Product Development And Manufacturing

STRATEGY FOR CREATION OF PRODUCT

Apple is one of the leading brands in the mobile manufacturing industry. It was founded by Steve Jobs. Apple’s products are considered as the premium category of smartphones in the world. Due to this reason the company gives a lot of attention to ensure that its products are of the best quality standards. Apple’s product development process is one of the most successful design processes as ever (Nasab and Milani, 2012). The process of designing is of utmost importance at Apple. The company gives a lot of attention to designing its smartphones, tablets and computers in such a manner that they are strong, easy to use and aesthetic. This can be supported through the fact that at Apple the design teams are separated from other processes and systems. When a new product is being developed, the design team is largely separated from the rest of the company, so that they can focus only on the development and designing process. Once the product has been designed and developed, the process is shifted over to Engineering Program Manager (EPM) and Global Supply Manager (GSM). Their main duty is to ensure that the production and distribution processes are carried out in the most efficient manner (Kabin, 2016). Together they are responsible for procuring the raw materials and managing the manufacturing process.

PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

At Apple, the concept of the product lifecycle is taken very seriously. The company tries to evolve its products on the basis of current trends in the industry and demands of the customers. The product life cycle consists of several stages through which a product passes. In the introduction stage, as the name suggests, the product is introduced for the first time. Generally, companies, when launching a new product tends to keep the prices low to capture major share of the market. However, Apple follows premium pricing policy because it markets its products in the premium category (Feng, Govindan and Li, 2017). This way Apple is able to create a niche market for its products and is also able to maintain the exclusivity of the products. In the growth stage, the primary objective of Apple is to maintain the quality of the product so that they can be sold more. However, in recent some years, quality of Apple products has declined, although this had a very minimal impact on sales and performance of the company. During the maturity stage, although many rivals also introduce competing products, even then Apple is able to maintain its sales numbers. Additionally, in this stage, the company starts to introduce improvements to the existing product line up to further support the sales (Baker and Wong, 2013). In the last stage, sales slowly decline, upon which the company decides to stop manufacturing and selling the product.

Apple, since its establishment, has given priority to designing its products in such a manner that they are convenient to use and give the best experience to the customers. In order to achieve this target, the company does not shy away from extensively investing its financial resources. Raford (2015) stated that this is one of the main reasons for Apple’s success. The company has heavily invested in the research and development department to obtain a better understanding of its products and demands of the customers. According to Ghezzi, Cortimiglia and Frank (2015), Apple’s research and development work are one of the best in the industry. Although the company has worked on philosophy of providing the best products and experiences to the customers, it also manages finances effectively. This can be supported through the fact that the company uses high-quality raw materials and systems but is able to keep its costs low. This is largely done because all the manufacturing is done in China due to low labour costs. The management knows that to manufacture the products Apple will need to build a strong workforce base, which could prove to be very costly.

Over the years Apple has been sued a number of times and has been involved in different legal issues. Research and development form a big part of the engineering processes of the company (Raford, 2015). The management tries to ensure that such processes and systems do not cause any legal issue. In this regard, the company regularly checks with the legal department to ensure that its products are developed as per the legal norms and policies.

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REFERENCES

• Baker, M. and Wong, C., 2English 013. The delusion of strategic spatial planning: what's left after the Labour government's regional experiment?. Planning Practice & Research, 28(1), pp.83-103.
• Feng, L., Govindan, K. and Li, C., 2017. Strategic planning: Design and coordination for dual-recycling channel reverse supply chain considering consumer behavior. European Journal of Operational Research, 260(2), pp.601-612.
• Ghezzi, A., Cortimiglia, M.N. and Frank, A.G., 2015. Strategy and business model design in dynamic telecommunications industries: A study on Italian mobile network operators. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 90, pp.346-354.
• Nasab, H.H. and Milani, A.S., 2012. An improvement of quantitative strategic planning matrix using multiple criteria decision making and fuzzy numbers. Applied Soft Computing, 12(8), pp.2246-2253.
• Raford, N., 2015. Online foresight platforms: evidence for their impact on scenario planning & strategic foresight. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 97, pp.65-76.
• Raford, N., 2015. Online foresight platforms: evidence for their impact on scenario planning & strategic foresight. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 97, pp.65-76.
• Kabin, B., 2016. Apple’s Product Development Process – Inside the World’s Greatest Design Organization. [Online]. Available through: [Accessed on 3rd January 2019].