Apple Inc. stands out in its ability to provide accessibility and convenience to its consumers. They key to that ability?… significant partnerships. Apple maximizes consumer satisfaction by maximizing what it has to offer to their consumers. They do so by creating multiple relevant partnerships with companies that help them expand the variety of different exclusive and premium features they are able to provide their consumers with. For example, Apple partners with numerous telecommunication companies such as AT&T and Verizon in order to help both Apple and the companies to sell the products at a low prices as well as subscription contracts (Naidu-Ghelani, 2012). Another example would be a manufacturing partner. Apple has an on-going partnership with TPK technologies as they manufacture and supply apple with the touch panels used in their iDevices (Naidu-Ghelani, 2012).
Strategic business partnerships allow businesses to grow their customer base and improve their business (The Importance of Strategic Partnerships in Business, 2017). Business partnerships give a company a competitive edge by giving them that extra something to offer their consumers. These partnerships give a business access to a variety of additional resources that they are later able to give back to the consumers, allow them to expand their customer base, helps the company find its way into a new market, and even help the company strengthen the weaker aspects of their business.
IBM and Apple previously attempted to obtain a successful partnership back in 1990 along with Motorola; However, Apple and IBM were required to cooperate to design a software program while IBM and Motorola had to work on a new design chip (Gomes-Casseres, 2014). IBM and Motorola were successful in the chip design while IBM and Apple failed to meet the deadline with their software program. This eventually lead to the dilution of the partnership. Recently; however, Apple renewed its partnership with IBM in order for the company to provide their consumers with exclusive Cloud data service, iCloud (Gomes-Casseres, 2014). Due to this partnership, Apple‘s iCloud service is able to stand out and become one of the most successful storage services out there relative to Microsoft‘s OneDrive and DropBox (The Atlantic, 2011).
In evaluation, business partnerships prove to be significant in the growth and expansion of a company. It widens the company’s scope when it comes to being able to successfully satisfy today’s consumer’s needs.
References:
Article: Gomes-Casseres, B. (2014, November 01). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://hbr.org/2014/07/ibm-and-apple-from-rivals-to-partners-in-30-years
Naidu-Ghelani, R. (2012, February 03). 10 Significant Apple Business Partners. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2011/08/25/10-Significant-Apple-Business-Partners.html?slide=3
St., 2. W. (2011, June 08). Apple’s Market Dominance Spells Success for iCloud. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/apples-market-dominance-spells-success-for-icloud/240119/
The Importance of Strategic Partnerships in Business. (2017, May 03). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://www.nfib.com/content/resources/start-a-business/the-importance-of-strategic-business-partnerships-52254/