Leadership Management and Management of Strategic Change in Apple Inc - Essay Example

Leadership Management and Management of Strategic Change in Apple Inc Apple Inc is an organization that has strived to satisfy the world’s demand for information technology infrastructure since the time it was founded back in 1977. In the contemporary business environment, business management has become one of the greatest challenges. In the 21st century, the business market has experienced a paradigm shift demanding new management strategies and the extinction of traditional management strategies. The change in technology and the work force characteristics have come up with the challenges of predicting the business direction. The leaders have to remain flexible in a data-centric world where quick business decisions have to be made within the shortest time possible. The entry of global competition has seen the organizations lose domestic markets and the profit margins reduce considerably. For any organization to remain profitable, it is crucial for leaders to execute strategic measures to position themselves in the market and overcome the challenges that come along with a rapidly changing business market. At the same time, new opportunities such internet connectivity and data processing technologies have come up, although taking advantage of them is always a challenge for managers. In light of this, having to work in the dynamic mobile industry is a big challenge for our organization. Therefore, managers at Apple Inc need to remain creative, opportunistic and flexible to implement strategic management within the organizations. One great challenge that is a potential threat to the survival of Apple Inc in the future is the competition by other innovation companies such as Samsung and Nokia (Mallin & Finkle, 2011). Although the company has created a unique profile by patenting most of its applications, Samsung has come around this challenge by using the Android Platform, which is the world’s favourite software platform. The mobile and Table users today prefer the Android platform over the iOS, which Apple Inc uses (Abu, 2014). The Android platform allows flexibility of access open source application, which makes it more integrative than any other operating system within the market. This is the major reason why the Apple mobile market is constrained as people shift their tastes towards this new software platform. This trend promises that Apple Inc is bound to experience a severe challenge if it does not take appropriate measures to counter ever rising competition in the market (Mallin & Finkle, 2011). The ability of the company to find an innovative way to retain its customers and attract more will determine its survival in the market. Although the company was designed to be “the most sophisticated” mobile company, it is clear that it has not lived to the standards (Finkle & Mallin, 2010). The challenges that exist in our company are big threats if the managers do not figure out solutions in the prompt manner. Leadership is one of the important aspects of our organization as this is the pillar of all the operations of the company. In Apple Inc, effective management is a topic that comes across almost in every monthly meeting. Notably, the concept of business leadership has become an issue of discussion as many scholars investigate the most efficient form of leadership for the modern business environment. Often, there arises a question of whether there is a difference between leadership and management within the business environment. From a close observation, there is a great difference between a manager and a leader especially in the roles that they play. In role playing, a manager has the mandate to control the people under him while the leader plays the role of inspiring those under him. In terms of power, the manager holds positional power by the virtue of the position he or she holds within the organizational hierarchy while the leader has personal power that emanates from his experience. In terms of role implementation, the manager relies of set guidelines and sticks to the plan laid down. However, the leader has the freedom to remain innovative by combining skills of creativity and logical decision making to arrive at the best solutions to organizational problems. This shows clearly that there is a great difference between a manager and a leader (39-40). However, there is an overlap between the roles of a leader and a manager. Often leaders are involved in the roles of planning, organizing, staffing and controlling, the same as those that a manager plays. On the other hand, there are times when the managers are involved in influencing or inspiring a group of people to meet their goals, which is a critical role of leadership (46-47). This shows the two positions overlap and one can play the role of the other at some point. Normative and descriptive theories are two categories that use different approaches to explain leadership and management. The normative theories describe how the ideal leadership should be. On the other hand, the descriptive theories explain leadership in the context of reality and how it applies in real scenarios (51). The difference between them is that normative theories consider ideal cases while the descriptive theories relies in experiential knowledge and seeks to explain the way things work in the real world. A good example of a normative theory is the theory of Weber about the ideal form of an organization. In this theory, Weber focuses on bureaucratic management where files, written documents, specialized office and general rules form the main components of leadership. This theory is ideal in the sense that it ignores the essence of other role players such as workers and their ability to change the laws. An example of a descriptive theory was developed by is Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs. This theory explains the way people interrelate with one another within a system and the way dissatisfaction among them creates tension. This is theory applies in the real world where the behaviour of managers and leaders affect the motivation of the employees to work. When the employees mistreat their workers, the