TataTata traces its name from its founder Jamsetji Tata way back in 1868 (Yesudian 49). It is a chain of companies incorporating seven sectors specializing with materials, engineering, energy chemicals, services, consumer products, information systems, and communication. Tata Production Company has a high esteem in India with employees estimated to be over 350,000 personnel and an average of 100 operative companies in 85 countries around the world (Witzel 138). According to the business reports of the fiscal year 2009, the company had revenue generation of about US$ 70.8 billion (Witzel 10). Tata is a unique and respected industrial company in India because of its effort to spring up and start the first steel, hydroelectric, and inorganic chemistry plants, which saw the creation of a giant scientific and technological job sites in the country. Tata Company has since established several institutes such as the institute of social sciences, cancer hospital, and Tata memorial, and Tata institute of fundamental research, which later resolved to the countries atomic energy program (Witzel 166). The company has of late scored in buying Jaguar and Land Rover a Ford’s stake in the UK.Contact this service for help to buy an essay onlineTata group of companies have five core values which they share in common; integrity, understanding, excellence, unity and finally responsibility. These companies also work on a common agreement of ‘TATA Brand Equity and Business Agreement’ signed with the founder’s sons (Tata sons Ltd). For the past 145 years, the company has been working on sticking to the ethics of serving the community with a key growth and sustenance. Tata is endowed with trusted leadership among the workers, the community, shareholders and the consumer fraternity, which has earned the company an ego that is unmatchable with other companies.

Apple Inc Company:Founded in 1976, apple is a multinational American company, specialized in designing, developing and selling of consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers (Carbaugh 100). The company deals with hardware products such as Mac computers, music players such as iPod, iPhone smart phones and software products such as OSX and Ios operating systems among others. The incorporation of the company was done in 2007 by removing the word computer was marked the focus shift to consumer electronics after coming up with Iphone.Apple Inc has recorded one of the highest revenues in the world after sumsang electronics since it ranked position two as the world’s largest information technology company.

Tata’s External Environment: The PESTEL FrameworkExternal environment is also the macro environment describing the forces both, internal and external, whose effects to the company are out of control. The company’s/organization’s administrative sector is supposed to look into and identify such issues like political, economical, sociological, technological, environmental and legislative (PESTEL framework) to address their impact in the company business.

PoliticalOwing to the point that Tata is a multinational company, there is need to identify the political line up and other competing companies in the countries of operation (Kazmi 83). Various countries have various laws and regulations governing investments and expansions in any company’s trade. To this effect, Tata had to familiarize itself with the commercial laws and regulations of UK after it (Tata) acquired Jaguar and Land rover models. UK offers favorable taxation benefits and support to foreign investors. Tata has always been very keen in observing labor laws in various countries of investment with a key target of speeding up its spread in the market, which has been played as the key role by Tata’s mother company, and with the message preached to other branches throughout the world (Kazmi 83).EconomicSince Tata operates in several markets across the globe, the company embraces a global economic model while at the same time, looking keenly at each market. Tata has formed several joint ventures as its entry strategy to other markets. The global focus, through joint venture initiatives has given Tata platform to learn and adapt to local conditions easily. Tata group has experience from the five continents. If an issue arises in one market, the company is able to gather information from the other markets to deal with the specific issues. For instance, if the cost of aluminum goes up in one of supplier countries, Tata can shift to another supplier where the costs are competitive. Tata operates an integrated supply chain. The company sees its activities as interdependent on those of suppliers. Overall, the company maintains a health relationship with its suppliers, since this enables the company to enhance its ability to create value for its clients, society, and investors.Tata Motors has to take cognizance of the fluctuations of currency rates across many economies. According to,   currency fluctuation can influence the sales of cars in a great way. For instance, currency fluctuations can mean high or low demand for Tata cars, which in turn can significantly affect the profits margins.Social factorAn organization’s future is heavily reliant on morals and stance of the stake holders. For this reason Tata Company has been adapting to performances of foreign companies they get in touch with, thus optimizing knowledge in the industry. The company sets to product localization incase of pricing depending on sizes in population, demography and income in various market outlets. Considering for example the income per capita in India and Italy, that of India is less and so consumers may prefer smaller models of cars such as Tata Nano unlike in Italy where the income per capita is higher and so consumers may prefer bigger and fancier vehicles. Tata has maintained the idea of market familiarization and keeping their brand name throughout the world. This has been the case when it acquired Ford’s Jaguar and Land Rover since they did not the brand name but they rather chose to maintain it for the wellbeing of social ego of the consumers. In addition, the company acquired Daewoo Commercial Vehicle in 2004, for the same reasons.Technology

