CORPORATE LEVEL STRATEGY OF APPLE COMPUTER INC.

Low level of diversification (1976-1996)

To examine what strategies have been used by Apple, we divided the period into two ages. The first age is in between 1976 until 1996 were we can observe that all the products sold by Apple were computer related. They started with Apple 1 and continuously developed their products up until the evolutionary of Macintosh. However, their development restrained only to computers, chips and software which indicates low diversification applied by Apple at that time.

Apple is considered as a Dominant Business type of diversification where between 70% and 95% of their revenue comes from a single business. From this case, the dominant business is the
Short term

Knowing that the adoption of new corporate level strategy by Steve Jobs in 1997 onwards bring high revenues to the company, we think that Apple should continue with this strategy. By not concentrating only to one dominant business, Apple must introduce plenty of related products. This type of related business should be expanded. By adding more digital product, the company will have the advantage of sharing the activity, technology, distribution linkage and many others. Besides, as stated in the case, the introduction of iTunes is as a means to boost the sale of Apple’sother products. So, it is hope that, by introducing more new digital product, it may boost the sales of Apple’s former products. For example, out of the scope of this case, Apple has subsequently introduced iPad, iTablet and Apple may also create their very own iCamera and etc.

Moreover, Apple should make more strategic agreements with well known brands. As we know from the case, Apple has already developed strategic agreements with many well known brands such as Volkswagen of America, Burton Snowboards and etc. All they need to do is just to include Apple products together with their alliances’ products. By doing this, Apple is at advantage since their product line will become bigger while they do not have to enter into unrelated industry which is new and risky to be explored. Other than that, by creating strategic agreements, Apple can gain consumer