Management at Apple Company - Assignment Example

MANAGEMENT AT A COMPANY Apple Company was developed in January 4th 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who are the co-founders. Apple Inc. is a multinational corporation that was incorporated in January 3, 1997. It designs, manufactures, and sells electronics, software, online services, portable digital music players and laptops. By revenue, it is the second largest information technology in the world after Samsung Electronics, and the third in the world in terms of mobile phone makers. Its main services and products are iPad, iPod, iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, a package of users and professional software application, OSX and iOS operation systems, iCloud, and many other accessories, services and offerings. Apple Inc. is best known for its creative and proprietary software and hardware and has reached many milestones in the world of technology in the recent years. Studies have shown that it is among the most admired organizations in the world and it tops in innovation and management of employees. From the time it was established it had a different and unique way of management i.e. it deviated from the traditional corporate structure that was common with organizations at that time. Its operations were based on the idea of information corporate culture within the industry of technology. It was in favor of the flat organizational structure to the tall structure. This replaces the rigid bureaucracy with informal forms of organization. This is best suited for organizations with difficult problems to solve and where the innovative culture is sophisticated. The advantage of this type of structure is its effectiveness in empowerment and innovation. It is also easy and quick to implement policies, coordination is also increased. This organization has the disadvantage of difficulty in changing the leadership or the culture of the organization. It may face damaging consequences especially when other components of the strategic structures may not fit together. One major management change that has been at Apple Inc was the time Steve Jobs became the CEO of the company. Many considered his management style as what it is expected in management as his leadership style could be admired or criticized but could not be copied. His management was orthodox and that’s how the company was managed. The leadership style approach was of vertical, top-down approach which was often harsh. He was the leading character at new product launches. His workforce was his most treasured asset and he offered meaning to them. The workforce worked hard on visionary projects, aiming to hit the target so as to satisfy his habit of attention to detail. He instilled the workforce with a sense of mission (Gillam, 2012). The most recent change was when Tim Cook became the new CEO in late August 2011. He changed the management to fit what he exactly needed. The management became different, transparent and was focused on the stakeholders in the dealing of Maps, Foxconn, and shareholders’ dividends. Under the new leadership, the management became more socially aware company, striving to better the situations in overseas factories and working to reduce pollution derived from data centers and the devices. The company is properly managed. It is because the good management that the company had the best results than any technology company has ever recorded. It sold $4 billion of stuff every week of the last quarter, which translated to a profit of $1 billion dollars a week. If you compare Tim Cook records ever since he became CEO with another big company’s record like Microsoft when Steve Ballmer took over from Bill Gates, he is a clear winner. With Ballmer returning 4% per year, Cook returned 11% every year without dividends. When Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO, he strongly recommended that the board to implement its succession plan and to name Tim Cook as the new CEO. The Board of Directors which is the company’s senior management, elected Cook as the new Chairman of the Board. From the management perspective, the transition was smooth enough as for the 13 years prior to his election he had been an outstanding performer and he demonstrated wonderful talent and in everything he did, his judgment was sound. These is evident in the way he turned things around to the better in terms of profit made by the company and the relationship with the management and the company’s relationship with the general public at large. Apple decision to use vendors is to make sure all the vendors to meet the highest standards for all of their goods and services. They help in quality assurance. They also assure highest standards in social responsibilities. The use of vendors has positive and negative Impacts the management. The advantages are; improvement to product and service quality, increased speed to market, total cost reduction, and better customer satisfaction (Ireland, et al. 2008). The spokespersons of Apple inc. are usually members of the marketing department or a member of the public relations. The decision by the management to have them is to present a ‘face’ that is professional and provide consistent message to the media regarding the company. This is important for the company as having a specific person that talks with the media will eliminate the idea of people getting unreliable information about anything concerning the company from unreliable source. This also enables the company to control what information gets to the public. This helps to improve the customer relations as the reliability of the company cannot be questioned (Lüsted, 2012). As a manager, I will come up with an apple application where the employees and the customers can communicate and share ideas. Customers will use this application to give us feedback about our products and the types of products that they want to be in the market. Employees will also get an opportunity to know what is exactly required by the customers to satisfy their needs. I would use the media to advertise the application and encourage the people who have apple product to download the application. I will also use the spokespersons to popularize the application to the general public. Apple inc. is on the record of spending billions on research and development programs each year so as to enable them stay relevant to the ever changing customers’ needs and the changing market environment. This is the best way to make sure you always stay relevant and adapt to the new conditions. The secret is to adopt a near constant examination culture, and a frequentative ideology that applies awareness to retail spaces. To stay ahead of the prevailing conditions, its retailers are reminded that moving quickly and easily is the key to success. Apple keeps its digital and physical availability utilizable, scalable, and brandable, they are always embraced for what is coming next. The management structure should change to enable fast movement of information from the bottom to the top of the management. The management structure should also be one that allows for easy decision making. This is crucial because when the retailers have moved quickly and easily so as to stay ahead of the current situation, it will be reasonable enough that the management structure be one that can allow the information that they gather from the ground to reach the top management as fast as possible. If this will not be the case, all their efforts to stay ahead of things will not have any good to the company as the decisions for any change in the company’s operations must always come from the top management. The management structure should enable the process of decision making to be very fast and easy whenever they are supposed to make any changes so as to stay relevant and adopt to the customer needs and the prevailing market conditions. References Gillam, S. (2012). Steve Jobs: Apple icon. Minneapolic, MN: ABDO Pub. Co. Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R. E., & Hitt, M. A. (2008). Understanding business strategy: Concepts and cases. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Lüsted, M. A. (2012). Apple: The company and its visionary founder, Steve Jobs. Minneapolis, MN: ABDO Pub. Read More