workers will underperform because they lose motivation. This theory focuses on real issues unlike the Weber’s theory sees leadership as a combination of written rules and file systems. In Apple Inc, transformational leadership is crucial if the organizations have to achieve its strategic goals. Transformational leadership, a concept that refers to modern leadership style that centres on the leader and their follower’s interactions. It refers to a type of leadership that accounts for value, relationship, motives, ethics and standards that influence the way a leader or manager interacts with their employees. Transformational leadership focuses on a wide range of mechanisms to achieve the organizational goals. It considers both the follower and leader characteristics that influence the way they handle their roles. The main focus of the leaders in this case is to win loyalty of their followers by satisfying their physical and emotional needs. The leaders achieve this by understanding the needs of the follower and developing strategies to achieve them. This is the most common form of leadership concept that applies today in many organizations. For an organization to do well, they have to satisfy the employees by providing them with satisfying salaries, healthy working conditions and opportunities to grow. In turn, the leaders benefit by having loyal employees who have a long term association with the organization, which is crucial if a leader has to accomplish their goals. On this note, transformational leadership is integrative and is based on mutual benefit of both the leader and the follower (56-57). Many modern economists advocate for this form of leadership as it is satisfying and provides a good ground for goals implementation. This is the path that our company should take to effect strategic changes within the company. A number of companies have survived the harsh business challenges through effective leadership. Starbucks is a company that has invested in one of the most dynamic market environment characterized with harsh competition. However, the company has survived in the harsh market by designing effective market strategies and becoming committed in the implementation stage. The company’s strength lies in its ability to streamline the internal business environment. The company engages all its stakeholders in designing the company’s strategies. The company pays the employees fair salaries to ensure that they have a long term plan with the organization. As a result, the company has always been able to achieve its objectives. Secondly, the company has remained committed to understanding the customer tastes and seeking ways to satisfy them. As a result, the company was able to win the California market where the customer tastes were unique (Gamble & Thompson, 2013). After discovering that the Californians did not like the black coffee, they invented new products to satisfy this customer segment. The same way, our company should focus on the design of products that satisfy the customer demands. For instance, it would be wise for the company to focus on the development of sleek smartphones that are in greater demand in the market today, other than developing ordinary smart phones. Another challenge that has come up in our business environment is the evolution of information technology. The 21st century has been an era of proliferation of internet technology. The internet has become accessible to the public, making it a tool that strategic leaders cannot ignore while designing their business profiles. The internet is both an opportunity and a complexity that surround the business market. While internet helps the managers to accomplish easily their international strategies, it comes with the complexity of processing data and equipping and other business risks. M-commerce has transformed business in developing countries in various perspectives that are considered modest characteristics of a modern business organization. Business in the 21st century has experienced bombardment from different market forces that have pushed organizations to reform their investment strategies to fit the demands of a changing market environment. Innovation is one business strategy that has been regarded as the vehicle business success and the ability of an organization to differentiate highly depends on its innovativeness. M-commerce is one of the forms of innovative techniques that have emerged in today's market environment and has come to define trade in developing countries in various perspectives. One impact of information technology that has been experienced in developing countries is the reduction of the cost of business transactions. In any business organization, the cost of business transaction is a vital parameter of business that needs to be minimized as much as possible to ensure that the cost of production remains minimal within any fiscal year. The evolution pricing strategies as part of supply chain design has pushed organizations to resort to innovation as one way of minimizing costs overheads in the business firms. With m-commerce, organizations are able to serve their customers remotely without having to serve them on the counter (Siau, Lim, and Shen, 2001). For instance, m-banking allows bank customers to carry out their transactions from their mobile phones and this reduces their bank queues considerably. From a different perspective, the customer’s cost of travelling to the bank is considerably reduced and this is typical of an effective economy. From a critical point of view, m-commerce strategy to reduce the cost of investment is twofold and benefits both the customers and the investors. In a research by Koabi (2006, p. 47), the deployment of m-commerce had various effects on the country and its business operations. By 2006, the mobile technology has penetrated the business environment and the m-commerce was becoming a characteristic feature in the business sector. In his study conducted among local vegetable farmers in Ghana, he found out that the traditional systems had been complexly wiped out by the m-commerce services. In the old system, the farmers experience much loss due to delay of buyers that were as a result of poor communication