Strategic Manager - Assignment Example

Strategic Manager Name: Course: Tutor: Institution: Date: Question 1A: TOWS Strategic Options Analysis The Apple Inc Company is among the global leaders in the IT industry for the last one decade, rising from a failing entity in 1997 to a global leader and most admired and innovative company for five and eight consecutive years respectively. However, in order to increase future market expansion and strategic competitiveness, this analysis adopts the TOWS strategic evaluation approach recommending suitable adoption strategies for the future. Threat Based Strategies A strategic organizational analysis on Apple Inc. as enumerated in the case study establishes that the organization is facing a series of future market threats with the changing technology market situation. On one hand, key among the challenges is the production approach. In this regard, the case study illustrates that with changing production technologies across the market, the organizational competitors such as Microsoft are likely to reduce their production costs. Thus, this exposes the Apple Company to the threat of reducing market profitability, an impact likely to reduce its appeal and attractiveness to investors into the future. In addition, the departure of its charismatic CEO Steve Jobs opens up the organisations to the threat of reduced innovation in the venture, with the threat of dragging the organization back to its pre 1997 period market situation. Therefore, in order to counter these threats, this report develops two strategic options as discussed below Market Diversification Strategy One of the strategic approaches through which to counter the growing market influence by the competitors is through a market diversification approach. In this regard, t eh strategy will be based on the retention of the current diversification approach in which the organization serves the electronics hardware as well as the software industry. However, in order to increase this diversification effects, the Apple Company management should consider the alternatives of establishing independent strategic business units for the various target markets, as an approach to ensure diversification competency and efficiency across the target markets, thus reducing the threat of market saturation and competition by its key industry competitors such as Microsoft and Samsung Companies. Employee Empowerment Over the years, under the leadership of Steve Jobs, the organization acquired the strength as one of the most attractive employers in the technology industry. In this regard, the organization acquired an increased level of skilled, experienced and talented workforce, as compared to its peers in the industry. However, this strength is under threat with increasing remuneration and reward systems offered buy its competitors. Therefore, as the remuneration path focus would increase organizational production cost, this report recommends that in order to increase its employee attraction and retention rates into the future, the organization should consider increasing employee empowerment and career development through increased use of cross functional teams and training programs, as an employee value creation tool. Opportunity Based Strategies A strategic evaluation of the electronics industry illustrates a growth potential into the future. In this regard, an industry evaluation reveals that the industry is at its growth stage, with the potential and capability of growing and expanding into the future. Therefore, this presents the respective stakeholders with an expansion and growth potential, if the right systems and approaches are applied in advance. Thus, this report develops an expansion strategy for the Apple company to enable it seize this future growth potential. Increase the Innovation Culture Currently, the Apple Company has developed a market reputation of an increasingly innovative Company, where the venture applies a deep collaboration approach where cross functional teams work together to develop new as well as improve existing products. In this regard, the elimination of the product development stages stratification has enabled the organization increase its innovation and subsequent development and launch of unique products. Based on this analysis, this report recommends that the venture retains its innovation culture as a tool for ensuring that it captures an increased market-based influence into the future, upon the technology industry development and maturity. Weakness Based Strategies A weakness analysis on the Apple Company establishes that despite its innovation and successful market culture, the organization faces a weakness of its employee remuneration system. In this regard, although the venture has developed a market reputation as an ideal employer in the technology industry, the high retention cost involved, reduced the overall profitability and return on investment values. Therefore, this report develops a strategic alternative for employee remuneration as a move to ensure that the organization overcomes its current weakness into the future. Internal Corporate Social Responsibility The application of this can be cited in the case of Steve Jobs, who operated under a $1 per year salary and a series of stock options. In this regard, instead of rewarding employees through the conventional means such as promotion and recognitions besides salaries, the venture should develop additional unique employee corporate social responsibility programs such as paid up organizational holidays, retirement package and benefits as well as immediate family cover and care programs. Through the application of such additional programs, the venture will boast its overall employee value proposition, a virtue that will not only increase employee and talent retention, but also reduce the overall human resource management costs. Strength Based Strategies The Apple Company, as a market leader in the technology industry, has over the years developed a series of organizational strengths. One of the key organizational strengths is its high brand positioning and image in the technology industry. In this regard, the system has over the years increased its overall market perception through the creation of reliable and quality products. As such, the brand image and reputation have over the years served as the basis for the organizational marketing strategies to counter industry competition. In addition, the venture has developed a key strength in its lean management structure where decisions and management are efficient and at reduced costs. Based on these strengths, this report argues that the organization can develop on these strengths to counter competitions as discussed below. Increase Consumer Response Flexibility With increasing market knowledge