How to write a proposal (sample for

MBA Student)
Title: How to develop and apply creativity in new market? Apple case study

Background of the study

Brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design or a combination of them, intended to identify the
goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and a differentiate them those of competitors
define by The American Marketing Associations (Kotler, 2000). Apple Inc is the well-known
branded name of all around the world. Business has changing to suit with every situation which
changing always as follow by economic and increasing of rival and completion. More over as its
clear cut that every company need to improve their strategies approach to gain competitive
advantage and survive in their markets as long as they can also to go in global market. Many
corporations try to change and improved their business for increased customers and profits as the
way to reach through customers easily than before, thus, there are e-commerce which is a way to
change the figure of competition such speed of action and the character of leadership. (Kakakota
R, and Robison M., 1999). Every Organizations have to determine of situation for a new
millennium as new economic, new tools or new style moreover generate new innovative ideas to
change their business current position and to enhance their business in the greater way than
competitors, every organization make an effort to create new innovative ideas or product or
services to marketing their new strategy theory to consumer to achieve the market place.
Apple Inc is the most creativity, innovation and design develop derivatives company. Moreover
Apple Inc innovative marketing strategy had their own creative meaning which mention from
hubpages [online] said actually, successful companies should include all three practices,
creativity, innovation and design, to continue competitive in their markets. The imagination of
one company will often conduct to the innovation of another. Design, in other way is general an
idea or product developed from a recognized need. Although many differences exist between
innovation,
When iPhone occur to market, competitors must scramble to create a phone with similar
desirable pattern features to the iPhone, and add modifications that will attract additional market
share. Examples of innovation are line-extensions, me-too-products, and product modifications
(von Stamm, 2003). Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Verizon all released touch screen phones
shortly after the release of the iPhone.
When iPhone occur to market, other competitors need to mix up an idea to create a phone with
relate or similar attractive or features pattern to iPhone and change some thing or modified the
product to be more attractive for additional market share. The products which similar desirable
with iPhone such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, HTC, LG

According to the UK PC market, mentioned in Channelweb (online) said in a year there are
fourth quarter growth for the first time, however, compared to most recent figures from Gartner,
could see the business sales has dropped again due to, in the UK, the market share have 19.1 per
cent held on to the top spot by Acer. Moreover, HP is reached to 18.9 percent while by Dell is
16.5 percent follow by Toshiba is 10.4 percent and 6.5 percent from Samsung. The total UK
market in term of shipment in Q4 was 3.8 million units. (Source: Channelweb (online)
Furthermore, Channelweb (online) has point out that Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst from
Gartner said as the total accounted of PC market was 70 percent then it make the PC market in
the UK has turn out to be heavily reliant on mobile PCs.

Company Background
History of Apple Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation (Source: propeller
[online]) which established in 1976 and introduced the first computer, Apple I was a failure
product. However, in 1977 The Apple was set up as corporation and it was CO-founded by
Steven Wozniak and Steve Jobs. The company launched Apple II in 1980 and offered its IPO.
The Apple II was successful in this time.
In the early eighties, the company had faced to a difficult time and unexpected experience due to
management changes and competition of the PC market. The Apple company encountered
danger with the entry into PC market of IBM, this led to failure of the third version computer
Apple III. The Apple continued faced problem until in the nineties, which the flooding of the
market thus there were cheap PC clones and launching Window 3.0 of Microsoft. Moreover, the
company still had problems in 1995 which compounded by launching of Window 95. (Data
monitor 2009.)
In the lately nineties, Apple introduced a new all in one computer as Macintosh 128K: iMac
which sold almost 800,000 units in the first five months, after the company joined Microsoft and
releases new versions of Microsoft Office for the Macintosh and introduced the Apple Store in
1997. By 2001, Apple opened the first official Apple Retail Stores and introduced the iPod
handy digital audio player and was successfully. In addition, the company had change focus of
the company to mobile electronic devices from personal computers as the announcement the
iPhone and the Apple TV in 2007, for the reason that iPhone are popular, then Apple had became
the third largest mobile handset supplier in the world in 2008. In the latest, Apple had announced
a big screen, tablet media tool which know as the iPad in January, 2010 and was launched the
product on April 3, 2010 in the US and sold 300,000 units within one day (Source: Apple Inc.
[online]).
Apple became one of the major providers of personal computer, music digital players and mobile
communication devices as the company designs, develops and a line markets of portable music
players which related with services and accessories also distribution online of third party music,
audio books, music videos, short films and television shows thus the company sells its products
worldwide through online stores, retail stores, direct sale force and third party wholesalers and

