The document details the management information system of Apple Inc., outlining the company's history, product offerings, and its competitive advantages achieved through information technology and customer satisfaction. It emphasizes the significance of a well-structured information system in enhancing communication, decision-making, and maintaining brand loyalty. Additionally, it highlights the factors affecting the utilization of information technology within the organization and concludes with the competitive edge Apple maintains through its innovations.

1. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
SYSTEM OF APPLE INC.
By
Devika Thennakoon

2. 1
TABLE OF CONTENT
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. 2
List of Figures................................................................................................................................. 2
Executive Summary........................................................................................................................ 3
Question One: Apple Inc. ............................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Overview of The Company................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Information System of Apple Inc.......................................................................................... 6
1.3 Customer Satisfaction With Information System of Apple Inc. ........................................... 9
1.4 Competitive Advantage of Apple Inc.................................................................................. 11
1.5 Factors Affecting to Utilize Information Technology......................................................... 16
Question 02: MS Sway Creation................................................................................................... 18
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 23
List Of References ........................................................................................................................ 24

3. 2
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: ACSI: Cellular Telephones............................................................................................... 9
Table 2: A decade at the top: Apple tops PC customer satisfaction ratings for the 10th year
running.......................................................................................................................................... 10
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Evolution of Apple Logo................................................................................................. 5
Figure 2: Core Business Activities of Apple Inc. ........................................................................... 6
Figure 3: iCloud............................................................................................................................ 12
Figure 4: Apple Support Communities......................................................................................... 13
Figure 5: Tumblr........................................................................................................................... 14
Figure 6: Supplier Information Database...................................................................................... 15

4. 3
Executive Summary
Information technology makes significance influence in today’s business context. Organizations
are becoming virtual with the technology advancement. It is a dream for an organization to
become more competitive and successful without information technology. Therefore, companies
make huge investments to implement information technology advancements in their businesses.
Apple Inc. is one of leading digital product manufacturing organization in United States. This
assignment explains about the management information system of Apple Inc.
Firstly, report discusses about the overview of the organization and primary and supporting
activities of the company. Further, it discusses about the Information System of Apple Inc. and
key information systems of the organization. Moreover, it explains about the Customer
Satisfaction with Information System of Apple Inc. and Competitive advantage of Apple Inc.
Meanwhile, report elaborates about the Factors affecting to utilize information technology. At
end of the report, the MS Sway created link and preview was mentioned.

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Question One: Apple Inc.
1.1 Overview of the Company
Apple Inc. is an American International Technology company which designs, develops and sells
computer software, customer electronics and online services. Apple is a world famous brand and
it has loyal and competitive customer base. The company was established at California, United
Status. When consider about the company hardware portfolio, it consisted with iPhone
smartphones, tablet computer iPad, personal computer Mac, portable media player iPod, Apple
watches and Apple TV. Customer software from Apple includes macOS and iOS, Safari web
browser, iTunes, iWork, iLife and productivity suites. Online services include iOS App store,
Apple music, iCloud and iTunes store (Mata, 2016).
Apple Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976 to sell
personal computers as the beginning of the company. Company was incorporated as Apple
Computer Inc. in 1977 through the significant momentum and revenue. Meanwhile they hired
computer designers and company marketing team was able to achieve more customers with the
products. With their instant financial success, company shipped innovative new computer
features with graphical interfaces. Apple’s product prices are higher when compare with the
competitors. Competitors were introduced low prices products for the market such as Microsoft
Windows and customers tend to purchase those competitive products. The Apple’s CEO Gil
Amelio decided to get back him to the company. Job’s regained his position as the CEO and
started to rebuild the process of the company. In 2001, they opened their new Apple’s retail
stores and they rebuilt their software portfolio and hardware technology of computers. Through
these strategies, company showed the profitability and success again. In 2007 January, Jobs
announced that the Apple Computer, Inc. as Apple Inc. and highly focused on iPhone. It showed
higher financial success and in 2011 Steve Jobs resigned from the position of CEO at Apple Inc.
due to his bad health condition and Tim Cook become the new CEO. After two months of time
Jobs died by ending the of an era of Apple Inc. (Bleach, 2016).
Apple can be identified as the world’s largest information technology company through its
profitability. They are the world’s second largest mobile phone manufacturer and they become
the US first company which owned financial strength at over US$ 700 billion. In 2016 company

