Instructions For this week’s assignment, you will synthesize the most relevant information in the situation below, and present a solution in your own words, using your own analysis. You will not use all of the information included in the scenario. Remember it is not appropriate to cut and paste entire sections from the situation to substitute for your own analysis. The objective of the assignment is to organize your message in a way that will be most effective in persuading the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to take action. Situation: Convincing the CEO to Approve a Public Relations Plan You are the director of public relations for Easy to Be Green, the innovative new company that helps homeowners, businesses, and municipalities become more environmentally friendly. The company has been active in environmental issues in the community since its founding a few years ago and generally has good community relations. Recently EBG’s director of research, who is strongly opinionated about environmental issues, spoke in public about the environmental practices of some local companies who employ many people in the community. Lately, you’ve found that some of your local contacts seem a little less interested in EBG’s public relations initiatives, and there has even been a small drop in sales. There may be no connections between these events, but you want to be proactive about the company’s community relations. You also want to protect the company against charges of hypocrisy. The other day you as walked through the parking lot, it occurred to you that the majority of the employees drive SUVs, pick-ups, and other kinds of gas guzzlers. This includes the CEO, whose family car is a luxury sedan. The company’s delivery and service vans are also not the most environmentally-friendly vehicles. After a little research, you come up with a tentative plan. You have learned that a local hybrid car dealership has been offering an interesting deal. Employees of companies that buy hybrids as company vehicles can get discounts when they buy hybrids for themselves. You think that the company should consider purchasing a couple of hybrid vans and encourage employees to buy hybrids for themselves by offering substantial rebates for these purchases. You want to get the CEO’s approval before you pursue this idea any further. You anticipate that he will have significant resistance. The company vehicles are not due for replacement, and the rebates to employees could add up to quite a lot if many employees take up the offer. On the other hand, if only a few employees take up the offer, a significant environmental initiative will seem like a failure. The CEO is a risk-taker in terms of business initiatives but tends to be conservative in management practices. He might also be a little defensive about the hybrid promotion plan because of his own vehicle choices. You feel strongly that the potential benefits of this plan—in long-term savings on gas, in goo.

1. Instructions
For this week’s assignment, you will synthesize the most
relevant information in the situation below, and present a
solution in your own words, using your own analysis. You will
not use all of the information included in the scenario.
Remember it is not appropriate to cut and paste entire sections
from the situation to substitute for your own analysis.
The objective of the assignment is to organize your message in
a way that will be most effective in persuading the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) to take action.
Situation: Convincing the CEO to Approve a Public Relations
Plan
You are the director of public relations for Easy to Be Green,
the innovative new company that helps homeowners, businesses,
and municipalities become more environmentally friendly. The
company has been active in environmental issues in the
community since its founding a few years ago and generally has
good community relations. Recently EBG’s director of
research, who is strongly opinionated about environmental
issues, spoke in public about the environmental practices of
some local companies who employ many people in the
community. Lately, you’ve found that some of your local
contacts seem a little less interested in EBG’s public relations
initiatives, and there has even been a small drop in sales. There
may be no connections between these events, but you want to be
proactive about the company’s community relations.
You also want to protect the company against charges of
hypocrisy. The other day you as walked through the parking
lot, it occurred to you that the majority of the employees drive
SUVs, pick-ups, and other kinds of gas guzzlers. This includes
the CEO, whose family car is a luxury sedan. The company’s

