Global Strategy of Samsung & Apple-

Question: Analyze Samsung and Apple's Global Operations Strategy. Answer: The global strategies of Apple Fig 1: Global Strategy of Apple Inc (Source: Steenkamp, 2014) Apple uses licensing, exporting, importing strategies for market entry. Licensing has some positive characteristics and so Apple uses market entry mode. Licensing has low risk as compared to other market entry modes. The regulations for licensing are also very less. This strategy has also high returns. One of the most important strategies used by Apple Inc is differentiation. The reason behind using this strategy is to deliver high customer value through its innovative brands. Apple uses the differentiation strategy for a number of reasons. The first one is wide acceptance, Apple offers product like iPod, iPad, iPhone and iTunes. All these brands have gained a huge acceptance. All the brands provide value to the company by development of a strong position in the market (Apple, 2017). Through its innovative brands apple has gained competitive advantage. The competitors cannot imitate the products of Apple Inc. Apple has focused on providing the best quality to its customers. They have been pioneer in with their brands like iPad, iPhone and iTunes. The pricing strategy used by Apple is skimming strategy. The products of Apple signify status and quality (Song Lee, 2014). Apple Inc do not compromise on quality therefore, the price is set accordingly. This strategy is also helpful for the being different in the market. Hence, it can be said they use both cost differentiation and product differentiation strategies. The brands of apple are not geographically bound and so they use creative advertising strategies. They focus on advertising the superiority of their brand. Global strategies of Samsung Fig 2: Global Strategies of Samsung (Source: Song Lee, 2014) Samsung is one of the most preferred brand today. The reason behind this is the strategies used by Samsung. Samsung is one of the leading companies in the international market. Samsung group is a conglomerate of 30 affiliated companies globally. Samsung has focused on having a strong Research and Development team. The reason is that it eases operations in international market. The mobile phones of Samsung are cheaper as compared to Apple phones but the features are more or less same. Samsung electronics does not enter the market as a leader just like Apple but enters a foreign where other players already exist. Samsung electronics enters market through joint ventures or partnerships. Usually the partners of Samsung are those who use a technology that Samsung electronics does not have and those technologies are too much costly to be developed. One example is that in 2010 in Western countries Samsung electronics waited until Apple launched iPhone V1 and V2 and when customers were ready to accept new technology Samsung electronics launched its Galaxy lines with new features but with a higher price. It can be said Samsung takes its decisions very smartly it waits for its competitors to take the first move. Samsung electronics use Android system that was developed by Google. SE did not waste time in developing new software (Steenkamp, 2014). SE protects itself from technology imitation. Acquisitions in most of the cases are done to acquire faster knowledge and technology. Samsung electronics entered some of the global markets through Green filed investments. The company makes economies by choice of location. Samsung learns from the challenges that it faces in one market and then applies the learning in another market (Samsung Story - History, Founder, Founded, CEO | Conglomerate Companies | SuccessStory, 2017). For example the company had some difficulties in starting A/C machine business in Australia where the company did not have strong brand recognition. The expe rience was further used to do business in Thailand. References Business. (2017).Apple. Retrieved 28 November 2017, from https://www.apple.com/business/ Samsung Story - History, Founder, Founded, CEO | Conglomerate Companies | SuccessStory. (2017).Successstory.com. Retrieved 28 November 2017, from https://successstory.com/companies/samsung-group Song, C. Y., Lee, K. (2014).The Samsung way: Transformational management strategies from the world leader in innovation and design. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. Steenkamp, J. B. (2014). How global brands create firm value: the 4V model.International Marketing Review,31(1), 5-29.