The Four P's (Price, Product, Promotion and Place)

Price

World's Most Admired Companies

Apple:

Even though Apple has had a rough time with its stock price in a free fall and with failure of it Maps feature, it still remains the most profitable company in the world. Last quarter its net income was $13 billion. The company still refuses to decrease their prices. Despite its high prices iPhone 5 became the world's best selling smartphone and was followed by the iPhone 4S. This article clearly relates to price as it talks about Apple's net income which makes the company to be the most profitable.

The reason why Apple Inc. was ranked as Number 1 world's most admired companies is because of its huge profit and undeniable popularity among the consumers. Even extremely high prices of Apple's product do not discourage consumers from buying them. Consumers buy Apple products not only because of the product's quality, luxury design but because of the feeling of being "cool" that the product give them. I'm sure that if Apple Inc. keeps producing and developing new devices and upgrading the older ones, the consumers will like them and buy their product. I would not recommend Apple to decrease their prices because it might ruin their brand name.

Product

What Makes Samsung Such An Innovative Company? 

Many people do not understand how Samsung approaches innovation so they started to criticize them for copying. It's publicly known what kind of strategies Apple or Google use. For example: Apple often assigns three teams that compete with each other and Google gives engineers more bench time. On the contrary is seems like the reason why Samsung is such an innovative company is that its strategy is based on creating elite. Samsung realizes the importance of innovation and is willing to invest lots of money into it. In late 1990s and early 2000s Samsung started to think about adopting a systematic approach to innovation which seemed to be a main reason for their current success. Samsung has also become a partner with Russian Academy Of Science. Because of the company's willingness to grant enough visas Samsung has been able to buy Russian expertise for a quite low price. Russian experts help Samsung with its smart-phone software development. They have also introduced and recommend to Samsung TRIZ, which is a methodology for systematic problem solving. By using TRIZ Samsung saved over $100 million in its first projects. It looks like Samsung is on a roll. The article "What Makes Samsung Such An Innovative Company" relates to product. Even though this article doesn't talk about the specific product of it focuses more on the company and its strategies for improving and innovating several products instead of just one. It reveals us the ways Samsung develops its products which is very important and interesting. It is obious that Samsung uses company or corporate branding.

The reason why there's many critics about Samsung is that some people still do not undestand how come that Samsung can easily compete with American masters like Google and Apple. The truth is that Samsung strongly focuses on quality of its products as well as on innovation. It may not concentrate as much on design though (comparing to Apple Inc.). The reason why Samsung has chosen Russia as partners is that Samsung recognizes it as a country in which technology develops rapidly. Samsung knows that in order to be successful it is neccessery to keep developing and improving its products. In my opinion Samsung will continue cooperating with Russian Academy of Science and improving their products. If Samsung starts working more on its products design, the company might become among the customers even more popular than Apple as Samsung offers lower prices. So I would recommend Samsung to start playing with the design more. 

Promotion

Chavez's death won't spur new Venezuela oil drilling

In the 1990s, Venezuela's democratically-elected governments that were seen as quite stable comparing to oil-rich countries (the Middle East, Russia) attracted many foreign investors from all around the world such as U.S. oil giant Conoco Phillips. However, thanks to the oil industry's biggest villain, Hugo Chavez, who expropriated lands and equipments from foreign oil companies and eventually managed to destroy Venezuela oil company, overall Venezuelan oil output started to decline. Because of his stupidity and corruption, Chavez completely devastated the good image of Venezuela. Even though that Hugo Chavez's death did definitely rock the oil industry, it did not make any change in Venezuelan dysfunctional energy industry as well as in its incapable and poor reputation. This article relates to promotion. It's a clear example of negative promotion that was caused by the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Venezuela used to be one of the largest oil reserves on the planet but Hugo Chavez's actions created bad images of this oil giant which made the consumers like ExxonMobil to stop buying oil from them.

There were several reasons for the decline of Venezuelan oil output:

1. Hugo Chavez started making financial frauds. For example: PDVSA (Venezuela's state oil company) has paid hundreds of millions less to Exxon Mobil Corp than they were supposed to. Chavez's explanation was that the difference reflected the debt owed by Exxon Mobil Corp to PDVSA.

2.Venezuelan oil production had suffered under Hugo Chavez

3. He also trashed contracts with many foreign oil partners.

In order to increase the overall Venezuelan oil output and to create a good image of this oil reserve a new president of Venezuela will need to dismantle the policies, rhetoric and structure. An effective promotion will be very important too. Venezuela cannot afford to make another bad step. It might take some time for the Venezuelan government and PDVSA to become third largest oil exporting giant again but they have to try and work on it systematically.  If the new government was stable, it might attract new foreign investors again.

Place 

Apple to open its own stores in Russia

Apple Computers plans to sell its products in Russia without the use of any middlemen. Apple has already registered a company Apple Rus and assigned Vitaly Morozko as its director general. One of the Apple managers assumes that the company could start direct sales in Russia in 2013 but nobody knows when the first Apple Store in Russia will be open. Apple's first official Russian distributor was diHouse and most of the Apple products are still distributed through this distributor. iPhones are in Russia distributed by MTS and Vimpelcom.The statement that says prices of Apple products will fall as Apple Store comes in Russia is false. Apple Inc. is not planning to decrease their prices. The only benefit Russia might get from having Apple Store is that there will be probably a smaller delay between announcing a new Apple gadget, and its appearance on the Russian market. This article is related to place as it talks about Apple Inc. and selling their products in Russia. It also reveals that Apple is interested in building the Apple Store in this huge country.

By selling Apple products and opening the Apple Store in Russia, Apple Inc. wants to become even more popular and to make sure their products are available everywhere. Even though Apple products have been already distributed to Russia, opening of the plushy Apple Store will definitely attract even more consumers. Another reason for building Apple Store is that some distributors such as Vimpelcom and MTS want the phones to be sold in their shops only and are not interested in any wider market. I think that if Apple joins Samsung and Sony, companies that have been already working on direct contracts, the prices might become more affordable in the future.