2. delivery and service vans are also not the most environmentally-
friendly vehicles.
After a little research, you come up with a tentative plan. You
have learned that a local hybrid car dealership has been offering
an interesting deal. Employees of companies that buy hybrids
as company vehicles can get discounts when they buy hybrids
for themselves. You think that the company should consider
purchasing a couple of hybrid vans and encourage employees to
buy hybrids for themselves by offering substantial rebates for
these purchases. You want to get the CEO’s approval before you
pursue this idea any further. You anticipate that he will have
significant resistance. The company vehicles are not due for
replacement, and the rebates to employees could add up to quite
a lot if many employees take up the offer. On the other hand, if
only a few employees take up the offer, a significant
environmental initiative will seem like a failure. The CEO is a
risk-taker in terms of business initiatives but tends to be
conservative in management practices. He might also be a little
defensive about the hybrid promotion plan because of his own
vehicle choices.
You feel strongly that the potential benefits of this plan—in
long-term savings on gas, in good public relations, in helping
the environment, and in increased company esprit de corps as
employees get involved in an activity related to the company
mission—outweigh the risks and costs. It may be expensive and
a little gimmicky, but it is unusual enough to get great publicity
even if it is not a huge success. You feel that if the CEO gets
behind this plan, you can succeed in getting employees to sign
on.
Write a one-page memo to CEO Bertrand Green in which you
convince him to give you the go-ahead to pursue your plan. You
are not asking for final approval at this point. You just want to
get his tentative approval before you continue working on the

3. plan. However, you can tell him that when you have all the
details in place, you will provide a progress report that includes
a complete budget.
As you think about how you will write the memo, ask yourself
what kinds of objections or questions the CEO might have and
how you can address these within the memo. Also, how can you
most effectively emphasize the potential benefits of the plan?
Use your imagination to describe how the plan might be
implemented and promoted.
You will need to adapt the persuasive strategies—the attention-
getter, the identification of and response to potential objections,
the emphasis on benefits, the proactive closing—to suit the
particular needs of this message.
· Memo heading
· One-inch margins all around
· Left-only justification
· 12-point regular Times New Roman font.
Running head: INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
6
Apple’s Internal Environment
Introduction
Companies need to have an understanding of their internal
environment because it influences the type of objectives it can
pursue. While assessing the internal environment, each business
finds that it has strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, the
company should try to maximize on the strengths while
reducing the weaknesses. This paper will evaluate the internal

4. environment of Apple to understand its strengths and limitations
as well.
Vision, Mission, Values
The company's vision is to change the world through its
technology creations. This vision is drawn from its founder’s
thoughts on man's role in the universe. Steve Jobs believed in
creations that change the way of life of people. The company
has a mission to be a leader in the technology world and to
always come up with creations that affirm this position as a
leader. For instance, the company was the first to come up with
touch screen smart phones.
The company is guided by the values of honesty, quality, and
service delivery. This is shown in the company's approach to
serving customers at their stores. Customers get personalized
tours of the company's stores and even get all products that the
company manufactures. The staff is trained on the importance of
honesty in the firm's quest to be a leader in the market. The
friendliness of the employees is also a key part of the firm's
culture (Duncan et al., 2008).
Strategy Clarification
Apple’s strategy has always been to produce innovations that
are relevant in the daily life of customers. In fact, the company
aims to make gadgets that are so good that customers cannot
leave them behind. This has inspired the tablets, iPods, and
smart phones that the company's main products. The company
emphasizes on quality a lot because they want customers to
remain loyal to them. The company also prices its products
above what customers charge for similar or substitute products.
However, the company's product offering is slightly different
because they offer customers such things as upgrades on
applications and operating systems. Still, the high price is seen
as a reflection of product quality as well as the aesthetic value
that customers attach to Apple's products. There is a certain

5. pride that Apple's customers derive from owning premium
priced products and a reduction in price would perhaps even
result in a decrease in demand (Kuratko et al., 2014).
Cultural Assessment
Apple's main attribute of their culture is the independence with
which employees work with. The company hires self-motivated
individuals who will work better when there is no one to inspect
their activities. The hierarchy in the company is almost non-
existent because the CEO is assisted by vice presidents of the
various divisions. Beyond that, there is no more hierarchy and
the Chief Executive Interacts directly with employees and even
knows their names, talents, interests and so forth.
The lack of hierarchy also ensures that decisions at the company
take little time to be made and communications intended for all
employees are delivered swiftly. Accountability is an important
element of the company's culture because every employee has a
set of duties they are expected to accomplish. The organization
has even coined an acronym 'DRI', to mean Directly
Responsible Individual. Blame placing is almost alien to the
company (Duncan et al., 2008).
Value Chain Analysis
Apple's value chain is composed of a set of activities that the
company does itself and some which it opts to outsource. The
company starts by coming up with the designs for products it
intends to create. Design is quite important for the company
because it wants to be sell sleek and uniquely designed
products. All designs are created in a factory in California.
Another activity the company does for itself in the sales and
distribution of final products (Duncan et al., 2008). The
company does the sales work at its stores because it wants to
give customers a uniform message. Outsourcing this function

