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Requirement
Consider the principles discussed so far from our textbook, Robbins et al. Consider the chapters on contemporary management trends, organisational culture, managing in a global environment, social responsibility and managerial ethics, managing change and innovation, decision making, planning and strategic management. Complete answers for each section will need to include a mention of pertinent sections of the textbook. Do not use the textbook as the authority on Steve Jobs or Apple. There are more comprehensive and up to date sources.
1. Consider the post-2000 period for Apple. What do you think were the driving forces that led to Apple’s phenomenal success to become the world’s largest company by market capitalization? How did Apple identify and capitalise on market trends? How did they achieve global success? Which companies lost market share? Which market segments grew as a result of Apple’s strategies? ISYS360 Assignment One Page 3 Semester 1, 2016
2. Describe Steve Jobs’ management style. What was it like working for Jobs? How would describe the culture at Apple? How would you rate Apple in terms of social responsibility and managerial ethics? Has Tim Cook adopted a different style?
3. Provide an overview of Apple’s current market position. Why has it declined from its pinnacle of market leadership in the smartphone and tablet segments? Is Apple losing its ‘cool’? Why did Apple fail to adequately defend its market position? Will Android expand its dominance of smart phone operating systems? What about Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus, will they effectively compete globally against Apple? Apple had a first mover’s advantage, market leadership in its major segments and a massive cash flow to fund investment. What went wrong?
4. Apple continues to innovate its product line with the Apple Watch and the latest upgrades to iPhone with the 6S and 6S Plus, iPad with the Pro, iTunes Radio and a new Apple TV set-top box. Why did Apple choose these directions? Is Apple playing catch up? If you were the CEO, how would you steer new product development at Apple? The Board and shareholders would certainly like to see Apple regain its reputation as the market innovative, not follower. Is this possible or is Apple’s decline going to continue? Considering the large technology companies, which one would be your first choice for employment? Why?
Solution
Introduction
After 2000, the strategies that Apple Computers came up with were so profound that they gave the company the required exponential growth. The following forces were responsible for Apple’s feat:
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Proprietary Technology: Apple has always been following this trend, more so after 2000 it became the market leader of proprietary technology in complete contrast to promoting cross-platform compatibility.
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The Apple Cult: The overwhelming brand image of the company is the culture that has been prevalent within the company for far too long. This strategy has made an enormous impact on the perception of the media and hence on the customers.
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Focus on Developed Markets: the developed market of US and Europe are the strongholds of Apple Computers. Around 35% of Apple’s revenue are generated from the US market alone and another 22% are coming from the markets of Europe. Now the company has understood the need of long-term growth in the consumer technology sector which is driving Asia-Pacific region (Sloan, 2012). This was the reason behind the Apple’s 26% revenues from the region.
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Launch of iPhone: in true sense iPhone is the main engine behind the phenomenal success of Apple. According to some industry estimates, last year Apple sold more than 61 million iPhones in the first quarter that accounted for a lion’s share in terms of profits. Since the beginning of the first model of iPhone, the sales have only surged exponentially making Apple the force to reckon with. The gravitas that iPhone carries is so profound that the industry skeptics are asking questions as to whether the company’s future is tied too much around iPhone. The shares of Apple have gained well above 50% surge and its stocks have risen comprehensively and as a result Apple is the world’s most valuable company today.
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Without any doubt Apple can be termed as another name of innovation, for it was the first company that came up with the concept of smartphone. Today, smartphones are integral part of our lives and it is used in doing every activity right from shopping to conducting business operations. The segment that has essentially been created by Apple’s strategies is App market. It has generated an extensive competition among other players in the market to make new and innovative Apps. There are already thousands of Apps. that have been downloaded by the customers and helping them in a variety of ways.
Steve Jobs, no doubt, was an unconventional leader as he displayed the kind of leadership style that was way beyond the textbook definition. His approach did not include consultative or consensus building process (Hirshleifer et al, 2012). A highly maintained co-worker who sought excellence from each and every staff of his company, Steve Jobs was also known for the way he delivered his criticisms bluntly. His sheer genius lied on the combination of the ability that he possessed with the articulation of his vision that brought employees, investors as well as customers along the journey of its success. He was an absolute visionary who founded Apple Computers with his high-school friend Steve Wozniak in 1976 on the lines of delivering innovative products to the customers. According to the management and marketing guru Dr. Brent Coker from the University of Melbourne, Steve Jobs has to be one of the greatest business strategists of all times. He observed that most of the industry leaders are predicted by so called futurists who are essentially keynote speakers. However, Steve Jobs demonstrated the type of ability that was rare to be seen and hard to be predicted (Oakey, 2013). He was a university dropout and did a lot of his bits before actually envisaging a business opportunity in the computer market. After successfully running the company for some years, his strict methodology prompted other shareholders of the company to throw him out. Time Magazine printed his interview with Steven Levy, which quoted him as saying that “what is really great to be open is when the work is not going great. The best contribution that I have made in this regard is never to settle with anything but really better stuff with all the likelihood of proper details. Which is why, my job is to make sure that everything is great”. While he was away from Apple, Steve Jobs took new challenges and he bought Pixar – a small scale animation company and transformed it into a giant company.
In terms of social responsibilities and managerial ethics, Apple Computers is not far behind. In the past, it has supported local communities with Global Volunteer Program. It has educated and empowered workers by Apple education and development programs. It has also contributed in labor health and human rights as well as initiated programs on gender equality and minorities.
The working style of the new CEO of Apple Computers, Tim Cook stands in complete contrast to that of Steve Jobs. It can predominantly be termed as democratic. His tenure has been attributed with an emphasis on existing products as well as enhancing business and employee relationships.
