Linguistics and Language Teaching.

Grammatical mistakes made by non- native English language speakers. Introduction Language  may refer either to the specifically  human  capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of  communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called  linguistics. Linguistic theory has traditionally considered native speakers as the only reliable source of linguistic data (Chomsky 1965). It is therefore not surprising to ? nd only a limited number of works focusing on non-native speakers prior to the 1990s.The ? rst attempt to put‘(non)nativism’ onto the centre stage of linguistic inquiry by challenging current undisputed assumptions on the  matter was Paikeday’s (1985) The native speaker is dead  , in which it is argued that the native speaker ‘exists only as a ? gment of linguist’s imagination’ (Paikeday 1985: 12). Paikeday suggested using the term ‘pro? cient user’ of a language to refer to all speakers who can successfully use it. A few years later, Rampton (1990) similarly proposed the term ‘expert speaker’ to include all successful users of a language.Davies (1991, 2003) further delved into ‘native speaker’ identity, and thus formulated the key question of whether a second language (L2) learner can become a native speaker of the target language. His conclusion was that L2 learners can become native speaker of the target language and master the intuition, grammar, spontaneity, creativity, pragmatic control, and interpreting quality of ‘born’ native speakers. Generally, English educated Malaysians of all ethnic and family language background speak and move alike.However, with the implementation of the national language policy of Bahasa Malaysia  as the national language of Malaysia and as the language of instruction, (except in the cases of Chinese or Tamil medium pr imary schools), the status of English Language in Malaysia is different from the earlier years. The English language covered a continuum from first language through second language to a foreign language. Bahasa Malaysia  is replacing English in most of its previous functions, but English may be expected to remain as a continuum from second language to foreign language according to the background and occupation of the speaker.In Malaysia, presently the use of English is less common than in Singapore and is likely to decrease steadily with the implementation of the national language policy. However, English still remains as a language of considerable importance and is still being used in various spheres of everyday activity. The role of English has changed from its earlier status as the precise language of the colonial era and the decades after the Second World War to a second language.At the moment, it is still considered as an international code to be used for diplomatic and comme rcial negotiations and as a language necessary in many fields of tertiary study and research. Not surprisingly, the non-native English language speakers among Malaysians make grammatical mistakes from time to time. These usually happened among Malaysian adult students and even among some Malaysian English teachers. 1. The transcript of a recorded conversation. The following excerpt is a recorded conversation among teachers and will be analysed of the mistakes made by some teachers during discussion.Our discussion was on the quality and effectiveness of a programme called ‘Program Penutur Jati’ or English Language Teacher Development Project (ELTP). Briefly, the aim of the project is to enhance the lower primary ESL teachers’ ability to plan and deliver quality English lessons based on the new National English Language Curriculum in 600 schools across East Malaysia. The teachers involved in discussion come from various races, ethnic groups, ages and teaching exper iences. Kamel : That is my opinion. I don’t know yours. Ok. Chairperson : I agree †¦. augh Kamel : But , as I said just now. I don’t like that the fixture.. ok. For example aaaa as my mentor come to our school .. every Monday ok.. my class start at nine o’clock†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 7. 30.. that mean one and half hour include the preparation for my lesson, so I don’t think that I have an ample time for me to prepare the things†¦ ok . Moreover, the one hour and one and half hour is the .. for all to prepare.. the whole week not only , the one day. So I don’t think that will be effective. Chairperson: Emmmm Kamel : So Chairperson : Did you tell him about it?Kamel: Aaaaaa†¦ So far not yet. Chairperson : Do you have the chance to talk about it. Kamel : Because, I don’t have any.. I don’t have the opportunity to.. Chairperson : Then, you should tell him. Kamel ; I was thinking. Why don’t the mentors like them to be .. have q ualification in teaching, so that they can come to the trainee teachers training college rather than†¦ Chairperson : For your information, ahh Chairperson : Overall, it seems to be working with you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Naga : The ideas (cough)†¦ is good and different†¦ he is friendly. Chairperson : So.. ahh.If supposing .. You have a mentor to this.. who doesn’t speak.. doesn’t speak like Morrocan. Alright Naemah : Yehhh Chairperson: Right.. Alright, if.. Chairperson: Who? Chairperson : Madam Soya? She is from where? Others : Bulgaria.. (together) Chairperson : Bulgaria? Does she have the accent? Chairperson: What do you think? Do you think†¦ | 2. Common grammatical mistakes and errors by non-native English speakers. The types of errors can be categorised into two: descriptive and surface structures. Descriptive errors include noun phrase, verb phrase and complex sentence.While surface structure errors include omission, addition, misinformati on, misordering and blends. After analysing the recorded conversation, there are few mistakes or errors made by Mr. Kamel during the said discussion. a. The use of unmarked forms instead of marked forms is far more frequent, as can be seen in the examples as follows. * I don’t know yours. * I don’t know about you. * .. as I said just now. * .. as I have said just now. One possible cause of these errors is merely interlingual errors which is the result of mother tongue influences ‘Saya tak tahu awak punya’ and ‘†¦ seperti yang saya kata tadi. respectively. In his article, ‘A Role for the Mother Tongue’ in ‘Language Transfer in Language Learning’, Professor Corder (1981) reinvestigated the phenomenon and questions the term ‘transfer’. He suggests that mother tongue influence as a neutral and broader term to refer to what has most commonly been called transfer. Corder says that since most studies of error were made on the basis of the performance of learners in formal situations where it appears that errors related to mother tongue are more frequent, it was natural that an explanation of the phenomenon was of considerable concern to the applied linguistic.It was out of this concern that the whole industry of contrastive studies arose. He also claims that as far as the acquisition of syntactic knowledge is concerned, no process appropriately called interference takes place, if by that we mean that the mother tongue actually inhibits, prevents, or makes more difficult the acquisition of some feature of the target language. The term ‘interference’ is now most often used to mean what is no more than the presence in the learner‘s performance in the target language of mother-tongue-like features which are incorrect according to the rules of the target language. b.Obviously. Mr. Kamel has the problem in pronouncing certain words especially in the pronunciation of the initial sound of common words like the, there, then and that. It is also the middle consonant sound in feather and the final sound of bathe. These sounds are formed with the tongue tip behind the upper front teeth. The initial sound of that and the final sound of both are both voiceless dental. This problem arises because Mr Kamel’s tongue is not merely touches the teeth. Thus, his pronunciation of these particular words are incorrect. Besides, difficulty in phonology can caused by mother tongue interference.Eltrug (1984) affirmed that mother tongue interference can contribute to a large number of pronunciation errors made by students. An English sound does exist in the native language, but not as separate phonemes. This simply means the first language speakers do not perceive it as a distinct sound that makes difference to meaning. For example The sound /? / does exist in Malay, but whether the vowel is long or short does not make any difference in meaning. For instance, the English phonemes/? / and /i:/ differ very much in meaning as in the words ‘leave’ and ‘live’, ‘sheep’ and ‘ship’.The great amount of vocabulary of English really makes the second language learner suffer in reading. There is a lot of words unknown and the most confusing point is even the second language learner know the meaning but they can’t really understand the meaning of the whole sentence. It is because an English word gives different impressions in different situations. This makes things so confusing about the meaning of the word. Grammatical interference is defined as the first language influencing the second in terms of word order, use of pronouns and determinants, tense and mood.Interference at a lexical level provides for the borrowing of words from one language and converting them to sound more natural in another and orthographic interference includes the spelling of one language altering another. In Malay grammar, it doe s not require one to have any form of determiner in front of instruments like computer, piano, internet. English grammar, however, requires the instruments mentioned above (computer, piano, internet) to be preceded by determiners and if neither a possessive determiner nor