6. could lead to distortions of messages given to customers.
Activities that the company outsources include the production
of screens and semi-conductors. These products are bought from
companies in Asia because their production is a labor-intensive
process. These items are also not item-specific and screens can
be used by many gadgets and many companies as well. There is
no need for Apple to invest in factories to produce them because
the other companies can produce the much more efficiently.
Conclusion
The internal environment is characterized by a strong mission
statement to which the company has strived to abide. The
company always produces quality products that sell it as the
ultimate market leader in consumer electronics. The company
has a culture that encourages employees to be accountable,
creative, and work under minimal supervision. The company
also strives to reward its employees generously and create a
conductive working environment where employees do not have
to be ordered around.
Therefore, the employees reciprocate by showing loyalty to the
company. Lastly, the company's value chain is made up of
activities that the company outsources and those which it strives
to do by itself. The company outsources labor intensive and
non-unique processes such as screen making and assembling.
However, the company controls essential processes such as
product design, distribution, and sales services.
References
Duncan, W. J., Ginter, P. M., & Swayne, L. E. (2008).
Competitive Advantage and Internal Organizational Assessment.
The Academy of Management Executive, 12(3), 6-16.
Kuratko, D. F., Hornsby, J. S., & Covin, J. G. (2014).
Diagnosing a Firm's Internal Environment for Corporate
Entrepreneurship. Business Horizons, 57(1), 37-47.

7. Running head: APPLE'S EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
1
APPLE'S EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
2
Apple Inc's External Business Environment
Introduction
Companies do not operate in a vacuum and as such they have to
pay attention to their external environmental in order to remain
competitive. Managers have little influence on the external
environment and businesses have to adapt as the external factors
keep on changing. External business environment factors
include the political landscape, technology, legal and regulatory
frameworks, societal factors, the economy in general, and
competition. These factors are not static and the more they
shift, the more volatile the environment becomes. Apple Inc.
operates on a global scale, which means that the external
business environment is quite complex. This paper will explore
some of these factors which affect the business strategy that the
company uses.
Political Factors
Political factors are perhaps what the company cannot exert any
influence on because of the complexities involved. Apple Inc is
an American company which has customers all over the world
including those countries whose relations with the US are
strained (Grant, 2003). The company has to hope that tensions
between the various countries it has interests do not become
rocky to a point where business becomes impossible to run. The
company has factories in China and other Asian countries where
there is an ample supply of labor. Potential conflict between the
US and China could force the company to shift the locations of

8. the labor-intensive factories.
Economic conditions affect the demand for Apple's products
because of people's purchasing power. Increase in inflation and
recessions have a negative effect on demand because people
tend to check their spending habits (Grant, 2003). The
company's products can be classified as luxury products, which
mean that people can decide to reduce spending on them to be
able to purchase their basic needs. Further, economic conditions
affect the cost of raw materials for production and labor as well.
Therefore, the company has to keep track of developments in
the economy because they have to adjust their prices and
product offering to match the changes (Husso, 2011).
Social factors are quite important to Apple because their
competitive advantage currently lies in the perception that their
products are of high quality. Their customers feel classy
because of the premium pricing which the company practices.
The company has to keep track of the people’s attitude towards
their products so that they can produce what people want in case
their preferences change. Another dimension of the external
business environment is technology. Apple has to invest in
research and development to produce innovations that will keep
customers interested in what the company is producing. Further,
the company has to keep an eye on any developments in
technology which could help it improve its products (Grant,
2003).
The regulatory and legal environment is quite important for
Apple to keep an eye on because it has operations in many
countries. The company has to ensure that their factories do not
violate any rules meant to protect the environment because that
would lead to time-consuming lawsuits (Husso, 2011). The
company must also ensure that it abides by the labor laws in the
countries of operation. The company often has to go beyond the
labor laws in the countries of operation so that its image in the

