cell phone industry analysis

WK2 Homework PART 1 – General Environment Homework Instructions:

Use the Cell Phone Industry (iPhone division of Apple)

Example for the Political/Legal Environment:

Step 1 – Things happen in the environment (you observe these):

Example Observation: The Tariff War with China may impact the iPhone supply chain

Step 2 – Decide what this means for Apple in terms of Opportunities and Threats:

Opportunity: Identify one or two?

Threat: Identify one or two

Step 3 – Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for each of the six General Environment factors

Step 4 – Draw three IMPORTANT Strategic Implications for the iPhone managers from the observations you have made across the six environments (A Strategic Implication is a strategic program that an ENTIRE company, not a functional division, needs to plan and implement in order to respond to a coming shift in its strategic situation).

Step 5 – Prioritize the Strategic Implications you drew and explain your reasoning for placing the Strategic Implications in the order you placed them.

Example of a Strategic Implication:

iPhone managers must develop and maintain a competitive-level of iPhone functionality.

NOTE: Implications are not function specific. Bargain for price reductions for iPhone components is not a Strategic Implication because it would be done by only the the purchasing department.

NOTICE FOR YOUR FUTURE IN THIS COURSE: SI’s will require a set of coordinated and related set of actions by managers in various functional areas of the company. These actions are called Functional Recommendations in this course. You will NOT be making these for this exercise. For example, “AAPL needs to advertise more” is a functional recommendation not a strategic one because it is done by the Marketing Function not the entire company. “AAPL needs to position its iPhone as a technology leader” is strategic because it needs integrated actions by multiple functions of the company. For example, various functional areas must do tasks in their area of responsibility – e.g.- marketing needs to change the brand image, R&D needs to enhance technical performance, operations has to figure out how to make it, and so on.

WEEK 2 Homework PART 2 – Homework Porter’s Five-Forces Template:

Complete a similar process for the Porter’s Five-Forces Template and draw at least two SI’s for Apple.

Identify the major competitors or competitive threats
Assess the level of threat, power, intensity competitors/threats of each Force
Identify at least two SI’s for Apple in the iPhone division based upon your assessment of the Competitive Environment.
Incorporate them in your list of Strategic Implications and place each in its correct priority position and explain why it belongs in that position.

MAKE SURE you do the 5-forces analysis for the Cell Phone industry itself, not just Apple iPhone’s.