CASE STUDY ON APPLE, FACEBOOK AND E-BAY

QUESTION

Course: Business Information & Analytics

The requirements:
Font: New times Roman
Size: 12
Resources: 4-5 resources for each case
Each case: 2 pages, single-spaced

Cases:
Case ONE: Apple Inc.
Case TWO: Facebook
Case THREE: eBay

Each case has to include the following:
• Overview
• Competitive Advantages
• Strategic Analysis
• Business Opportunities
• Technology Advantages, Networks
• Innovation
• Ethics
• Security
• 3 or 4 questions for a reader to consider while reviewing each case

SOLUTION

 

Case ONE: Apple Inc.

 

• Overview:

Apple Inc. is one of the most famous global players and it is very much trusted in the market. It is said to provide one of the best devices in the market that have excellent features and provide quality to the consumers. In the computers section, its Macintosh line of laptops and personal computers has made a trademark and has lured the customers with its excellent quality and features. Speaking about the marketing domain the company has strong presence in google, and has several apps and invests in the advertising market.

 

• Competitive Advantages

There are many competitive advantages that Apple has over its competitors:

Integration of software and hardware: It integrates its different products and offers it to the customers.( Barney and Hesterley, 2006)

Loyal Customer Base: It has a very loyal customer base. It has created a top notch brand in the market and the trust that it carries is commendable. The users associate a unique status symbol with it and hence the demand in the market is up and rising. Apple’s has a strong culture and community. It has become a trademark for youth culture and trend and this has also contributed to its success.

Ambitious Leadership: Most of the competitive advantage that Apple has is because of its strong and centralized leadership which has a great vision and the zeal to accomplish it.

The coordination between the different teams and the motivated and engaged employees are other strong points of Apple Inc.

 

• Strategic Analysis

(Renjith, n.d.) The innate strong vision of the leadership team and the direction of Steve Jobs has already made Apple one of the strongest brands of the world. Jobs vision of making excellent and unique products. The marketing that Apple does is also unique in its own sense. It has been successful in creating its own name and trust in the market. It has created a string positioning in the minds of the customers.

It constantly innovates its products so that it remains in the market and strives for perfection all the time. This is done by the research and development wing that it has. It has partnership with Intel to support the development of its products.

 

• Business Opportunities

There are a lot of business opportunities that Apple has:

It is into creating compatibility with the products of Microsoft. It also can look to ways of increasing online sales. If it removes the closed system of operations that it operates in it is again sure going to make loads of profits and this will be helpful in the reduction of the pricing of its products and expanding the customer base of the Apple Inc. as a whole. Asia is a very big market to capture and Apple can concentrate on its marketing efforts in this region to increase its sales in the vast region of Asia.

 

• Technology Advantages, Networks

Apple has several technological advantages. Its R&D team constantly develops the existing products and work on their integration. It also looks to develop new products n the market.

 

• Innovation

(Palmer and Kaplan, 2007) Innovation is at the core of Apple. The unique of designing its products and the excellent features have put this company at the zenith of profits.

 

• Ethics

(Danielsethics, n.d.) Apple has always made constant efforts so that it ensures that the ethics of the company are being maintained. It is very particular in seeing that the employees are performing their work ethically and are maintaining proper conduct. Apple has basically four major principles contributing to its integrity: honesty, respect, confidentiality, and the compliance. The company has drafted a code of business conduct in order to detail the principles and these are applied to worldwide operations of Apple. As a matter of fact the company is so particular about the ethical issues and its governance that it has formulated a helpline of Business conduct so that the staff members can repost any sort of report on the misconduct directly to the Audit and Finance Committee of Apple Inc.

As Apple is a global company with a number of operations worldwide and in countries where there are low labor costs, the company in those countries makes the supplier sign a supplier code of conduct to ensure that the operations are compliant with its global standards. Apple does not perform and carry forwards any kind of business operations with any of the supplier who do not comply and adhere to the Apple standards. Apple Supplier Responsibility Report is released on an annual basis which entails expectations from the supplier and the results from the audit.

 

• Security

Security and Privacy is another area where Apple is concerned. The company takes great care to ensure that the cell phones and the products do not surpass any kind of restrictions and it builds up adequate feature in the product which complies with consumers’ security and government security standards.

 

• 3 or 4 questions for a reader to consider while reviewing each case

What are the ethical issues that Apple had faced?

Do you think Apple should come out of the closed system?