strategies. With the launch of M-Tech, the farmers experienced a great reduction of the cost that they incurred while transacting business and communicating with their clients. In fact, the main purpose of the M-Tech project was a cost reduction strategy that aimed at mobilizing farm goods at the cheapest prices possible, which was expected to optimize production in the agricultural sector. Secondly, m-commerce has had a great impact on the communication perspective of the business sector. Effective communication is a key element in any business organization that intends to reach out to its customers and communicate with them. The value of an organization is attached to its ability to supply its target customers with information regarding their products and services. With mobile business, a communication platform was established that links the organization to their customers directly hence bridging the distance gap that previously existed in the consumers. As professor Nzomo (2013, Para. 2) Points out, mobile network operators have provided new business communication policies that are typical of the 21st century. In Kenya today, Safaricom, one of the mobile subscribers in this country relays information on its products to their customers at any place at any time. Other companies such as Samsung have focussed on the use of electronic marketing to expand their business in the international scope. This is one of the paths that our organization should focus on to ensure that we take advantage of technology to attract more customers. However, it is important to point out that many companies are experiencing a great challenge in deploying m-commerce within their business institutions. One of the challenges that have faced deployment of e-commerce is the high level of illiteracy that is evident in many countries. According to Lyn (2002) and Reid (2012), the low literacy level evident in most countries has slowed the process of growth of information technology and this has reduced the potential of business in these countries from growing. Another challenge that m-commerce has experienced is the lack of adequate infrastructure and the slow development of mobile technology. While most western countries have employed 4G technology, other third world countries have not yet fully rolled out their 3G networks. These challenges have limited business organization in developing countries from shifting completely in the digital world of business. The economic perspective of social media has been an issue of interest within the Wall Street Journal recently. With many analysts fearing for a global inflation, they have been keen to weigh how business can be supplemented. In the opinion of many, social media has become a marketing avenue to help organizations to push their business into the international scope and increase their range of customers. While many find that Social sites such as Facebook and Twitter have worked well in business optimization, there are those who feel that the organizations need to focus on different strategies through which they can tap social media for the benefit of the business. Samsung is an electronics company that has profited from the development of a concrete online presence. For instance, they have have targeted African countries through social media sites such as Facebook, and this is the reason that the company has remained competitive in the market. Although our company has already launched an online presence within various social sites, it is clear that its optimization is yet to be achieved. The controversy on the use of social media for economic development within the companies is an issue that has been ignited by the analysis on the way people use social media. Statistics show that the greater percentage of social site users use this avenue to connect with family and friends and only less than 20% use these sites to follow trends and find product information (Elder 1). Therefore, it is clear that the social sites have not yet achieved significant benefit for the organization that uses them for marketing. Therefore, many companies are still in the fear that their connection with potential customers is still falling despite the proliferation of the social media in the internet era. From this point of view, many authors are of the opinion that social media has been of little help to economic development since it has served as an avenue for people to meet rather than companies to meet customers. In my own opinion, the reason why social sites have not optimally benefited companies is because the companies have yet to leverage this avenue for their marketing strategies. The company has to find the right strategies to market their products on social media, which is a sensitive platform. While the social media may be an avenue to roll out products into the market, it is a sensitive platform that needs to be used effectively. The reason why the social media has not yet benefited many companies is because the organizations have not yet specialized on it use. The organization needs not only to advertise their products but also find ways of using the feedback that they obtain from the customers. Filtering of information is crucial as social media provide people with the liberty to express both negative and positive opinions on the products. To use the feedback appropriately, the organizational managers have to evaluate the economic impact of the social media taking into account of the opinions provided in this platform. Therefore, I believe that the economic value of social media will come because of its optimized use. Another challenge that has come in the computing era is the shift towards online shopping. In the era of internet technology, online shopping has become a popular term within the business environment. With the proliferation of the internet technology in the public, organizations have used this avenue to target more customers across the world and to provide the customer with a convenient way to purchase products from the internet. The advantage of this process is that the customers can buy products from the remote locations and they can access adequate information about the products without having to move from shop to