resellers. The major products of Apple Company are: Mac (Pro, Mini, iMac, MacBook, Air,
Xserve), iPhone, iPad, iPod (Shuffle, Nano, Classic, Touch), Apple TV, Cinema Display,
AirPort, Time Capsule Mac OS X (Server, iPhone OS), iLife, iWork and Accessories. Moreover,
The Apple Company manages the most parts underlying support to geographic segments. Thus,
the company are operates through four operating segments such as Americas, Europe, Japan, and
retail. The Americans segment includes North and South America; however, the Europe segment
includes European countries as well as the Middle East and African. The operating segment of
each origin geographic provides the similar kind of hardware and software products and services.
(Datamonitor, 2009)
According to Apple revenue and profit review, January 25th, 2010 Apple announced financial
results for its fiscal 2010 first quarter ended December 26th, 2009. The Company posted revenue
of $15.68 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share. These
results compare to revenue of $11.88 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.26 billion, or $2.50 per
diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.9 percent, up from 37.9 percent in
the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarters revenue. Steve
Jobs, Apples CEO said if you annualize our quarterly revenue, its surprising that Apple is now
a $50+ billion company. The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong,
starting this week with a major new product that were really excited about. (Source: Apple Inc.
[online]).
The PC market is extremely fast-changing, as it is currently penetrating into other aspects of
peoples lives, such as multimedia. Thus, this industry is highly competitive, containing other
well known PC manufacturers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, and Lenovo. These
manufacturers established Wintel as the industry standard1. The current PC market industry may
be complicated for Apple Inc. By 2010, Forrester Research forecast that emerging markets will
have bought 566 million new PCs, while mature markets like the United States will have an extra
only 150 million new computers. This is because Price will be the key driver, as well as the PC
market growth rate of 31% in these emerging markets compared to 3% in the US3. This factor
alone hurts Apple because of its previous inability to tap into the global market. (Source:
Docstoc[online]).

Aims
The aim of this proposal is to identify innovative marketing product develop strategy of Apple
Inc compared to other competitive brands.

Objectives
To achieve the specified aim, it will be necessary to:

1. To determine the marketing strategy of Apple brand.

2. Identify the concept of customer driven market strategy and emphasize the value creation
for target customer by evaluate with marketing mix.
3. To identify the new innovative technology which effectively became attractive to their
customers?
4. To determine Apple business related with innovation theories and achieving its success
Path with their Brand awareness.
5. Analysis the SWOT of Apple brand compare with other PC brand.

Literature Review
According to Richard Koch (1999) Strategy is typically used to identify a business policy and
roughly translated mean about what the organization intend to do. On the other hand, Johnson
and Scholes illustrate Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long term
which attend to advantage for the company or organization through an arrangement of element in
particular form, figure or combination to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder
expectation Moreover, there are 5Ps concept strategy which Mintzbere divided it as a plan and a
pattern which know a high end strategy, for organization develop plans for future and develop
patterns of their past.
Marketing Strategy is to control organizations resource for customer need which have to
analysis market, competitor, government, technological and environment change. Ranchhod
(2004) There are four major steps in that representing as a designing customer driven market
strategy such as segmentation, market targeting, differentiation and positioning thus,
Segmentation is refers to the process of grouping customers which the formed groups or
segments are internally of the same kind, on the other hand, there are different in the groups.
Cartwright (2002) illustrated Market segment as the analysis of a particular total demand in
term of its constituent parts, so that sets of buyers can be determined, however, Kotler (2003)
added Market segment are relate to group of customer who share a same thing they want
Market targeting the process of evaluating each market segments attractiveness and selecting
one or more segments to enter. Differentiation as company always uses differentiation of their
product because they want to create unique product which are different from another company
(Ranchhod, 2004). Positioning is the act of designing the companys offering and image to
occupy a unique place in the mind of target market (Kotler, 2003).
Marketing
mix
is the specific collection of actions employed by an organization to stimulate acceptance of its
ideas, products, or services. That collection of actions typically involves marketing activities in
the areas of product or service, pricing, place, advertising, sales, and sales promotion (Hass and
Wotrubu, 1983). Moreover Davies (1998) explained that marketing mix involve making decision
on the four Ps (product, place, price, and promotion). The marketing mix conveys the desired
brand or product signals and messages, focus point on the needs of the target audience. The
Marketing mix concept is the core concepts of marketing theory. The core of the marketing mix
concept is the idea of a set of variables that can be control and can be used to influence