9. eyes of employees and the public in general. The company
ensures that the factories are safe and healthy for workers, and
they also remunerate employees competitively (Grant, 2003).
The geographical factors that Apple has to pay attention to
relate to the distance between the factories and markets. The
company has to invest in an elaborate supply chain management
system to ensure that parts reach the respective factories for
assembly. The same has to be done to ensure that the company's
products are equally available in all markets.
Five Force Analysis
The five force analysis tool is useful in analyzing the
competitive environment in which the company operates in. The
competition between players in the industry is quite fierce
especially because Apple has to compete in the operating
systems market, smart phones market, and personal computers
front as well. However, the company has gathered customer
loyalty by manufacturing quality products for the premium
market. The bargaining power of Apple's suppliers has been
reducing as the company continues to grow in size. Apple
places orders in large quantities and many suppliers want to do
business with it and as such Apple is able to put conditions in
the supply contracts (Mason, 2007).
The company has cut a niche in the luxury phones and personal
computers market and customers are very loyal. The bargaining
power of buyers is therefore little and is expected to continue
buying even when prices increase. The threat of new entrants
entering the market and reducing Apple's market share is little
because of the loyal customer base and a strong brand image the
company has built over the years. Lastly, the threat of substitute
products is real for Apple because there are companies in the
market that manufacture quality products. An example is
Google's Android operating system and Samsung's Galaxy smart
phone (Mason, 2007). However, the company is working to

10. reduce this threat by cultivating customer loyalty. In
conclusion, the company has managed to place itself
strategically in a manner that reduces the threat of competition.
The strengths of the company include its strong financial
position and brand loyalty of customers. Weakness includes the
incompatibility of its products with rival operating systems and
high prices. The opportunities existing in the market include an
increasing demand for smart phones and tablets. The main threat
to the company' success is the growth of Google Android
operating system and increased scrutiny on working conditions
in the company's factories in China (Mason, 2007).
References
Grant, R. M. (2003). Strategic Planning in a Turbulent
Environment: Evidence from the Oil Majors. Strategic
Management Journal, 24(6), 491-517.
Husso, M. (2011). Analysis of Competition in the Mobile Phone
Markets of the United States and Europe.
Mason, R. B. (2007). The External Environment's Effect on
Management and Strategy: A c
Complexity Theory Approach. Management Decision, 45(1), 10-
28.
Running head: APPLE'S MARKET POSITION
1
APPLE'S MARKET POSITION
3
APPLE'S MARKET POSITION
Apple Inc. is a consumer electronics company that is
headquartered in California, USA. The company began in 1978

11. by manufacturing computer hardware and software. The
company has evolved over the years and entered the mobile
phone market, tablets, music players, operating systems, and
television sets. The company is one of the most valuable brands
in the world and enjoys customer loyalty that most of its
competitors cannot match. The company's current Chief
executive is Timothy Cook who has carried on the company's
legacy of producing elegant products and premium pricing
(Mushtaq et al., 2013).
The first target group of Apple’s products is teens and college
students. The company targets them through products such as
iPod music player, smart phones that can easily access social
networking sites, and enable easy research for university
students. The company's tablet, the iPad can easily record notes
for students and is easy to carry around. The second target
group of Apple is business people who want to use products that
portray an enviable image. The company targets these people by
producing elegant products that do not break down easily and as
such are efficient for storing sensitive business information
(Mushtaq et al., 2013).
Young people in college and teenagers need products that are
easy to carry around and serving many functions. For instance,
they need to call, message, store and listen to music, carry out
research, and appear fashionable in the midst of their social
cluster. The company's smartphone, the iPhone, can serve all
these purposes. The business people on the other hand need
products that only serious and reputable persons should be
identified with. Apple Inc. therefore develops durable and
premium priced products such as Mac books. In addition, the
company offers such things as updates to the software their
products use so that customers keep purchasing their products.
Businesspeople need to feel as if they are in a partnership with
the company and Apple provides this by increasing the number
of interactions with clients beyond the purchase point (Mushtaq
et al., 2013).