shop. However, cybercrime is one of the greatest challenges that face online purchasing as shoppers and organization become victims of identity theft. Currently, organizations are engaged in effort to provide a secure e-shopping framework that will help the people to access these services without any financial risk. For the last one year, our organization has been contemplating on expanding its online market to digitize the supply chain management. Online shopping refers to a form of electronic commerce where customers can purchase goods or services from organization over the internet (Sakarya & Soyer, 2013). Online shopping is also referred to as e-shopping since it is an internet dependent service. The history of online shopping dates back since the year 1979 when Michael Aldrich invented the videotext system that was computer dependent for transaction processing. Research shows that online shopping has grown by over 20% in the last five years. Software companies such as Microsoft have sold a value of over 5 billion in the online market. This is more than twice the amount that Apple has managed to sell on the web platform. The development of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s provided an opportunity for commercial use of online business. Among some of the earliest pioneers of online shopping includes the Pizza hut Shop and the e-Bay that is now know worldwide. There are many reasons why customers prefer online shopping in the contemporary business environment. One of the major reasons why most customers prefer this method is because it is not limited to distance. It becomes easier for them to purchase products from wherever they may be and have them delivered to them. Also, online shopping attracts customers due to availability of discounts, which companies issue out as strategies to motivate customers to shop online. Also, it is also a secure way for the customers to purchase without having to carry money physically, which is presents high risk of theft (Nirmala & Dewi, 2012). Since they can use a smart card to purchase online, they avoid having to carry loads of cash, which is a great risk for their money. This is the major reason why the online shopping market is swelling rapids and is projected to reach $237 billion by the year 2015. From a close analysis, online shopping has a wide range of benefits to both the customers and the business organizations and this is the way to go for Apple Inc. For the customers, this is the most convenient way for them to shop for products from their remote locations at any time. Since online business takes place all round the day, unlike business stores that are closed, it becomes easier for the customer who have limited time to shop at their preferable time (Liu & Forsythe, 2010). In the era of smartphones and computer technology, these services are accessible to every customer. Secondly, the customers have the ability to shop only for the best products without wasting their time. They have online access to product information and can make quick decisions pertaining to prices, quality and features of products. On the organization’s end, online shopping is a superior marketing strategy that helps to provide information on products. It is one of the modern advertisement strategies that use technology for efficiency (Jifeng, Sulin, & Han, 2012). Since internet is not limited by distance, the organizations can market their products worldwide. This makes it possible to sell even to foreigners, forming part of their international market entry strategy. Also, this approach saves a lot of money used in television media advertising, one of the traditional advertisement methods. On the economy, online shopping has led to economic integration, leading to economic globalization. Therefore, the popularity of the online shopping is due to its advantages to the customers and the organizations. Online business seems to be the future business strategy that will dominate over physical business. First, the internet technology is spreading so fast with the invention of efficient technology and the decrease in the electronic gadgets. It is now possible for the public to have an online presence since they can afford these gadgets. Secondly, e-shopping has proved to be more efficient as it helps to reach out for a broader geographical scope. Thus companies are compelled to establish a strong online presence for them to win more customers (Yong Joon, SeMi, & Lee, 2013). To be competitive in the dynamic business market, it is crucial that organizations focus on a strong online strategy. However, the problem of cybercrime is becoming a new threat to the future of online shopping. Cybercriminals use high technology skills to acquire personal credentials which they use to steal from the customers or organizations. The fact that most customers are unaware of the presence of this threat makes it easier for the criminals to steal this information (Miller & Washington, 2014). This is one of the factors that are discouraging the public from conducting online business to avoid the risk of losing their money. Therefore, the organizations are faced with a tough challenge of providing secure systems to assure the public of their safety while transacting their online business. Therefore, I recommend that the company launches an online market for its devices to ensure that customers can purchase from wherever across the world. Decision making has become an important aspect of strategic leadership. This is a time when organizations have to process large quantities of data to help in making business decision and provide their companies with a direction that is success-oriented. Technological tools have been developed to help managers in making sound decisions that rely on big data in a timely manner. The data-warehousing technology has come along to assist the managers in decision making process. In the era of development of business technology data warehouse - data mining are crucial tools in the business environment. Data warehouse is a system used for reporting and data analysis of information within organizations. This is a critical tool that many managers use for synthesis of decisions that affect the organizational path. In