customers (Rafiq and Ahmed, 1995). It is used to satisfy the needs of target market of an
organization, and help to achieve its marketing objectives (Etzel et. al., 2004).
Innovation defines as a new create or an exploiting of ideas. According to Phillip Kotler,
(1996) A product may be a physical goods, retail store, person, organization, place or even idea
which is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition or purchasing, use, or
consumption that might satisfy a need or want. Moreover, Max Mckeown,(2008) from a book
name The Truth About Innovation is a new way of doing something or new stuff that is made
useful.
However, Peter Doyle (1998) added the innovation have many meaning that relate with
implementation of new products, make new value of organization method in business practices,
process a new method of marketing or new channel of marketing and so on
In addition, Innovation not essential only created new idea or producing new products and
services. On the other hand, Innovation is bringing new products to markets by renew or
replacing and exploiting it in a way which is done or happens that leads to new products such
technology and services or systems as improving qualities, increasing value and bring the results
of brand awareness into market also increasing of sale thus, Innovation have ability to do
something in particular way of being different from other organization and Market strategy.
Most popular type of innovation becomes visible: Product innovation. One way to take a closer
look at product innovation is displayed by the four categories of (product) innovation by
Wheelen and Hunger (2008: 303-305). According to Edward Huizenga (2004 p14) the basis
types of innovation comprises of production innovation, processes innovation, organization
innovation and Technological innovation.
SWOT analysis is based on abstracting the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats,
and as Johnson and Scholes (2002) exposed in its book Exploring Corporate Strategy this
analysis Summarizes the key issues from an analysis of the business environment and the
strategic capability of an organization.
To make this analysis and as it was mentioned, there is an internal review, in which the
organization has to explore the processes that it has and the resources available, establishing the
strengths and the weaknesses. The external review has to consider some issues in the
environment such as politics and legislation, new technologies, public expectation, demographic
trends, competitive market that will allow the strategist to determine the opportunities and
threats.

Statement of Design and Methodology

According to Saunders (2003), research perspectives usually include three parts namely, the
perspective of positivist, interpretive and realists approaches. The positivism research philosophy
stresses the importance of observable social reality: the generalizations of the research end

product, and the replication of the research outcomes (Gill and Johnson 1997). In this research
two method processes will use, the qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The research will
be theory testing which is known as the deductive approach (Jewell, 2006:7). With the intention
of meaning the research will begin the journey as on the road of theory path then it will be
testing in reality filed to make reconnection path between theory and organization.
The research proposal whole pattern structure is not only depend on the response form, here
some combination of hypotheses observation and conversation between customer view point also
going to be include. The strategy of survey benefits are mentioned more control over the research
process and if the appropriate sampling is used, it can represent the findings which show all
population, bet costs much less if the data of all population were used. The major difficulty
which Saunders et.al (2007), specified for using questionnaire as a data collecting technique for
survey strategy, is The capacity to do it badly

Sources of Data Collection

The research methods that will be followed in the proposal are stated below:
1. Sources of data: To complete this proposal, data will be composed from both primary
and secondary sources. The primary data will be gathered through surveying customers
of Hotels visitor discussing informally with personnel and making observations during
the period of dissertation etc: Some secondary data will be collected to make the proposal
more concrete. These data will be collected from different brochures of the coffee shops,
newspapers, web site, articles, journals, magazines, conference papers, censuses,
continuous and regular survey or ad-ho surveys proposals used by previous reports of
other proposal of the communication channels etc,
2. Data Collection: A semi-structured questionnaire will be prepared to collect data for the
analysis part of the proposal. The proposed sample size is 100 customers of UK Branded
coffee consumers viewpoints, UK who will be selected by using convenience-sampling
method.
3. Techniques Used in Data Analysis: The collected data during analysis have often been
shown in tabular form. Relative measure of performance (in percentage) was used for
better evaluation in some cases. Some of the comparisons have also been made through
graphs. Overall the proposal has been a subjective one.

Ethical Consideration
In this research proposal checklist of ethics pattern will be follow by the University providing
hand book, which will inform the ethics procedure polices and principals. All informational data
will include primary and secondary data, no personal information of individuals, so Data
Protection Act does not apply for this situation.

Some data will be collect by through of online questionnaires survey, in this point 50 people will
be chosen randomly as a sample in UK. Before sending out the questionnaires and doing
interviews, it will be confirm by supervisor. The questionnaires will be sent to them by email.
The information will be tracked on notes and dealt with excel. Due to consider about ethical
issues, name, salary, address and phone number will not appear on the questionnaires survey.
Secondary data will be collect from libraries and governments website, several Hotels Websites.
Main point is all Data ensure that will be kept as a confidential.

Gantt chart for the Project

Week (s)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Problem identification
Literature review
Research design
Choice of methodology
Data sources
Data collection
Data analysis
Writing up draft
Editing
Final document
Binding of document

References
1.
2.
3.
4.

Apple [online] (Cited 14 April 2010) Available from <URL http://store.apple.com/us>

Ashok Ranchhod (2004), Marketing
Strategies- A twenty-first century approach, FT Prentice Hall, Financial Times
Bridgewater, S. Doyle, P (1998), Innovation in marketing, Butterworth-Heinemann,
Massachusetts, USA

5. Channelweb [online] (Cited 17 April 2010) Available from < URL:

http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn/news/2258012/uk-business-pc-market-decline
6. Datamonitor Apple Inc: company profile, Publication Date: 16 Mar 2009
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Available
from
<URL:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Apple-Creativity-Innovation-and-Design&gt;
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