12. Customer satisfaction
Apple's products satisfy customer's needs by giving them a
sense of belonging to a unique class of customers that can
afford elegant products. Although Apple's pricing can be
described as high, not many of its customers complain. In fact,
every time the company releases an upgrade of the current
product, there are hundreds of thousands of customer waiting to
replace their current product with the new one (Mushtaq et al.,
2013). In addition, the company's products are long lasting and
perform beyond customers' expectations. The company rarely
faces situations where it has to recall products due to glitches in
performance. One area however it should relook is the
compatibility of its products with other operating systems.
Although this could be the company's strategy, it often limits
the ability of customers to use software applications that do not
have a version that is compatible with Mac computers (Mushtaq
et al., 2013).
In the smart phone market, Samsung is Apple's main competitor
in terms of sales. Samsung has origins in Asia and is therefore
quite popular in the Eastern hemisphere. The rivalry between
the two companies is fierce and there are court cases involving
accusations of copyright infringements between them. In the
tablets market, Amazon is perhaps Apple's biggest competitor
because they design quality and affordable products. They also
bundle the tablets with other products such as music and e-
books from their business partners. Google is Apple's biggest
competitor in the operating system's market. The two companies
are always competing to have their operating systems used in
tablets and smartphones as it results in revenues (Mushtaq et
al., 2013).
The company differentiates itself by pricing products at a price
that is high but at the same time gives updates to operating

13. systems. Further, their products do not allow the use of other
operating system and the company does not advertise its
products directly. Instead, the publicity created by its customers
is enough to attract new customers while keeping the current
ones satisfied. The company's competitive advantage arises
from the compatibility of all its products due to the use of a
single operating system. Their iPod is compatible with their
computers and so are the phones. Therefore, loyal customers
tend to purchase all their personal electronics from the
company. Competitors find it hard to win customers from the
company and to build such a high level of loyalty (Mushtaq et
al., 2013).
5P's Analysis
Renowned scholar Philip Kotler insisted that a proper marketing
strategy has to pay attention to the critical elements that include
product, price, place, and people. Apple's products are designed
to look elegant and to serve customers efficiently. Each time the
company develops a product, the team has to have the customer
in mind (Mushtaq et al., 2013). Their prices are meant to attract
a clientele that wants to feel special and it is therefore premium.
The company's main promotional method is through word of
mouth where customers and employees are used to convince
their friends, colleagues, and family to purchase the company's
products. The company creates place utility by having its own
stores where people can visit for inquiries and purchases. They
also allow private store owners to stock their products while
purchases can also be made online. Lastly, the company allows
its staff to enjoy their work and stretch their creativity. The
people who interact with customers are well-trained to handle
all questions and concerns that visitors to the stores might have.
Reference
Mushtaq, K., Gafoor, A., & Dad, M. (2013). Apple Market
Integration: Implications for Sustainable Agricultural

14. Development. Lahore Journal of Economics, 13(1), 129-138.
Appendix 1
I conducted interviews with three middle and senior level
managers at Apple Inc and got insight on various aspects of the
company's operations. The first interview gave insight on the
company's plans going into 2015 and the current shifts in the
market. The second interview was helpful in understanding how
the company's strategy has changed in the past two decades and
the reasons for the company's sharp growth. The final interview
shed light on the company's marketing mix and how competition
shapes strategies.
Appendix 2: Market Analysis Matrix
Market Position Analysis: Product Position versus Competitor
Product Position
Needs of the Consumer
Apple Inc
Samsung Electronics
Google
Amazon
Quality
2
1
1
1
Price
1
2
2
2
Availability
2
2
2

15. 2
Features
2
2
2
1
Functions
2
2
2
2
Brand Image
2
2
2
1
Total Score
Narrative/Comments