a demonstrative determiner is used, the use of either a definite article or an indefinite article is necessary.Thus, the ungrammatical sentences in could be the result of interference of the cultural transfer from Malay language structure on English. Erroneous form| Correct form| She plays piano while I sing. Malay: Dia bermain piano sementara saya menyanyi. | She plays the piano while I sing | She stay at home. Malay : Dia tinggal di rumah | She stays at home. | Table 1 : Examples of interference from the learners’ first language. c.Subjects also exhibited errors in subject-verb agreement as is shown in the examples as follows: * Every Monday, my class start at nine o’clock†¦. * Every Monday, my class starts at nine o’clock†¦. The omission of â€Å"-s† can be attributed to the fact that Bahasa Malaysia does not require verbs to agree with subjects. However, the ending free form is generalised for all persons to make the learning task easier and this is a common intralingual made by people with diverse native languages like Mr Kamel. 3. Causes and sources of errors and mistakes Interlingual errors  are the result of mother tongue influences.Learners transfer/borrow some forms but not others due to two factors such as proto-typicality and language distance (Kellerman, 1979). Malay learners of English commonly make errors in negative sentences. For example: Adryna no coming today. [Adryna tak datang hari ini. ] Such errors are common in pre-verbal negation using  no, the same negative construction as in their L1. In order to determine whether transfer is the cause for the occurrence of errors, James (1998), demonstrates that learners with a particular L 1 make an error that those with a different L1 do not.He provides a useful summary of these strategies which includes the following; a. False analogy b. Misanalysis c. Incomplete rule application exploiting redundancy d. Overlooking co-occurrence restrictions e. System-simplification It is not clear which strategy is responsible for a particular error. Errors can also be viewed as ‘natural’ or as ‘induced’. For example: a. He  played  football yesterday. b. He  goed  home at six. c. He  drinked  milk. d. He  eated  dinner. e. He  sleeped  at eight. ConclusionTo conclude, learners’ errors are a part of the learners’ language learning process. Hence, teachers should not penalise students for the errors they made. Instead, teachers should note those errors and devise ways to assist learners to overcome their problems in language learning. It is difficult to decide whether grammatically or acceptability should serve as the crit erion for error analysis. If grammatically is chosen, an error can be defined as ‘breach of the rule of the code’ (Corder, 1967).Defining errors in terms of grammatically also necessitates giving consideration to the distinction between overt and covert error: In the field of methodology, there are two schools of thought with regard to learners’ error. Firstly, the school which maintains that if we were to achieve a perfect teaching method, the errors would have never be committed and therefore the occurrence of errors is merely a sign of inadequacy in our teaching techniques. The philosophy of the second school is that we live in an imperfect world and consequently errors will always occur in spite of our very best teaching and learning ethods. One effect has been perhaps to shift the emphasis away from a preoccupation with teaching towards a study of learning. The differences between the two are clearly defined: that the learning of the mother tongue is natural , whereas, we all know that there is no such inevitability about the learning of a second language; that the learning of the mother tongue is part of the whole maturational process of the child, whilst learning a second language normally begins only after the maturational process is complete.A child’s incorrect utterances can be interpreted as being evidence that he is in the process of acquiring language and the errors provide these evidences. Brown and Frazer (1964), point out that the best evidence a child possesses construction rules is the occurrence of systematic errors, since when the child speaks correctly, it is quite possible that he is only repeating something that he has heard. In the case of the second language learner, it is known that we do know some knowledge of what the input has been which we call as the syllabus.The simple fact of presenting a certain linguistic form to a learner in the classroom does not necessarily qualify it for the status of input, for the reason that input ‘is what goes in’, not ‘what is available’ for going in, and we may reasonably suppose that it is the learner who controls this input. This may well be determined by the characteristics of his language acquisition mechanism and not by those of the syllabus. References Mariam Mohd Nor, Abdul Halim Ibrahim, Shubbiah, R (2008). OUM-Linguistics and Language Teaching. Seri Kembangan, Selangor.Open University Malaysia. Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners’ errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics,  5, 161-70. Corder, S. P. (1981). Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ames, C. (1998). Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis. London: Longman. Kellerman, E. (1979). Transfer and non-transfer: Where are we now? Studies in Second Language Acquisition,  2: 37-57. Eltrug, N. S. (1984). Analysis of the Arab Learners' Errors in Pronunciation of English Utterances i n Isolation and Context.Ph. D Dissertation. The University of Kansas. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of  the theory of  syntax  . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Paikeday, T. (1985). The native speaker is dead! Toronto: Paikeday Publishing. Rampton, M. B. H. (1990). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, af? liation, and inheritance. ELT  Ã‚  Journal   44. 2, 97–101. Davies, A. (1991). The  native speaker in  applied linguistics  . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Davies, A. (2003). The native speaker of World Englishes. Journal of Pan-Paci? c Association of Applied  Linguistics   6. 1, 43–60

Assessment and treatment options for substance abuse and dependence Essay

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Make me a Millionaire Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

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Apple Inc. Study Essay Example for Free

Apple Inc. Study Essay 1. Executive summary Apple Inc. is a technology company, which designs, produces and sells goods of the Computer, Music and Mobile-phone Industries. It is differentiated by its brand-perception and identification. Over the last couple of years, Apple has become a cult-brand, thanking it’s iLife, iTunes, QuickTime and iMac lines. Apple Inc.’s short-term goals is currently increasing the sales  of the just launched iPad (the most innovative web=browser in market). In the long-run, Apple aims for the top of the market, becoming the number one leader. Apple Inc. has incorporated numerous features that are unique and well known in the market today. We consider that there are several Apple products with several appealing features such as: iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. These products represent a revolutionary era for the development of Apple. By placing such products in the market, Apple Inc. has attracted a lot of customers in one way or another. 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These aspects of Apple are what make it popular and successful today. 2. Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the  1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store. 3. Apple’s mission statement only includes descriptions of products and services and past and present technologies. 4. The mission statement from Apple is somewhat unconventional. It’s more of a brief history rather than a summary of the corporations overall purpose. It does however paint a picture of where Apple came from, how far it has come, and where it’s continuing to go. But for such a popular company it may be beneficial divulge into points like its self-purpose and their concern for public image. 6. Values As stated in (appleinvestor, 2012) Apple Values are the qualities, customs, standards, and principles that the company believes will help it and its employees succeed. They are the basis for what they do and how they do it. Taken together, they identify Apple as a unique company. These are the values that govern Apple’s business conduct: Empathy for Customers/Users Aggressiveness/Achievement Positive Social Contribution Innovation/Vision Individual Performance Team Spirit Quality/Excellence Individual Reward Good Management 7. External Audit The purpose of an external audit is to develop a finite list of opportunities that could benefit a firm and threats that should be avoided. a. External Analysis for APPLE Inc.  External environment determines the present situation of Apple Inc., and also helps find out the possible influences of the political, economical, and  social and the technological factors on the organization. b. PESTL Analysis for Apple Inc. i. Political Factors As stated in (CNetnews 2012) Apple Inc. has reportedly obtained 52% of its business from outside US in 2007. Due to the bad international relations, wars and terrorism might influence Apple Inc. in a huge way, and also the organization has no control over these factors. Apple Inc. manufactures a number of its parts and products from outside the US, like Czech Republic, Ireland, China, Korea and Cork. The bad political relations between US and the other world have bad outcomes for the Apple Inc. (CNetnews, 2012). ii. Economic Factors By the (Apple Inc., 2012) The global economic crisis had huge impact on