Choose a business firm and discuss What is consumer's perception about Term Paper

Choose a business pissed and discuss What is consumers perception about the firm and its product - Term Paper Example apple Inc This paper chooses Apple Inc for the study of consumers perception about goods, because Apple Inc has emerged to be one of the more or less successful and powerful brands around the world. It is an American based multinational company that designs and produces computers, peripherals, digital players, phones and softwargon etc with greater emphasis on innovation and engineering, and trades them through own-retail outlets, online stores and terzetto party sellers (Sander and Slatter, 2009, p. 81). Apple Inc always thrived on innovation (Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz, 2005, p. 395) especially through on-going product and brand differentiation. The relentless efforts of Apple to focus on ease of use, simplicity, utility, might and fun has helped the company make its new variants of products such as iPhone, iPhone-3G, iPhone- 4-G etc to be very different spe cies than that of its competitors (Newsweek, 2007). Consumers of Apple products expect preposterous values and technology advantages from Apples computers as well as its digital players and phones. The company is very particular about the value propositions and almost all of its efforts including R&D are meant to satisfy consumers expectation of values and innovation. ... l different factors that may impact the perception, the real experiences of consumers after using or buying a product brings the true(a) perception in their minds. Miller, Miller and Miller (2007, p. 16) described that a consumers perception about a company or its offerings is based on their retiring(a) experiences with the company or its offerings, companies that offer equivalent products or services, and information they have got from friends, family and colleagues. Consumers almost always compare the values, benefits and general features of two or more similar products and services and this comparison in tur n form perception in their minds. It is thus closely related to brand positioning and brand image. Consumers perception about Apple and its products Though there are discussions regarding Apples brand image and consumers perception before and after the resignation of its founder Steve Jobs (Hughes, 2011), one thing remained constant that Apple is well known for its technology. Until 1990s, Apple was costing on borrowed technology, but Steve Jobs realized that a company cannot stay long on technology leader strategy without becoming a technology creator. After 1997, Apple made four segmentations of its products and innovated in the way it produced and marketed its products (Betz, 2002, p. 194- 195). As Hoskisson, Hitt and Ireland (2008,p. 133) noted, Apples market effort was to develop computers and other offerings that are highly differentiated with help of latest technology. The product differentiation strategy that has implemented has thus created a unique history of its own thro ugh very distinctive products ever-available in the market such as iMac, iBook, iTune, iLife, iMusic, iPad, iPod, iPhone and so on. The company approached its market and