and competition, consumer attraction and satisfaction will serve as a key success tool in the technology industry. Therefore, this report argues that the Apple Company should build on its current lean management structure to enhance consumer response efficiency. In this regard, the organization should focus on the quick decision-making model to respond quickly to consumer needs, thus increasing their satisfaction and loyalty rates. In particular, the venture should empower the respective employees with varied levels of consumer needs decision-making mandate based on their experience, skills, and expertise knowledge, as a move to decentralize consumer's response responsibilities. Such an approach will eventually increase the overall flexibility rate over competitors, thus increasing its current large market share control. Brand Marketing As already discussed above, it is apparent that the technology industry future is based on the successful creation of a satisfied and loyal consumer base. As such, it is imperative that the Apple Company develops system through which its consumer’s loyalty levels are increased. One such recommended approach is through the application and adoption of a brand marketing approach. In this case, through the elevation of the brand image and perception, Apple will increase its overall consumer loyalty base into the future, serving as a proactive marketing and consumer base expansion approach, ahead of its industry competitors. Question 1 B: Most Suitable Strategy Discussed Based on a critical evaluation of all he recommended strategies in the above analysis, this report identifies the innovation culture retention strategy as the most ideal in the market. In this regard, this selection is based on an evaluation of the technology industry forecast. The forecast indicates that the technology industry is gradually changing requiring new and unique products in the market. Therefore, the retention and increment of an organizational innovation culture remains the only approach to retain market relevance into the future. Therefore, the innovation culture will in the future remain as the Apple backbone on whose successful implementation other recommended strategies will be based. In this case, the technology industry success into the future will be based on the development of unique and market satisfying products. Therefore, in order to ensure that the venture retains competitiveness and merits over others in the industry, Apple should prioritize in improving and expanding on their innovation culture and approaches through increased process funding and regard. Question 2: Key Driving Factors The Apple Company operates in the highly volatile technology industry with a wide range of key driving factors in the market. This report section offers a strategic evaluation of the various existing driving factors and their impact on organizational strategic position in the technology market. Path Dependency One of the driving factors for the Apple Company is the application and adoption of the path dependency approach. Although highly volatile and changing on a regular basis, the technology industry, and he Apple Company in particular applies the path dependency expansion and growth expansion approach in the market. In this case, the consecutive level of historical progression of the Company has served s its stepping stones over the years. For instance, the launch of the respective products such as the iPhones and iPods’ was based on the success of other earlier brands, on a progression and increment basis. As such, the market trends and situations, as well as the emerging consumer base needs, serve as among the key among the Apple Company and the technology industry driving factors. Based on this practice, the Apple Company develops its innovation system as well as the respective developed product features and functionalities development. Organizational Culture An additional key driving factor for the Apple Company is the existing organizational culture. Currently, the organization has adopted an organizational cross functional management approach culture where the employees from across the organizational functions and divisions work and operate together to develop new innovative products. As such, this has facilitated an increasing innovation culture that has enabled the Apple Company to develop a series of new innovative products in the industry, making it an ideal market leader among peers in the last decade. As such, the organizational innovation culture, and the subsequent development of unique products has facilitated a growing consumer base and rising loyalty, thus increasing the consumer loyalty base globally. On the other hand, the Apple Company has an organizational leadership culture with a flat and lean management structure that empowers the employees to respond to consumer needs. In this regard, this has developed and portrayed the organization as an ideal employer in the technology industry. Consequently, the acquisition of qualified, experienced and skilled employees by the Apple Company has served as one of its organizational culture aspects, serving as ultimate strategic key driving force in the industry. Competition An additional driving factor is influencing the operations and strategies adopted by the industry competitors. In the development and the execution of an organizational strategic options and strategies, an organization considers two strategic options. On one hand is the organizational internal capabilities and potential for improvement in the industry. On the other hand, is the development and adoption of strategies based on the organizational competitor approach on the market. In this case, any operations in the market adopted by the competitors influence strategies and approaches adopted by the Apple Company to influence its growth. For instance, the launch of the personal computers and compatible software by the Microsoft Company influenced the development and the subsequent establishment of the Apple store from which the I phone users could download and acquire applications for their devices in the market. In this case, the analysis establishes that the development of alternative competitor strategies in the technology industry has to a large extent served as driving forces for Apple in the market. In this case, the development of alternative strategies as well as systems in the organizational marketing and market diversification across the technology industry sectors has been its key driving factor in the market in the last decade. Technology Changes The technology industry has been characterized by increased market changes globally. In this regard, the industry has been characterized as one of the most dynamic industries globally, experiencing a wide range changes as