Saudi Electronic University
College of Administrative and Financial Sciences
ECOM421 – E-Business Strategies & Business Models
Assignment 2
2020/2021
Submission: End of week 06
Saturday 10th of October 2020
10 Marks
Saudi Electronic University
College of Administrative and Financial Sciences
E-commerce Department
| Student Name: | Student ID: |
| Course Title:
E-Business Strategies & Business Models |
Course Code: ECOM421 |
| Academic Year/ Semester:
1441-42/First |
CRN: |
| Instructor Name: | |
| Student Grade: | Grade Level: |
Questions
Q1. Select any ONE organization from the below. Write a brief profile of the organization and prepare a Business Model Canvas. (5 Marks)
Q2. Suggest your business strategy to help that organization in overcoming its challenges arose due to COVID19 pandemic. (5 Marks)
| STC Pay
|
| Zain
|
| Apple
|
| Panda
|
| Al Rajhi Bank
|
| Hunger Station
|
| IKEA
|
| SMSA Express
|
Assignment General Instructions
Your answer sheet should contain the following:
- Cover page
- Questions
- Answers
Each assignment needs to have all following instructions, but you have to clarify for your students that these instructions must not be included in their answer sheets:
- Use the cover page. One mark will be deducted if there is no cover page. In case the student included the cover page with some missing information, (0.5) mark will be deducted.
- Ensure that you follow APA referencing style for referencing any sources.
- The Submitted Assignment must respect the name file: Student Name_ID_CRN
- Use Font Times New Roman, 12 Font size,
- Use 1.5 Paragraph line spacing with adjust to all paragraphs (Justified alignment)
- Use Footer function to insert page number
- Number of words per answer (Minimum 250 Words limit for your each answer).
- The Submitted Assignment must be in MS Word Format.
- Write your answer by labelling answer number for each of the question.
- You must check the spelling and grammar mistakes before submitting the assignment.
- 20% of the total grade will be deducted for providing a poor structure of the assignment. For example, if the assignment is marked out of 15, the student provided an excellent content and answer that met all the requirements of the assignment’s question with poor writing structure. Then the student will get 15 based on the content and you will deduct up to 20% (3 marks) from the total grade (5% for paper style, 5% spelling and grammar errors, 5% for referencing and 5% for word count).
- A ZERO will be given to any submission that includes copying from other colleague’s assignment.
- Plagiarism of your answer will be not accepted at any cost. Write your answer using your own words and use proper APA style of referencing wherever necessary.
- In case of any problem in understanding about Plagiarism and Referencing style, contact your instructor to understand about it.
Assignment Submission:
The assignment submission must respect the following dates:
| Submissions | Due date | Marks |
| Assignment 2 |
On or before Saturday 10th October 2020 by 11 :59 PM (Week 06) |
10 |
Answers
Brief Profile of the Organization: Apple
The apple company is an American company with its headquarter at Cupertino, located in California. It is involved in trying to design and develop many consumers’ electronics and computer software. In the 21st century, it is considered to be one of the biggest technology companies. It was founded on April 1st, 1976, by Steven Jobs. In 1977 the company became incorporated and started with the sales of computers, which grew quickly where, within years of working, Steven Jobs was able to employ computer designers where it was able for them to develop the production line. In 1980 it was able to go online a public where it became the most successful company where it started shipping new computers with apple logos. During the 1990s, the company had bad luck where it lost its shares to a very successful company known as Microsoft windows. Later in 1997, the apple company solved its disagreements with the finance department, and later Job regained leadership, which was in the year 2000. It started operating actively, whereby 2007 it was renamed Apple Inc. where it majored in consumer electronics and manufactured iPhone. Currently, Apple is the world’s largest technology developing company and valuable. The current year 2020 is said to operate the iTunes store, which is the current most used and largest retail system.
Business model Canvas of the Apple Company
| Key Partners | Key Activities | Value propositions | Customer relationship | Customer segment |
| Original equipment manufacturers
(OEM) |
HW/SW Design Marketing Retail
Key Resources
|
Innovative technologies
Design Usability. |
Love mark Switching cost
Retail.apple.com iTunes Store (Apple store) |
Mass Market |
| Record companies app developers | Apple Brand people intellectual properties
Content Agreement |
Custom devises music experience | Hardware sales
& Music sales |
Hardware sales
& Music sales |
| Social Environmental Benefits Social and Environmental Cost
Music Employment Reduction Digitalization |
||||
Business Strategy and Challenges Initialized by Covid-19
Apple being a powerful organization in the product road map, has announced that they have strategies to ensure they do not suffer losses during this time of pandemic of Covid-19. They were said to have been hit by the pandemic and suffered a loss of 6.8% on the IMac iPad 2.9 and 10.4 on the iPhone. They had to come with ways to curb these losses.
The team was seen to announce the strategy of launching a new device (2020 iPhone SE), which was believed to be a projection of what is to come. This strategy puts the customers anxious about getting to know how the new product will look like hence increasing the company’s customers. The report generated during this time of Covid -19 apple was said to have improved by quarter, which was driven by a record. During the difficult moment, the apple company is seen to depend on the apple product to keep track of their customers through devices being invented. These devices will help them to stay informed, creative, and productive.
References:
Consolidated Financial Statements for Q4 FY20 (PDF). Apple Inc. October 29, 2020. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
Koblin, John (March 25, 2018). “Apple Goes to Hollywood. Will Its Story Have a Happy Ending?” The New York Times.
Rivas, Teresa. “Ranking The Big Four Tech Stocks: Google Is No. 1, Apple Comes In Last”. Www.barrons.com. Archived from the original on December 28, 2018. Retrieved December 27, 2018
Huawei beats Apple to become the second-largest smartphone maker”. The Guardian. August 3, 2018. Retrieved August 3, 2018
Nicas, Jack (August 19, 2020). “Apple Reaches $2 Trillion, Punctuating Big Tech’s Grip”. The New York Times. Retrieved August 21, 2020