How Apple Does It (Time Magazine Oct 24 2005) Essay

How Apple Does It (Time Magazine Oct 24 2005) - Essay Example 1 According to the conventional wisdom, described in the article, the Apple is operating like closed mini economy, and thus the company might be doomed as it attempts to do everything at once. Apple produced hardware, operating system for it and programs; traditional approach would allow Apple to license some of its products to other companies that specialize in the development of the products and then access the products produced by the companies mentioned. However in my opinion, the company would really increase the efficiency and competitiveness of its products if it followed more traditional approach as in this case, new innovations and consequently new products might appear much quicker, then the current policy adopted by the company. Huge diversification in one company might erode specialization, which is the cornerstone of innovations; it certainly does mean that differentiation and strategy adopted by Apple might not be successful in some circumstances, as the example of ipod clearly indicates, yet in my opinion it was rather the exception from the rule rather than the result of it. In order to access the effectiveness of the strategy implemented by the company, one should understand the princ... In spite of the fact that this product is just several years old, none of the competitors of Apple so far has been able to provide its customers with identical products of digital music industry. So the price of the Ipod certainly reflects some unique added features related to this product. Another element of competitive advantage strategy is the differentiation focus, when the company attempts to differentiate within the segment of the targeted audience. In this case the company should provide the customers with the product that matches the needs of the customers in the situation when current products of the competitors may not meet the needs of the targeted customers. All this features are present in this case as ipod has many unique features not available in the products of the competitors. Let us evaluate the this product within five forces model designed by Michael Porter that comprises the threat of new competitors, the threat of entry in the market, the threat of substitutes, the threat of bargaining power of suppliers and buyers.3 The threat of competitors. Not strong. Sony has started providing the customers with its new product- mini version of Walkman at the end of 2004. According to the research conducted by Moseberg, journalist from the Wall Street Journal, new mini player of Sony was thinner and wider, thus design was more convenient in use, as well as the battery life of the product was much longer. 4 However, when the Sony products appeared in the market the ipod was still unbeatable in the speed with which MP3 songs could be transferred to the player; whereas it took 2 hours and 13 minutes to transfer the 416 to the player of Sony, it took less than five minutes to

Applying principles of stakeholder management to analyse Essay

Applying principles of stakeholder management to analyse organisational practice - Essay Example Based on the first principle of Clarkson’s principles of stakeholder management, managers are obliged to acknowledge and monitor the personal concerns of all Facebook’s legitimate stakeholders. Specifically in the case of the general public, it becomes the sole responsibility of the company to protect the privacy and security of its active and inactive users. Upon analyzing the organizational practices of Facebook, this study will not only apply Clarkson’s first principle of stakeholder management to the case of Facebook but also identify and provide concrete evidences on how Facebook continuously violates the main concern of its valuable users. Contextualization of the Issue As a social networking company, Facebook is earning its profit out of its advertising gains. Aside from its advertising business, the company is also earning large sum of revenues out of selling virtual goods like US$1 in exchange for Facebook’s electronic and personalized greeting ca rd, etc. It means that the more active users Facebook could gather each year, the company’s ability to earn more from its investment value increases. Considering the fact that the business model of Facebook is to indirectly earn revenues from its active subscribers, Swartz (2010) revealed that Facebook is not focus on protecting the privacy of its valuable users. ... Furthermore, the use of koobface, malware, and botnet increases the risk wherein Facebook users are at risk of other forms of computer viruses, adware, worms, spyware, crimeware, Trojan, and scareware among others (Damballa, 2010; Skoudis & Zeltser, 2004, p. 2). Since Facebook encourages its users to share their personal date to the public, its valuable users become at risk of becoming a victim of these computer viruses (Sizemore, 2010; Swartz, 2010). Aside from the risk of computer viruses, it is safe to conclude that the private information gathered by this particular social networking site are most likely being use to assist its advertisers in search for a more accurate target market. Without the knowledge of the active Facebook users, advertisers and sellers of various products and services are able to enjoy the benefit of learning more about another person’s online behaviour and personal preferences (Swartz, 2010). In worst cases, Facebook users can be at risk of becoming a victim of cybercrimes like cyber bullying or cyber terrorism (Donahue, 2010) or even increases the risk for security data breeches (Sizemore, 2010). Since there are a lot of negative consequences associated with the use of Facebook, there is a growing scrutiny about Facebook users’ privacy and security. The issue behind Facebook users’ privacy and security is an on-going concern of many people. In fact, Mui (2011) revealed that Facebook is now being considered as a â€Å"worldwide photo identification database†. For these reasons, countries like China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Syria, Vietman, and Uzbekistan has already banned the use of this particular social networking site (Cooper, 2010;