Functional Area Interrelationships / Apple Company - Essay Example

Apple Inc. affiliation Apple Inc. Apple Inc. develops a collaborative network within its functional area to improve its brand and customer loyalty. The company utilizes several steps of collaboration process among functional areas to create a viable network in all departments. To start with, the company management connects its operation to the real world, understand how each task is done then the organization design a collaborative network (lateral and vertical). The company empowers staff through training, support and mentor staffing (Wisner, et.al 2008). Staffs acquire new information, knowledge, skills and the opportunity to practice collaboration.

To motivate and encourage collaborative work, Apple Inc. aligns their rewards, goals, and feedback mechanisms. They provide the right incentives, which help the adoption of collaborative way of working. Lastly, apple developed a collaborative, entrepreneurial culture that helps spot opportunities in the market. The action plan to implement this collaborative process starts with understanding each work and its outcome. It therefore involves determining the most effective way to complete a task and the expected outcome.

On the other hand, designing a collaborative network is fundamental to ensure that there is smooth collaboration in all tasks performed. The lateral collaboration in Apple Inc. is applied between the top management and middle management. The lateral decision making is more practiced in such setup and therefore the decision and organizational changes are more organic rather than planned. The company demonstrates these attributes. To this end, no specific collaboration strategy can wholly and solely helps to achieve the organizational objectives (Papp, 2001).

Different circumstances require different measures. The company applies the vertical collaboration at the lower level of the company. This depicts the relationship between senior workers and other employees to achieve organizational goals. The relationship between middle and top management represents a lateral collaboration, while managers and employees depict vertical collaboration.The best action plan is that vertical collaboration is viable in the lower hierarchy of the company while the lateral collaboration best suit in the upper level of the organization.

In this perspective, the two collaboration strategies aid to meet different organizational goals. ReferencesPapp, R. (2001). Strategic information technology: Opportunities for competitive advantage. Hershey, Pa. [u.a.: Idea Group Publ.Wisner, J. D., & Stanley, L. L. (2008). Process management: Creating value along the supply chain : text & cases. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.