6. 5
has 116,000 full-time employee base with 498 retail stores among 22 countries around the world.
They owned the world’s largest music retailer, iTunes Store. More than one billion of Apple
products are active around the world in 2016. The annual revenue was calculated as totaled $215
billion in 2016 and company maintains a higher level of brand loyalty while repeating the
position among world’s most valuable brands.
Evolution of Apple Logo
Figure 1: Evolution of Apple Logo
First Logo
(April 1, 1976, Prototype)
First official Apple Logo
(1977 – 1998)
Apple Logo
(1998 – 2003)
Current Logo of Apple
(Since 2003)
Source: Bleach, 2016

7. 6
Companies core supported activities can be figured out as follows:
Figure 2: Core Business Activities of Apple Inc.
Source: Businessthoughts, 2012
1.2 Information System of Apple Inc.
Industrial society is changing to the information society and modern society is highly driven by
the information technology. Information technology reduces the geographical boundaries and it
needs higher level of effective communication system. Further, Management Information System
(MIS) illustrates the key requirements to differentiate the company products and services.
Management system can be defined as the system which monitors and retrieves data through the
business environment, gathers data from transactions and operates data within the organization
and provides data to management by analyzing and filtering for different business requirements
(Alsalloum, 2011).
When discuss about the Apple Inc, it requires to have well- structured information system to
provide information at right time, right people and right information. The key objective of Apple
is to be the leader of innovation. Also, company has highly established internal communication
process. Most of the processes are virtualized and company believes that virtualization is the
most important thing to achieve competitive advantage and make it sustainable. Company

8. 7
intranet provides the opportunities to access all required data for employees through their
desktop. Further, company extranet helps them to have strong relationship with suppliers and
developers of Mac based applications. This supports company to build value chain between
organization, suppliers, production and retail stores. Information from the retail stores
communicates to the customer service department (Ramey, 2012).
Apple information systems can be listed as follows:
 Office Automation System
 Transaction Processing System
 Knowledge Work Systems
 Management Information System
 Decision Support Systems
 Office Automation System
 Expert Support/ Information Systems
 Expert Systems
Knowledge management system is associated with decision support system, transaction
processing system and office automation system. Cashiers of the Power Mac Store can be
identified as an example of transaction processing systems. iTune application is another example
and it allows customers to purchase online products through an invoices and online receipts.
Further, office automation system uses multiple computers to perform different business
activities at one time. Meanwhile, iCloud technology is a technology which allows ability to
digital creating, collecting, storing and relaying of different office information to accomplish
different organizational objectives at the organization. The knowledge management system is an
computer based application which helps organization to support knowledge workers of the
organization (Ramey, 2012).
Furthermore, information technology is the key requirement to make customer satisfaction and
customer services at Apple Inc. if there are any defects on the items, research and development
department take care about the issue and find the causes for the defects. Apple is in creating or
sketching designs for their new products (AutoCAD and Sketch apps).

9. 8
The decision support system (DSS) can be identified as computer application which analyzes the
organizational data and convert them as an effective information to make better decisions. They
use both qualitative management and quantitative management in their decision making process.
When company develops their management information system, they analyze about the human
thinking patterns and human behaviors in order to develop best and effective system. Company
uses “NEXPERT” as leading solution provider of mobile contactless technologies for making
payments, ticketing facilities, customer loyalty and access and security. Further, company highly
values customs, qualities, principles and standards in their operational processes to be an unique
among the competitors (Ramey, 2012).
Apple Inc. is one of world’s leading digital product manufacturing organization which has
achieved the competitive advantage through information technology. Through producing
innovative information technologies, company has achieved the distinctive manner of customer
satisfaction and brand loyalty. Management Information System has given the competitive
advantage for Apple Inc. (Ramey, 2012).