How can it market it products better? Or Should Apple come out of the niche target segment?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

 

Barney, J.B. and Hesterley, W.S., (2006). Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage, Pearson, New Jersey.

 

Danielsethics, (n.d.). Apple Inc.’s Ethical Success and Challenges, Retrived from http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu/pdf/Apple%20Case.pdf

 

Palmer, D. and Kaplan, S., (2007). A framework for strategic innovation, Innovation point LLC, pp 1-24

 

Renjith, S. (n.d.) Apple Inc.’s case study, Strategic leadership and innovation, Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/renjith_sk/apple–inc–case–study

 

Case TWO: Facebook

 

• Overview

Mark Zuckerberg founded the well known Facebook in February 2004. This was launched as a network for Harvard University students. Initially it was named as “The Facebook” and later it was changed only to “Facebook”. Facebook was made publicly available in the year 2006 for everyone across the globe that had a valid e-mail address. Facebook started integrating with the external applications and third parties since May 2007. Facebook has remained the number one social networking sites till date. The number of users increased from 1 to 500 million from the year 2004 to 2010.

 

• Competitive Advantages

There are various competitive advantages that Facebook has over its competitors:

(Slideshare, n.d.) Design: It excels in the simplicity and has easy user interface. The introduction of timeline is another addition to the design.

Broad Target Market: It has a broad target market across the world.

Source: http://www.checkfacebook.com/

 

 

List of continents on Facebook

 

Source: http://www.socialbakers.com/countries/continents

 

 

Source: http://www.checkfacebook.com/

Source: http://www.checkfacebook.com/

 

Privacy: There are several privacy settings which the user can use to control the information.

Localization: It has localized itself into more than 40 languages to increase the user base

 

• Strategic Analysis

Leadership Team: The strong and focused leadership along with the fantastic teams that work at Facebook globally are one of the key advantages. They constantly looks to innovate the portal and add up new and exciting features to make the users experience more easy and fun loving

Huge active user base: The Company has a huge active user base across the world.

Translation in more than 40 languages: To stay head and to maintain the monopoly it has localized itself in different regions. It has translated the page into more than 40 languages to increase the user base and to enhance their experience.

Email and chat are integrated: Email and chat are integrated in Facebook.

 

• Business Opportunities

Advertising: They are many brands that have their pages and the ads on facebook

Improving Email and chat: They are into constant improvisation of email and chat.

 

• Technology Advantages, Networks

The personnel at Facebook work constantly and improve the technology.

 

• Innovation

Facebook has done many innovations. It has become of the major player in innovating the features:

Ads, social plugins, partner sites and applications have contributed to innovation.

 

TOP 15 Facebook Applications

 

Partner sites: The following websites are partner sites:

Bing – This is for Social Search

Rotten Tomatoes – Relates to movie reviews

Docs.com – This is excellent for collaboration of documents

Pandora – Excels in personalizing music

Yelp, and

Scribd – this is used for reading on the social networking site

 

• Ethics

They have an ethical policy and they comply by it as far as possible.

 

• Security

(Atle, 2001) The privacy and security policy share the crux of the Facebook system because the users share their personal information on this platform and they need the ultimate benefit of showing and hiding the details that they want to. There is a privacy policy that the Facebook maintains and configures its system to see that it is being followed the way it is designated to. There are TRUSTe privacy programs, the Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbour web site which supports Facebook, and the company’s own Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The help page in Facebook explains all the security and privacy concerns of the user. The text explains how the information is received and the methodology in which Facebook processes information. It also entails the way the information is distributed and depicted. After reading the privacy statement the user gets to know that how they can use the privacy settings to ensure the safety of their personal information.

 

 

• 3 or 4 questions for a reader to consider while reviewing each case

What should Facebook to move to the next level?

What are the ethical issues in Facebook?

What are the security concerns at Facebook?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

 

Atle, A. (2001). Social Network Services and Privacy. Retrieved from http://www.datatilsynet.no/Global/english/11_00643_5_PartI_Rapport_Facebook_2011.pdf

 

Checkfacebook. (2012). Facebook Stats. Retrieved from http://www.checkfacebook.com/

 

Slideshare. (n.d.). Facebook Competitive Advantage: Social Networking. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/akash47/facebook-competitive-advantage-social-networking

 

Socialbakers. (2012). World Continents Facebook Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.socialbakers.com/countries/continents

Case THREE: eBay

 

• Overview

eBay, Inc. has grown considerably over time and has become the largest and most successful marketplace on the world wide web which allows the customers to shop online at  their convenience. It was formed in the year 1995 and now more than 145 million customers use eBay. People pay through Paypal service which is eBay’s online payment method and which people can access from almost anywhere in the world. The key to the company’s success has been the trust that it has created between the buyer and the seller. The positioning statement of eBay is the “world’s online marketplace” and it has been able to create this picture in the minds of the customers.