Apple Inc. The inflation rate went high and so did the unemployment rate in the country, and since Apple Inc. products were viewed as luxury products, the customers started pending less on them. US dollar value keeps fluctuating, and thus again which have a bad impact on Apple Inc. products, however the company has purchased itself foreign currencies and thus, the economic effects on the company are minimized. Thus, Apple Inc. revenue has increased in the global market. iii. Social Factors Throughout the history of Apple Inc., two factors have been on the forefront of Apple Inc. products, the quality and the design of the product. Thus, globalization plays a very important role in Apple’s products. As the world cannot be imagined without the gadgets, thus Apple products have marked their presence on the international market. Also, as the purchasing power of the common has risen in various markets across the world the purchasing of luxury products have gone up, for e.g. the iPhone, iPods and the latest technology iPad. Possessing these items is considered as status symbols in many societies which have also increased the sales of Apple Inc. products. Another big social influence to Apple Inc. products is the rapid growth of the music industry, which have increased markets over the cyber space as well. The main virtual music store is the iTunes. Thus, in all Apple products have benefitted from the social factors as it has begun defining a modern individual lifestyle. iv. Technological Factors Apple Inc. has invested largely in its product research and development field and thus, Apple products are at the top of the new innovative products ranking. Apple Inc. has invested largely in its product research and development field and thus, Apple products are at the top of the new innovative products ranking. The technology has been fast changing in the world and the market for it has become gigantic, which has added to more and more competition and thus, as soon as technological change are concerned the product life cycle has been shortened drastically, which the Apple Inc. takes the advantage of by introducing newer products in the market, which ultimately lead the market. v. Legal Factors Nokia has filed various lawsuits against Apple Inc., claiming the violation of 13 additional patents by iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, this apart from US complains covering 24 Nokia patents. Also, in China Apple Inc. has been fighting the battle for its right to the iPad trademark. 8. SWOT analysis for APPLE Inc. SWOT analysis stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat for a particular organization, which can help in formulating a strategy for its business and can also help in analyzing its internal environment (Strengths Weakness) and external environment (Opportunities Threats). a. Strengths According to (Wharton, 2012) The first and foremost strength of Apple Inc. is its technological edge over its competitors. IPhone have turned out to be a great success and has been associated with status in many of the countries. ITunes has turned out to be a wonderful revenue generating source and since it also sells with its own tool i.e. the iPod, thus, revenue has multiplied for Apple Inc. Another strength for the organization is that for every software that Apple Inc. produces, it introduces its hardware with it too, which leads to its expertise in both the industries. Apple Inc. products are classified as luxury items, thus its products provide enough room for it, so  that the competitor products are no longer a competition. The another strikingly advantage over competitor’s products, is the design of the Apple products, and which are also simple to use. The brand loyalty of its product and its super dedicated research and development department are also its major stre ngths. b. Weaknesses Weaknesses are the disadvantages that are hindrance in obtaining the business goals for the organization. The poor relationship with the market than Microsoft is surely a disadvantage to Apple Inc. Another point could be that the products introduced by Apple Inc. have very short life cycle, which concludes that the research and development department has to be constantly maintained, which requires huge capital. Apple Inc. has very low presence in the advertisements, and also it has very small market occupation as compared to its main rival Microsoft. Thus, all this leads to the fact that Apple Inc. gets very less business from its home country US, and major of its business is from outside the US. c. Opportunities According to (Marketingteacher, 2012).Opportunities can affect both the present as well as the future condition of an organization. Apple Inc. opportunities are the introduction of more and more PC viruses, on which Apple Inc. can capitalize on. The second opportunity is the population of the world is growing at a rapid pace and thus, this