You are a senior manager of a computer company that competes with Apple, Inc. (Apple). You read a case study about Apple and determined that doing a SWOT analysis of Apple may help you with your own strategies.

Perform a SWOT analysis by identifying at least five factors each for Apple's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For each strategic factor that you include, make sure that you also include an explanation of why that factor is important and why you selected and positioned that factor in that category. For example, if you include a factor as a Strength, make sure you explain why you think it is a strength.

After reviewing the SWOT analysis of Apple, propose strategies to take advantage of their vulnerabilities to help increase your company's market share. Remember, a strategy is not just an idea of “what” to do; it is a plan of “how” to do it. A strategy must describe “how” you are going to implement the idea, what potential ramifications (pros and cons) may result from your strategic implementation and what feedback mechanisms you will use to evaluate the success or failure of your strategic implementation.

Deliverable Length: There is no set deliverable length for this assignment. As a graduate business student, you are required to provide a well-researched and analyzed comprehensive response to every assignment question. Brief, vague, generic, or non-definitive responses will not earn good grades.

All individual project assignments require a minimum of three (3) scholarly sources. You are welcome and encouraged to use the David text book and the course materials that came for this course; however, make sure to use a minimum of at least three (3) scholarly sources as well.

Your report MUST include a reference list. All research should be cited in the body of the paper. Reports without citations may not earn any higher grade than a ‘C’ letter grade. Your report should contain an abstract, a short introduction, and conclusion in addition to the body of the paper. Please note that if you have a source in your reference section, you need to cite it in the body of the paper per APA guidelines and vice-versa.

Please submit your assignment as a Word document in APA format.

Objective: The Objective of the Unit 2 IP Assignment will involve the following the Course Outcomes and Grading Criteria with their respective percentages for the Grading Rubric:

Identify examples of good and bad business practices in the use of strategy design components. (60%)

Apply critical thinking skills to analyze business situations. (30%)

Use effective communication techniques. (10%)