the contemporary competitive business environment, this has become one of the most popular technologies as decisions become an important determiner of the organizational development. Some of the advantages of data warehousing involves integrating data from different sources and combining it on a common platform, and keeping the data history as a way of tracking the information coverage within an organization. Understanding the features of the data warehouse and the issues surrounding this technology is crucial for its application in the public domain. Data warehouse has a number of key features that aid in the storage, processing and analysis of information. One of the key features is the data integration feature within its core. This feature is particular crucial in combining information from both external and internal sources. External sources include the external market factors such as the competition while the internal features include sales from different branches of the organization. The integration features helps to combine information required in processing decisions that affect the whole organization. Secondly, the data warehouse has the SQL Server that allows in merging of information, changing data capture and management of information. The analysis feature in the data warehouse helps in processing of the information depending on the particular queries. The queries are inputs that allow computation of specific variables that the management requires. Another key feature includes the reporting services that include the reporting scalability and server scalability. This is the output feature that presents key information required for decision making (Bhansali, 2009). The combination of these features makes it possible to obtain data, combine it and synthesise it according to specific requirements of the user. One unique function of data warehouse is to aggregate information and store it. Apple Inc has yet to develop a reliable network for information storage despite the fact that it’s expanding and information is becoming more complex to process. The warehouse architecture comprises of operational databases that provide information for the data warehouse. The warehouse gathers information from all these operational databases and combines it. Another crucial function of the warehouse is the storage of information within a common platform. In the data driven business market, information has become an important aspect of the organization. For an organization to make viable decisions, it is crucial that it focuses on the big data of the organization. Therefore, the warehouse technology enables to store information that can be used later for management decision making. The key function of the data warehouse is information processing function. Information process refers to the process of analysing data depending on specific queries that are important for decision making. For instance, the data analysis feature can be able to process the available information and provide the highest sale and the lowest sales within an organization. This is the principle reason why the data warehouse technology came into being. The purpose was to process information quickly to enhance rapid decision making within organizations (Bhansali, 2009). This will allow Apple Inc management to act on complex data which would be a challenge to process in the absence of a data warehouse. The evolution of the data warehousing technology has come along with the increase in legal and ethical issues. One ethical issue comes along with the collection of information from the public. In some occasions, the organizations collect information from the public without their consent. For instance, the Angry Birds, a popular mobile application was designed to collect the information of customers’ location without their awareness. Later, they became the targets of product advertisements. Collecting information from the customers without their consent is an issue of ethical concern. At times, rogue internet hackers may use information on location of the public to perpetrate crime. Therefore, this a major issue that requires attention in data warehousing. The sale of personal data is an issue of ethical concern. At times, the data warehouse may contain persona information that workers can sell illegally to outsiders for selfish benefits. Therefore, the security of data and its confidentiality has become an issue of concern as this technology proliferates within organizations (Bhansali, 2009). It is the role of the managers to address any ethical issues that come along with the use of this technology. Knowledge discovery in data mining focuses on the procedures and methods that are applied in the extraction of useful intelligence from a big set of data. With the proliferation of technology, the information is becoming more available making it a hard task to process information (Bhansali, 2009). The knowledge discovery methods have come as a solution to the complexity of processing bundles of mixed up data that contains both irrelevant and relevant data. The knowledge discovery process includes the use of lightweight data analysis techniques and high performance mining techniques in synthesis information that is crucial for business decision making. However, some issues emanate from the process hence posing challenges to the knowledge discovery process. One issue arises in processing of rapid time-varying information. Such rapid changing data is a big challenge to extract knowledge. On this ground, the knowledge discovery methodologies are still evolving in an effort to overcome the challenges that are coming up within this field. The challenges of the contemporary business environment require effective leadership strategies. The ability of leaders at Apple Inc to evaluate business problems, assess the situations and react to these challenges is critical. The leaders must make quick decisions to ensure that they perform react to the drastic changes that are arising in the global business market. In a time that the global business is diversified, it is crucial that the managers remain creative and innovative to tap the opportunities. 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