10. 9
1.3 Customer Satisfaction with Information System of Apple Inc.
Apple Inc has loyal customers with their innovative product range and there are two types of
people in the world. Some people say that Apple is not just a company and it is a cause while
some people saying that Apple is not a cause, it is a company. Company agrees with the both
groups.
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Apple was ranked as the top
competitor of PC industry and it achieved score of 86 out of 100.
ACSI: Cellular Telephones
Table 1: ACSI: Cellular Telephones
Company Name 2015 2016 % Changed
Cellular Phones 78 79 1.3%
Apple 80 81 1%
Samsung 80 80 0%
Motorola (Lenovo) 79 77 -3%
HTC 77 75 -3%
LG 74 74 0%
Microsoft Mobile (Nokia) 75 74 -1%
Other 71 73 3%
Source: American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), 2016

11. 10
Table 2: A decade at the top: Apple tops PC customer satisfaction ratings for the 10th year
running
Source: American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), 2016
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Apple PC’s spotted to the top position
during last ten years of time. Customer satisfaction survey show that Apple has loyal customer
base and it helps company to achieve the competitive advantage.

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1.4 Competitive advantage of Apple Inc.
Apple has become a world’s highly recognized digital products manufacturing organization and
it has achieved the competitive advantage through different perspectives. It has become an
unstoppable product with higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. They have protected
their competitive position of the industry through strategic market approach.
 Hardware and Software
Entire PC industry is struggling to make differentiation on their products. Apple has approached
the PC industry with very competitive differentiation strategy. Apple develops extremely
competitive hardware as well as software. Company makes specific hardware decisions in order
to enhance the value of software. Rather than OS, Apple creates the good core software call
iLife. It focuses on entertainment and creativity. The success story of apple related with the
similar priorities between both hardware and software manufacturing of the organization. As
explained in above chapter, Apple Inc. has gained top position of ACSI through their PC
manufacturing. This is how company achieves the competitive advantage through its hardware
and software developing competencies (Bajarin, 2016).
 iTunes and Digital Asset Management
iTune can be identified as one of most strategic element of Apple Inc. Apple is a digital asset
management organization and it announced in 2009 about their event for credit card account
information of more than 100 million customers through iTunes. They have become one of
largest digital retailer (Bajarin, 2016).
 Apple’s retail strategy
Several companies were failed to develop their own retail stores. Once the Apple identifies the
importance of handling own retail sector, they invested in developing retail chain for the
company. Location design plays an important part in retail business. Apple has implemented
perfect retail business which has ability to achieve customer satisfaction (Bajarin, 2016).

13. 12
 Information System
As explained above, information system can make significant impact for any organization in
today’s business world. When discuss about Apple information technology, they keep their
secret because they want to protect their competitive position of the industry. Due to following
services, Apple was able to achieve competitive advantage through loyal customer base (Apple
Information Systems , 2016).
iCloud
Figure 3: iCloud
Source: Apple Information Systems , 2016
iCloud is one of competitive feature from Apple products and it allows users to back up the data
through multiple Apple product online. If the product was stolen or misplaces, iCloud allows
customers to locate any iDevice which connected to internet. It increases the customer values
and helps company to differentiate their products from the competitors.

14. 13
 Apple Support Communities
Figure 4: Apple Support Communities
Source: Apple Information Systems , 2016
Apple’s website offers their customers the feature calls “Apple Support Communities” and it
allows customers to join conversation between Apple device users on specific topics. They can
ask questions and get answers for those questions. Middle management can use this feature to
analyze customer issues. Engineers and Scientists from middle management of the Apple Inc can
learn about different problems through Apple Support Communities and fix technical issues by
increasing customer satisfaction.

15. 14
Tumblr
Figure 5: Tumblr
Source: Apple Information Systems , 2016
Apple has their Tumblr page to advertise their iPhone colors and they have advertised short
advertisements with 15 seconds for iPhone 5c s with different colors. Each color has different
songs and videos. Further, each short statement consists with different languages.

16. 15
 Supplier Information Database
Figure 6: Supplier Information Database
Source: Apple Information Systems , 2016
Supplier Information Database is a tool to find best supplier for Apple products. Through this
systems, customers can register with their SID and find information about the Apple products as
they wanted.
Apple Inc. has achieved the competitive advantage through their information technology
innovations, customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, product features and hardware and software
developments. Company management information system has playing an important role in
maintaining the sustainable competitive advantage over the period of time. Technology is highly
dynamic and competitive business industry which essential innovation to gain the market
position and survival.