Overview of Apple’s Current Market Position
Branding: Apple has been hugely successful in building a good reputation with a strong brand image. In terms of market capitalization, Apple is the most worthy brand in the world. It has successfully crafted a niche for itself in terms of innovation, design, quality and performance. Innovation and quality are also linked with high price and the higher prices are a guarantee that the customers are buying the right product. So, Apple has effectively taken the psychological advantage in this regard.
Positioning: the positioning of the Apple Computers in the market is very strong, but it has positioned itself for particular type of customers such as the ones with wealth, innovators, and individuals with good lifestyles. It can be concluded that if Apple targets the poor category people, then the wealthy class will stop buying its products.
Smart Paradigm: Apple Computers is the pioneer of smart paradigm. The design and innovation of its products are so compelling that the customers who are its users consider themselves as smart buyers.
Decision of its designs:
the professionals at the Apple facility are extremely experimentative and competitive at the same. The decision of features and pricing of the products is taken very strategic way by the management.
The reasons for the decline of Apple from the pinnacle of the leadership position are primarily attributed to the growing competition among many companies in the market. Because of the competition there is a surge of different players in the market of smartphone industry. These new companies are so innovative and qualitative that they have successfully given a tough time to the established giants (Begvall-Kareborn and Howcroft, 2013). Their products are feature rich and reasonable in terms of cost at the same time. Apple, on the other hand, has not lowered its prices so that a wider area of the market would take interest in its high quality and higher price products.
It seems like Apple is losing a little bit of its cool as it has felt the heat of the competition coming from the newcomers. Recently, Apple has launched a wide variety of products mainly in the smartphone industry because of the growing competition. The new models of its phones have different screen sizes and different features. Due to the fact that the smartphones of these competing companies are durable as well as lower cost at the same time, Apple is bound to launch these new line of new models. Therefore, because of the reasons mentioned above, Apple found it really hard to defend its market position of lion’s share. Had it launched its products with the features that are given by the new players, it would have captured every segment of the customers as against that of only wealthy customers. However, Apple is still a leading company in smart phone market (Martens and Wiser, 2013).
Android is definitely going to expand its dominance on smartphone operating systems because of various reasons. Android is such a powerful platform that so many applications can be developed through it. It is highly portable and its users are only growing by the day. Android is very compatible as well, which is why, so many innovations are going on with it. It also free of cost and easily customizable by the developers. Because of these reasons the market is replete with android developers.
The market for the companies such as Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus is very promising because as against the Apple’s market – which only includes the people living high society or are well of, these companies can make a profound impact on developing as well as underdeveloped countries. There is a significant population that lives in such countries that want features with cheap prices (Kain et al, 2015). So, these companies can provide a bit of both aspects. These companies are also very innovative so that people of higher society may also impressed with their features.In spite of being at the first mover’s advantages, Apple has failed to sustain its business model.
4. Apple has always been tagged as a company which produces innovative products. However, the recent times have seen lack of innovativeness from the company. Moreover, the competition in the market has grown vigorous with their innovative and feature rich products. Sighting these improvements, it became imperative for the company to move ahead with new segments and capture losing market share (Muaremi et al, 2013). Taking into consideration its previous exceptional growth and cult-like image and current changing orientation of the customers towards. Apple products, it can be stated that it is trying to chase its own prior successes (Williams, 2013). Since its inception the company always came up with innovative products that stormed the market. It came up with product ideas that were not even thinkable by the consumer class. These past innovativeness reflected the thinking of Steve Jobs (customers do not know what they want). I being the CEO, I would try to bring back the same zeal for innovativeness. Apple has to regain its loosing image as innovator in the eyes of the consumers and shareholders. Its orientation towards fighting the competition would not be sufficient for the company to sustain the market due to changing market orientation towards the products of utility and products of status quo. I would prefer Samsung as the company for employment. The reason behind the selection is my likeness for the company’s marketing and expansion orientation. Its marketing techniques and strategy to use its brand image and low pricing strategy to woe the customers is appreciable. Moreover, the company has built an image that suite to the need the consumer of all the level. Samsung produces almost all range of products, from cheapest one to the costliest. These differences depend on the different features and prices, and design of the product. Rarely any customer associates Samsung brand to status symbol and it has established itself as a good mass brand. Moreover, it has always tried to refine competitors are able to innovate and present the same product with more elegance. These are the reason I prefer the company.
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Muaremi, A., Arnrich, B., & Tröster, G. (2013). Towards measuring stress with smartphones and wearable devices during workday and sleep.BioNanoScience, 3(2), 172-183.
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Bergvall-Kåreborn, B., & Howcroft, D. (2013, December). The Apple business model: Crowdsourcing mobile applications. In Accounting Forum (Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 280-289). Elsevier.Chicago
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Martens, B., & Wiser, B. (2013). The Wozpak Special Edition: Steve Wozniak's Apple-1 & Apple][Computers. Lulu. com.
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Hirshleifer, D., Low, A., & Teoh, S. H. (2012). Are overconfident CEOs better innovators?. The Journal of Finance, 67(4), 1457-1498.
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Sloan, R. H. (2012). Using an eTextbook and iPad: Results of a Pilot Program. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 41(1), 87-104.
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Kain, Z. N., Hwang, J., & Warner, M. A. (2015). Disruptive innovation and the specialty of anesthesiology: the case for the perioperative surgical home. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 120(5), 1155-1157.
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Williams, H. L. (2013). U.S. Patent No. RE44,103. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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Oakey, R. P. (2013). Open innovation and its relevance to industrial research and development: The case of high-technology small firms. International Small Business Journal, 31(3), 319-336.
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