variation in customer’s taste and preference.

Business ethics is one of the most complementary issues in the field of business. It is because there is an analysis of various components that support the health of business growth and development. For instance, where there is the analysis of the different business structures such as the flow of goods and services (breaking down the bulk), tertiary services such as banking and insurance, and the production of products and services within some bounded limits. Every entrepreneur is at liberty to stick within these limits to be able to embrace the various characteristics that will define a business either directly or indirectly. It then will be able to determine these factors to the extent of acceptance of the show of fashion and clear understanding of potential consumers (Griseri & Seppala, 2010).

Aside from the analysis of the various understanding of the components of the ethical business field, as shown above, there is a need to come up with holistic determination. This determination includes the consideration of the Public relation of a business organization. How does a business organization relate to those around it? This will help in coming up with a wholly developed understanding of the various variations of essential variables that command the principles of business growth and development.

Any business organization has to generate critical concern for the variability and development of quality service management issues. As already outlined above, there are specific ways through which any business organization can implement quality service management programs. This research project focuses on finding ‘universal’ measures through which all business organizations can incorporate to sustain quality service management programs. ISO 9000:2000 is a quality management system that benefits a company in improving the quality of products as well as boost employee performance. This is a necessary tool for any company which wishes to develop its quality management system. There is the belief that by using this tool (among others suggested in this research paper), a company can adequately examine the different processes and incorporate some of the ISO 9000 approaches to correct the various management and quality challenges.

Research Question

What can appropriate quality measures business organizations put in place to meet their customers’ taste and preferences?

Hypothesis

Null hypothesis: Monitoring of quality standards as well as customers’ taste and preference has no significant influence in quality service improvement.

Alternative hypothesis: Monitoring of quality standards as well as customers’ taste and preference has significant influence in quality service improvement.

Research Design and Sampling Data

    From the approach of the hypotheses above, it is clear that this research project focuses on the qualitative approach in analyzing and interpreting data. The data acquisition, in this case, is done through access to diary entries of potential sources as well as conducting interviews. Therefore the data sourcing here is done from both primary data (interviews) as well as secondary data (diary). Both of these data sources have an integrative advantage to the consolidation of the findings and come up with an appropriate solution to the research question. Qualitative research is vital in this case because instead of being more of a proof of fact-oriented like quantitative research, it focuses more on argumentative evidence. Argumentative proof provides more reasoning about why the null hypothesis will be rejected or fail to be rejected. This makes the qualitative approach more critical; there are determination and comparison of facts that allows the flow of information non-biased by just providing the final decision.

To be able to compile a reasonable solution for this research project, there is a need to analyze the tests of hypotheses statistically. This statistical analysis will relay the development of the various relationships that are brought about among the different parameters. It will justify the final value obtained from the statistical analysis that will confirm whether the comparison between the critical value and the tabulated value of ‘t’ in the t-table allows us to pick either null hypothesis or alternative hypothesis.  According to Kim, et al., 2012, the Kart’s scale is best suitable for quantifying the response from the study subjects.

Qualitative Analysis

Many business organizations have policies related to quality service provision that leads to a business culture that is quality oriented. Such business organizations believe that there is importance in putting class first before any other attribute of a good business. In the current era, consumers are more concerned about what levels of different ingredients or other components are in the final product they are about to consume. They do this to confirm whether the product meets the standards they expect such that their health will not be compromised in any way. The notion has been 100% healthy consumption. It does not only involve food products alone but also other products such as electronic devices like cell phones among others. The consumption trend has been focusing on the management of human health first before what the product can do (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).

The above trend of consumption that has emerged in the current era has changed how business organizations manage their production. This means that most of them have been able to portray the fundamental importance of service quality management. Therefore, many organization managers are seeking the most appropriate ways through which a service quality management program can be implemented in their business organizations. It is what this research project focuses on to be able to provide various business organizations in different industries a universal solution to this implementation. According to Goetsch & Davis, 2014, the formation of processes for successful quality improvement in an enterprise is focused ensuring that there is continuous improvement, proper management plan, satisfaction of customers, an appropriate determination of quality means, and organizational support.

References

Apple Inc. (n.d.). Yahoo Finance; Retrieved August 17, 2014.

Goetsch, L. D., & Davis, B. S. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Kim, Y. D., Kumar, V., & Kumar, U. (2012). A relationship between quality management practices and innovation. Journal of operations management, 30(4), 295-315.

Microsoft Corporation. (n.d.). Yahoo Finance: Retrieved August 17, 2014.

Microsoft Layoffs Would Be the Fourth-Biggest in Tech’s Modern History. (n.d.). Retrieved August 17, 2014.

Ross, S. A.,& Westerfield, R. W.  (2013). Essentials of corporate finance (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin

Vasconcellos, J. (2004). Quality assurance for the food industry: a practical approach. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.