17. 16
1.5 Factors Affecting To Utilize Information Technology
Information technology is the key diver for today’s business world and organizations utilize their
information technology in order to achieve competitive advantage through IT.
 Educational level and training
Employees’ education level has significant influence in usage of IT at organizational context.
People should be aware about the ways of using information technology in their day to day office
works. For an example when a company implements new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
software for the organization, company management should provide training for employees on
how they can work with it and what are the advantages employees can achieve through the
system. ERP systems may include high cost structure since it covers most of the business
processes. It increases the process effectiveness and communication efficiency. Therefore, it is
very important for employees to be aware about the ways of working with software. Further,
company management should provide end- user training in order to increase the IT usage
utilization from the individual level (Gibson, 1997)
 Strategic planning
Organizations should have well- structured strategic planning process in order to achieve the
information technology utilization. Information technology is rapidly changing and it requires
high cost to integrate latest technology in business processes. Company’s strategic planning
process should be IT- oriented. It explains how organization should use information technology
advancements in different organizational perspectives. It aligns with the IT related decision
making. When company plans the IT requirement and its usage, management should highly
focuses to identify the ways to increase IT usage. It is a direction and guideline for employees
and middle management to use IT in a strategic way to achieve competitive market position
(TechTarget, 2017).

18. 17
 Change management
There is an information technology driven business context and each and organizations tries to
achieve the competitive advantage through information technology. Traditional business
approach is modernizing through the information technology advancements. When companies
convert their traditional business approach into IT driven business approach, change
management process is very important. When the company has well- structured change
management process, it enables company to implement better change while achieving expected
objectives. Change process has different steps and all the steps should be well- prepared.
Through an effective change management process, organizations can increase the IT utilization
at the company (Gibson, 1997)

19. 18
Question 02: MS SWAY Creation
Infographic for entire assignment
Sway creation was done through an online temple. The linked was attached in below. The
graphical representation of Sway can be figured out as follows:
Link to Sway: https://sway.com/uX2Eie2Nu4G1JPci?ref=Link&loc=endofstory

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24. 23
Conclusion
Apple Inc. is one of leading and fast growing digital product manufacturer in US. Company has
achieved competitive advantage through information technology innovations. Further, company
has gained a competitive market position while being the organization which has highest loyal
customer base. Especially Apple Inc. gains the competitive advantage through its differentiation
strategy. Company has provided differentiated product and features such as iTunes, iClouds,
iLife and etc. Company established their retail stores in order to achieve higher customer
satisfaction. It is highlighted that company makes innovative technology advancements time to
time in order to achieve higher customer satisfaction. Recently they introduced iPhone 7S and
iPhone 7 S red version. Through the management information system of the organization, they
have able to achieve the competitive advantage of market leadership among key rivals such as
Samsung and Lenovo. However, the technology advancements with the innovation help
company to maintain their competitive advantage for long period of time.

25. 24
List of References
Apple Information Systems . (2016). Retrieved June 28, 2017, from Apple Information Systems
Alsalloum, O. (2011). Achieving competitive advantage with information systems . Retrieved
June 27, 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/DrOthmanAlsalloum/achieving-
competitive-advantage-with-information-systems
Bajarin, B. (2016). Why Apple Has a Strong Competitive Advantage. Retrieved June 28, 2017,
from https://techpinions.com/apples-competitive-advantage/5
Bleach, L. (2016). Information Systems of Apple Inc. Retrieved June 28, 2017, from
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3864782?tstart=0
Businessthoughts. (2012). Steve jobs revives apple with information technology. Retrieved June
29, 2017, from https://businessthoughts7.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/apples-use-of-
information-technology/
Gibson, M. L. (1997). Factors Affecting the Use of Information Technology in Business Process
Reengineering. Journal of Information Resources Management, 10(3), 5-17.
Mata, A. V. (2016). Apple Information System. Retrieved June 28, 2017, from
https://prezi.com/zgnj9s4swfox/apple-information-system/
Ramey, K. (2012). Use of Information Technology in Competitive Advantage. Retrieved June 28,
2017, from http://www.useoftechnology.com/information-technology-competitive-
advantage/
TechTarget. (2017). IT strategic plan (information technology strategic plan) . Retrieved June
27, 2017, from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/IT-strategic-plan-information-
technology-strategic-plan