compared to others. In this case, technology changes have a series of implications on the market. On one hand, is the increasing change in consumer tastes and preferences. As such, the changes lead to the development of alternative needs and preferences in the consumer base. As such, in order to meet the consumer base needs as well as satisfy their wants as an alternative to enhancing organizational market strategic competitiveness, the Apple Company was forced to develop innovate and new product design and features thus servings a driving factor in its development process. On the other hand, increased technology changes in the technology industry have implicated on the production systems and practices. In this regard, in order to counter the growing changes, the people Company developed a system through which to innovate and apply the ever changing technology systems. Consequently, based on the changing technology needs, the Apple Company developed and increased its overall production approaches thus serving as a driving factor based on which its development is pegged on. Leadership Style Finally, under the organizational driving factors for the Apple Inc. Company is the leadership approach applied over the years. In a historical review of the Apple Company operations, it is apparent that the organization prior to the 1997 leadership by Steve Jobs, the organization was on the verge of its collapse and failure in the market. In this case, the overall organizational review establishes that under the Steve Job’s leadership the organizational operations were increased and enhanced in the market. Therefore, based on this strategic analysis, this report concludes that the objective and collaborative leadership approach applied by the CEO served as a key organizational growth and driving factor in the last decade. In this regard, increased innovation and cross functional management culture consequently developed and served as the organizational key driving factor in the market. Question 3: Generic Competitive Strategies Cost Leadership One of the strategic approaches and alternatives through which the Apple Company has operated in the technology market is through the application and adoption of the cost leadership approach. In this regard, the cost leadership approach is based on the establishment of lowest possible market costs against competitor products. As such, through the development and adoption of this approach, organisations seek to provide their products at the lowest possible prices, as a measure to make such products affordable to the consumer base, as compared to competitor prices. In the case of the Apple Company, the venture applied the cost leadership approach in its iTunes store where the overall cost of purchasing a song form the platform was as low as $0.99, the lowest registered market rates in the music industry. Hence, this offered the venture a cost leadership strategy success over competitors and peers in the online music industry. Consequently, this increased the overall organizational market competitiveness. However, although serving as a brand boosting approach, the approach denied the organization a wide range of benefits from the iTunes store product base. In this regard, the product increased the organizational brand image and perception. Therefore, this report's analysis establishes that the organizations could have gained increased revenues from the product if it did not apply the cost leadership approach. In this case, if the organization had allowed for a quality and demand and supply forces to influence the pricing and costing of the iTunes songs, I could have increased its per song price value the consumers would have been willing to pay. Consequently, this would have essentially increased the overall organizational revenues as opposed to the attained values based on the cost leadership approach. Differentiation An additional generic competitiveness approach applied by the Apple Company is the differentiation strategy. The differentiation strategy is based on the principle of reducing market competition and concentration; as an industry grows and increases its influence in the market, with increasing profitability, there is the risk of increased competitors and investor attraction. Consequently, this creates the overall reduction in profitability levels and the subsequent market competition and saturation. Where the full demand potential on the consumer base is fully explored with no opportunity for increased consumer acquisition by any of the stakeholders. As such, in order to counter the overall market saturation effect, organizations in the industry seek to expand their operations and services to other market segments. Moreover, as an expansion and profitability, increase through the development of unique product features organizations target new consumer groups. On its part, the Apple Company diversified its operations across the globe through a differentiation strategy. On one hand, the organization invested in increased innovation through which to develop, market unique products to outdo competitor products. Consequently, the organization developed unique products that were a milestone and innovative as compared to competitor products. Through a differentiation process, the Apple organization enhanced its market base reputation and image. However, the adoption of this approach increased the organizational, operational costs. In this regard, instead of the venture benchmarking against peers in the industry, it adopted an internal blue ocean strategy. As such, this reduced the organizational ability to improve systems externally, only focusing on its internal systems, exposing it to increase market threats such as profitability declines. Therefore, this report analyzes argue that if the organization had increased its focus on external benchmarking, its strengths would have been increased by cost reduction and innovation. Diversification Finally, under the generic strategic competitive strategies the Apple Company applied the differing approach. In this regard, the organization, instead of focusing on a single market segment, such as the computer sector, diversified its operations to other industry sectors such as the music and phone industry, as well as the software sector. Consequently, this increased its consumer base market success. However, the application of this generic strategic approach has its demerits in the market. In this case, the diversification, increased the organizational lack of market niche concentration, thus reducing its command and expertise, influence on any of the ventured consumer segments. Alternatively, the organization would have focused on a single market segment such as computers and software segment to increase its market competitiveness. Read More