 

• Competitive Advantages

There are loads of competitive advantages that eBay has:

Strong leadership: The stable leadership team and their string vision is one of the advantages that eBay has.

Acquisition: Acquisitions of the various companies have enhanced this company’s position. E.g. Pay Pal and Skype.

Market penetration and development efforts: eBay constantly focuses on strengthening its position in the existing market and also developing and capturing new markets and target segments.

Personnel: The excellent team that this company has is one of the factors of success as they are the ones behind the scenes who develop and market the product

 

• Strategic Analysis

(Gopalakrishnan and Gupta2011) eBay has surpasses Amazon on terms of the market capitalization and has become the world’s largest retailer in the online market. The founder Pierre Omidyar achieves success and builds competitive advantage over other companies with his strategic vision and excellent personnel at eBay. The strong and focused leadership along with the fantastic teams that work at eBay globally are one of the key advantages. They constantly looks to innovate the portal and add up new and exciting features to make the customers online experience more easy and fun loving. It has gone beyond the traditional retailing model to create the “etailing” model for itself.
• Business Opportunities

There were immense business opportunities that eBay had and which are outlined below:

Acquisitions provide a new strategic intent and direction to the company. eBay has been in the process of buying up firms like Skype technologies or PayPal which adds up to the profit of the firm. (Investor, 2012) PayPal is a payment system which allows the user to transact from anywhere in the world. Market development opportunities are provided from the new and the emerging markets. eBay has constantly made efforts to foray into these markets and these include countries like India and China. The consumer behavior in these countries have changed a lot in contrast to the past, almost everyone have access to the internet, have purchasing power and leisure time to shop online. Though eBay is foraying into the new markets yet it also concentrates on the market penetration efforts in the existing markets like Western Europe and the USA where there are hoards of potential consumers that are still to explore the offerings of this company.

 

• Technology Advantages, Networks

Technologically eBay is very sound. It has excellent features and has partnered with Skype and PayPal. eBay is very transparent and has a comfortable user interface. It has integrated with Paypal which is secure and fast way of transacting worldwide and is accepted over 190 markets. Some of the technological innovations at eBay are the trading platform that it has and the feedback system. PayPal innovations entail the GL Test, verification of bank account, security keys and fraud detection system.

 

• Innovation

(Cliff, 2011) Innovation has been at the core of eBay. It constantly innovates the offerings, the service model, the payment and the security methods so that the customers remain happy.

 

• Ethics

(Investor, 2012) One of the major objectives at eBay is to conduct the business in ethical way. It operates on the model of trust. The company is into infusing the fun loving work culture, and a environment of trust. Pierre Omidyar had founded this company and since its formation it has relied believed in certain notions: the company believes that all the people are good and it recognizes and respects everyone, it is into the belief that every individual can contribute and that one should treat the other person as he would like others to treat him. Up and above all it believes that there should be an honest and open environment which fosters factors that brings out the best talent from people.

 

• Security

eBay takes care of all the security concerns and applies all the methods to ensure that the system is secure.

 

• 3 or 4 questions for a reader to consider while reviewing each case

What is the business model of eBay and what is its recipe for success?

How does eBay dominate the market and maintains its competitive position?

What are the methods that eBay applied to keep away frauds?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

 

Gopalakrishnan, J. and Gupta, V.K. (2011). eBay: “The world’s largest online marketplace”- A Case Study, retrieved from http://dspace.iimk.ac.in/bitstream/2259/510/1/543-549.pdf

 

Cliff, K. (2011). Six Bite-Sized Innovation Lessons From Ebay’s New Design Think Tan, retrieved from http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664404/six-bite-sized-innovation-lessons-from-ebays-new-design-think-tank

 

Investor. (2012). Code of business conduct and ethics, retrieved from http://investor.ebayinc.com/documentdisplay.cfm?DocumentID=649

 

Investor. (2012). eBay Inc. Awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for Advancing Global Entrepreneurship, retrieved from http://investor.ebay.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=337160

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