Case Study of Apple Inc: “Think Different” Branding Campaign

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple on April 1, 1976.   The two Steves, Jobs and Woz (as he is commonly referred to — see woz.org), have personalities that persist throughout Apple’s products, even today. Jobs was the consummate salesperson and visionary while Woz was the inquisitive technical genius. Woz developed his own homemade computer and Jobs saw its commercial potential. After selling 50 Apple I computer kits to Paul Terrell’s Byte Shop in Mountain View, CA, Jobs and Woz sought financing to sell their improved version, the Apple II. They found their financier in Mike Markkula, who in turn hired Michael Scott to be CEO.   The company introduced the Apple II on April 17, 1977, at the same time Commodore released their PET computer.   Once the Apple II came with Visicalc, the progenitor of the modern spreadsheet program, sales increased dramatically.   In 1979, Apple initiated Continue reading

The Current Account Component in Balance of Payments (BoP)

The Current Account Component The Current Account records a nation’s total exports of goods, services and transfers, and its total imports of them. The current account is subdivided into two components (1) balance of trade (BoT), and (2) balance of invisibles (BOIs). Structure of Current Account in India’s BOP Statement A. CURRENT ACCOUNT I. Merchandise (BOT): Trade Balance (A-B) A. Exports, f.o.b. B. Imports, c.i.f. II. Invisibles (BOI): (a + b + c) a. Services i. Travel ii. Transportation iii. Insurance iv. Govt. not elsewhere classified v. Miscellaneous b. Transfers i. Official ii. Private c. Income i. Investment Income ii. Compensation to employees Total Current Account = I + II 1. Balance of Trade (BoT) Balance of payments refers the difference between merchandise exports and merchandise imports of a country. BOT is also known as “general merchandise”, which covers transactions of movable goods with changes of ownership between residents and Continue reading

Classification of Equity Shares in Terms of Anticipated Earnings

In terms of the anticipated earnings of the companies, shares are generally classified on the basis of their market price in relation to one of the following measures: Price/Earnings Ratio is the price of a share divided by the earnings per share, and indicates what the investors are willing to pay for the company’s earning potential. Young and/or fast growing companies usually have high P/E ratios. Established companies in mature industries may have lower P/E ratios. The P/E analysis is sometimes supplemented with ratios such as Market Price to Book Value and Market Price to Cash Flow per share. Dividend Yield for a stock is the ratio of dividend paid per share to current market price. Low P/E stocks usually have high dividend yields. In India, at least in the past, investors have indicated a preference for the high dividend paying shares. What matters to fund managers is the potential Continue reading

Formalized Strategic Planning in Organizations

Strategic planning is an organization’s process of understanding its strategy and making decisions on where to allocate the companies resources in order to peruse the strategy. Using strategic planning can help organizations with many things like improving organizational performance, build teamwork, expertise and foresee future problems and opportunities. If strategic planning were to be used successfully it could benefit public agencies, departments, and major organizational divisions. The strategy is used to carry out the organization’s comprehensive goals. Nature of Formalized Strategic Planning The nature of strategic planning is to understand how a company will work over a period of years in order to work from where it is to where it wants to be by deciding the companies’ institutional directions, intended results, how the results will be carried out to be accomplished and how success can be measured and evaluated, having a strategic plan means the company will be able to Continue reading

Techniques or Tools Used for the Design of Good Plant Layouts

An ideal plant layout should provide the optimum relationship among output, floor area and manufacturing process. It facilitates the production process, minimizes material handling, time and cost, and allows flexibility of operations, easy production flow, makes economic use of the building, promotes effective utilization of manpower, and provides for employee’s convenience, safety, comfort at work, maximum exposure to natural light and ventilation. It is also important because it affects the flow of material and processes, labor efficiency, supervision and control, use of space and expansion possibilities etc. Recommended Reading: Plant layouts – Definition and Objectives In designing or improving the plan of plant layout, certain techniques or tools are developed and are in common use today. The techniques or tools are as follows: 1. Charts and Diagrams: In order to achieve work simplification, production engineers make use of several charts and diagrams for summarizing and analyzing production process and procedure. Continue reading

Is a Dollar Always Worth a Dollar?

The value of a dollar changes dramatically, depending on when you can take control of the dollar and invest it. The critical variable in the exact value of a dollar is time. If someone owes you a dollar, do you want him to pay you today or next year? Yes! The answer is, Today. With inflation consistently destroying the purchasing power of a dollar, a year from now a dollar will be worth slightly less than it is today. “Inflation” is an economic term used to describe the gradual tendency of prices to rise over time. If inflation is 2% per year, which means that prices, on average, will rise 2% over the next year, which in turn means that your dollar can purchase 2 cents less in a year than it can today. That’s right, with 2% inflation, a dollar today is worth only 98 cents in a year. Continue reading