On the technological front, Tata Motors and its parent company, the Tata Group, have faired well in terms of technological advancements. The Group has more than 20 companies listed in various stock exchanges across the world. This means the company has a wealth of experience and resources to draw from in its research and development efforts. Tata understand that the secret to success is in understanding the needs of the market and coming with product offerings that match customer needs. Such efforts cannot succeed without the input of the R&D. R&D efforts are based on cutting-edge technologies employed by Tata in ensuring that its products far exceed those of the competitors. Accordingly, the company has more than 1, 400 scientists as well as engineers, making the company well-equipped, both in India, as well as in the international market arena. Because of technological breakthroughs, the company has made it first in several aspects. First, Tata developed the first Sports Utility Vehicle in India. In addition, it was first to develop the first indigenous passenger car in 1998.The biggest challenge for companies, both in the domestic market as well as in the global markets is the ability to stay ahead of others. Therefore, technology plays a key role in maintaining a competitive edge. Tata, in recognition of this important role of technology, dedicates more resources and efforts in research and development to be at par with or even ahead of others.Environmental factorTata has been well placed in terms of competition in the world market. This has been facilitated by its well researched and adapted strategies to realize competitive advantage over its rivals. A friendly environment has been created in its business endeavors because of highly interacting with many other companies throughout the world. However, challenges of gas emissions and pollution from its companies have been of great concern. This has forced Tata to pump more resources on research to combat emissions.The legal factorTata has devised better strategy making, an experience from the multinational business operations, which has made it stand better competitive advantage over its competitors. This is because for any new company in the market it has to face competition from the already established companies in the market (Kazmi 84).

Competitive Strategy: Porter’s Generic Strategy frameworkTo acquire a sustaining competitive advantage, a company needs to have a well laid down competitive strategy (Eldring 7). The market environment is so much dynamic such that a company should have strong and distinctive competitive strategies. Tata has applied its understanding in the designing of its markets in order to make better delivery to its customers who are also the target of the company’s competitors. According to Michael Porter, a company can follow three competitive strategies to plan out and win the market for its products; cost leadership, differentiation and market segmentation. Under cost leadership, the company is focused on cutting down costs of production and distribution. The company is left to serve customers who are aware of cost of production. The prices set by the company are one of the lowest. This is what Tata’s steel company embarked in simply because of its raw materials reservoirs spread in countries like Australia, Oman and Mozambique, hence it could persevere the

price flux of its raw materials due to the availability of iron ore mines. For this matter, Reliance Industries have become the giants in various global businesses compromised on innovation and cost.By differentiation the company targets on customers who are not sensitive on prices in competitive markets where customers gets service which is below average to satisfy their needs just because the firm has exclusive resources. Product differentiation can be achieved by having various sources, various ingredients, putting various features, and design this has the trend with Tata company especially with the introduction of Tata Nano which was a small car model.Through market segmentation, the company is focused at a particular group of consumers segmented to meet a competitive advantage through innovation marketing of the product regardless of the efficiency. If a company fails to choose either leadership cost or differentiation it means that the company is hanging at the mid of the business success and therefore it loses competitive marketing strategy which results to poor financial performances.

Resource-Based ViewIn the Resource Based View, the firm is perceived as a pack of resources which when put together makes organizations differ from each other hence making them be able to make market delivery of their goods and services (Henry 126). Under the market-based view, the agenda is sourcing for attracting markets for competition. In the resource-based strategy, the company’s resources are viewed and these resources can be pulled/redirected in other ways, which are better suited to expansion and development (Henry 126). This is actually the case Tata motor industry company that redirected the resources of producing bigger vehicles to smaller ones like Tata Nano, which was affordable to most Indians.