opens the front for many new markets, also the purchasing power of a common man has increased drastically, who can be pursued or impressed to buy the luxury Apple products. The online sales of the organization are increasing and also, the bonds and the partnership with the other organizations have been on the rise in the past few years. Products such as iPhone have create a new set of potential customers altogether which can be targeted in the future i.e. the young population who have a craze for any new technology gadget (MarketingTeacher.com 2012). d. Threats In the past few years, many competitors have come up for Apple Inc., especially in the field of laptops, like Dell, Sony, HP, and Toshiba. Another threat could be that many of the customers have started downloading  the music for free instead of purchasing at iTunes. The product expensiveness is itself a threat to the product, as substitutes at a lower price are always available. Long lasting recession could also be a threat to its products. Windows 7 software is gaining more market place after vista flopped and last but not the least, the technological advances that have been taking place every single day, is a big threat to Apple Inc. 9. Porter’s Five Forces Model Porter’s Five-Forces Model of competitive analysis is a widely used approach for developing strategies in many industries. The intensity of competition among firms varies widely across industries (David, 2011). a. Porter’s Five Forces Model for APPLE Inc. Porters Five force Model is a very powerful tool to understand the core of the power in a business or in a company. The Porter Five Force Model for Apple Inc. is shown below: Model 1: Showing Porter’s Five Forces Model at APPLE Inc. 10. External Audit An External Factor Evaluation (EFE) Matrix allows strategists to summarize and evaluate economic, social, cultural, demographic, environmental, political, governmental, legal, technological, and competitive information (David, 2011). a. Factors Evaluation (EFE) for Apple: EFE Matrix Model 2: Showing EFE matrix for APPLE Inc. 11. Competitive Profile Matrix The Competitive Profile Matrix (CPM) identifies a firm’s major competitors and its particular strengths and weaknesses in relation to a sample firm’s strategic position (David, 2011). a. CPM for APPLE Inc. Model 3: Showing CPM for APPLE Inc. 12. Internal Audit All organizations have strengths and weaknesses in the functional areas of business. No enterprise is equally strong or weak in all areas (David, 2011). a. Internal Audit for APPLE Inc. i. Internal Environment VRIO framework The VRIO framework can be stated as the value, rarity, imitablity, and organization as a whole. VRIO framework is extremely important for the internal analysis of Apple Inc organization. Resources and Competencies 14. SWOT Matrix The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Matrix is an important matching tool that helps managers develop four types of strategies: SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies, WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies, ST (strengths-threats) Strategies, and WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies (David, 2011). a. SWOT Matrix for APPLE S-O Strategies Increase awareness through the web of the immunity of Mac products to worms and viruses. (S5, O1) Advertise using individuals that will link Generation X Y to the iTunes and other related products. (S1, O2, O4, O5, O6) Using movies and music groups that are geared towards Gen X and Y to promote computers and laptops. (S3, S5, O2, O5, O6) S-T Strategies Increase and promote the compatibility to Window operating system. (S5,T1) Promote the originality of Apple computers and the different style and stable system that is slightly more but worth the price difference in style, stability and speed. (S2, S5, T2, T4, T5) W-O Strategies Increase ties with Microsoft and Intel and their products.(W1, W2, W4 O2, O3) Promote to business the safety of having a worm and virus free computer by using Mac. (W2, W4, O1, O5, O6) W-T Strategies Improve relationship with Microsoft and Intel so that companies will see them as compatible. (W1, W2 T1) Increase productivity and turn around of high demand products to compete with Dell and HP (W5, T2) 15. The Strategic Position and Action Evaluation (SPACE) Matrix The Strategic Position and Action Evaluation (SPACE) Matrix is four-quadrant framework indicates whether aggressive, conservative, defensive, or competitive strategies are most appropriate for a given organization. The axes of the SPACE Matrix represent two internal dimensions (financial position [FP] and competitive position [CP]) and two external dimensions (stability position [SP] and industry position [IP]). These four factors are perhaps the most important determinants of an organization’s overall strategic position (David, 2011). 15.1 SPACE Matrix for APPLE Model 6: Showing SPACE Matrix for APPLE Inc. 16. BCG Matrix When a firm’s divisions compete in different industries, a separate strategy often must be developed for each business. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix is designed specifically to enhance a multidivisional firm’s efforts to formulate strategies (David, 2011). a. BCG Matrix for APPLE Model 7: Showing BCG Matrix for APPLE Inc. 17. Internal External Matrix The IE Matrix is similar to the BCG Matrix in that both tools involve plotting organization divisions in a schematic diagram; this is why they are both called â€Å"portfolio matrices.† (David, 2011). a. IE Matrix for APPLE Model 8: Showing IE Matrix for APPLE Inc. 18. Grand Matrix The Grand Strategy Matrix has become a popular tool for formulating  alternative strategies. All organizations can be positioned in one of the Grand Strategy Matrix’s four strategy quadrants. A firm’s divisions likewise could be positioned (David, 2011). 19. The Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) The Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM), which comprises Stage 3 of the strategy-formulation analytical framework. This technique objectively indicates which alternative strategies are best (David, 2011). a. QSPM for APPLE Model 9: Showing QSPM for APPLE Inc. 20. Finance/ Accounting Financial condition is often considered the single best measure of a firm’s competitive position and overall attractiveness to investors. Determining an organization’s financial strengths and weaknesses is essential to effectively formulating strategies. a. Financial Ratios for APPLE Sale Ratio Model 10: Showing sales ratio for APPLE Inc. Asset Turnover Ratio Model 11: Showing Asset Turnover ratio for APPLE Inc. Inventory Turnover Ratio Model 12: Showing Inventory Turnover ratio for APPLE Inc. Gross Profit Margin Ratio Model 13: Showing Gross Profit Margin ratio for APPLE Inc. 21. Conclusion It is concluded from the strategic management analysis at APPLE Inc. that technological industries are never easy to compete with. They have a lot invest at RD and have to be proactive in order to compete with their competitors in the industry. As for APPLE is concerned they have been working so well as it is shown form their products. As Apple Inc. is increasing also, those other businesses are increasing and trying to do something interesting for their own good. APPLE needs to make a drastic change. They don’t need to wait for people buy their products only when they are on sale but they need to focus more on the customer support and improve the areas they already have problems. 22. Recommendations Strategy 1 Open six computer retail stores (not just peripheral and accessories). Apple currently has stores opened throughout the United States with only peripheral and accessories for their computers. Adding the hardware should generate more hands-on awareness and use already established locations. This will increase product accessibility for those who wish to view items other than just accessories and increase awareness of the originality of Apple’s products. 2 percent increase over the next 2 years in sales representatives for the computer hardware. Strategy 2 Contract music spokesperson to attract the upcoming generation who are attending high school and college. This will invoke a sense of style and linking apple with a distinctive and memorable top 10 hit. This will stay in the customer’s awareness and influence future purchase decisions. Contracting one music spokesperson estimated $6 million. Strategy 3 Add more features to current products for greater Wintel compatibility. Features such as iTune software compatible with windows based computers, Office programs loadable from PC installation disk (This would require a software agreement with Microsoft). In late October 2003 Apple released an iTune software package that is PC ready. It will increase the United States market share at least 30 percent for the next 2-3 years. $50 million is the estimated cost for Research and Development. 23. References 1. David, F, â€Å"Strategic Management Concepts† 13 edition, Pearsons, 2011. 2. http://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/mac-os-x/apple-business-philosophy-mission-statement 3. http://writepass.co.uk/journal/2012/12/strategic-analysis-swot-and-bcg-matrix-of-apple-inc/ 4. http://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2013/01/apple-versus-the-strategy-prof.html 5. http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/apple-swot-analysis.html 6. http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-12-444068 7. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/01/by-the-numbers-apples-fiscal-2012-annual-report/ 8. http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Supplier_Code_of_Conduct_V3_1.pdf 9. http://myassignmenthelp.info/assignments/marketing-assignment-essay-writing-analysis-review-online-apple-swot-pestle-analysis/