Strategic rationale for global developmentThe fact that Tata is a multinational chain of companies; it is focused to make achievements based on two major ideas. First, to expand the global market based on the existing products and to build a large mass market that is coming up in the mother country. Global expansion is associated with so many risks and so the company may take the option related to each option. This is actually the presentation of Ansoff in his growth vector.Ansoff Matrix

Existing product New products

Existing markets Market penetration Product development

New Markets Market development Diversification

 The Ansoff’s Matrix provides four different sets of growth strategies that a company can pursue in the market (Bachmeier 3)Market Penetration: The Company seeks to gain growth by selling more of its

products within the market in which it operates (Harrison and Caron 111)Market development: Tata seeks growth by selling its products into new markets like China (Raju 326).Product development: This is achieved by developing new products to satisfy the needs of clients within its marketsDiversification: The Company develops new products for new markets. The Tata Group operates pharmaceuticals, hotels, automobiles, among others (Ramu 51).

Apple’s Global Strategy            Apple pursues a differentiation strategy, by offering products of high quality (Kluyver 67). The company broadly targets its customers with its product range. The company adds value by retaining in-house elements of design, while t the same time outsourcing production to minimize costs.This model sets the objectives of a firm alongside other models such as the Porter’s framework model among others. It is based on market penetration and development, and product development and diversification. Therefore, Tata is targeted to new market penetration by use of its already existing products such as Tata trucks, soda ash among other products. Owing to the point that the company is spread in various parts of the world it can use its already existing customers for sales increment without the change of its original product market strategy. This means that Tata can use the strategy of acquiring the competitor’s customers, improving the quality of its products/service level, and making their products attractive to non-users/encouraging the existing users to increase the product usage by use of marketing or other tools of communicating like advertising (Koekermoer and Bird 81). Tata is also targeted at product development of new products such as Tata Nano. The other factor is market development, which Tata has already achieved in venturing into global markets. The company is targeted at making bulk sales of its new Tata Nano car model. Through market diversification, the company has already made expansions in new markets where it aims at strategizing making good competitive advantage of its products. Since a company cannot stay within its borders and become competitive, Tata has taken the role making global expansions of its products through delivery of low cost products, which are friendly to the customers’ pockets.

Methods used to expand globallyTata Company owing to its good management has won most world markets for its products. The company has been using assimilation of ideas and technology of existing companies in the market to position their products (Dogra 101). On a general scope, Tata Company has made several strides in the outside market. For example, Ratan Tata the chairperson of the company hired Alan Rostling, the chairperson of Hong Kong’s Jardine Matherson Group as the director of the company with a view of acquiring two companies, Jaguar brands and critical industrial enterprises. The company believes in doing good to acquire good business through the offering of equitable units for willing participators in the global investment. However, the company is faced by a number of challenges like labor and management especially to the growing number of non-Indian

employees. Among other challenges are like the success of Nano which was only for the Indian, Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia markets.

How Apple Can Learn From Tata MotorsAlthough the two companies operate in different industries, there are several strategic moves that Apple can learn from the success of Tata Motors. Indeed, the creation of cars like Nano and OneCAT provides a variety of ways in which a company can continue to grow in the competitive market. First, entering a new market requires a well-thought strategy to succeed (Coade 32). For instance, joint venture initiatives could be helpful while venturing new markets like China. Secondly, Tata uses R&D heavily. This is critical in providing cutting-edge products. Thirdly, cost leadership is critical. Through integrated supply management, Tata can enjoy low cost of supplies, which translates into low cost of cars for the customers.

ConclusionTata Group has been the main force behind the success of Tata Motors. In addition, the company has gained a competitive edge because of its acquisitions and mergers. Despite its fall in the stock prices, the company should continue to invest in eco-friendly products to overcome the challenges posed by rivals in this segment. Tata should also venture into the Chinese market, since China has a big potential because of rising incomes among the people. In doing so, the company should take cognizance of cultural influences in doing business in China.Apple should focus on technology as a way of gaining a competitive advantage over rivals like Google. Apple should learn from the mistakes of Google in making entrance into markets that are promising, like China. In such markets, the company should focus on localization and cooperation with the Chinese government to gain a foothold in the Chinese market.Apple should embrace a close relationship with suppliers, just like Tata Motors. A close relationship with suppliers will moderate the power of suppliers and assist in getting attractive prices of component. In addition, Apple should diversify by creating complementary products in other segments. This will increase the company’s revenue base.