Mission and Core Values of Apple Company - Case Study Example

Apple Company SWOT Analysis Name: Course: Institution: Date: Organizational Background The Apple Company is a global leader in the electronics industry established in 1976 in Cupertino, California. The venture has specialised in the manufacturing of smart phones and personal computers as well as tablets respectively. Over the years, the company has expanded its product portfolio and customer base to increase market competiveness. Vision: Apple has a vision statement of making quality and innovative IT products for the global market. As such, the organisational vision is to innovate and create new products on a regular and frequent basis (Rowland, 2015). Mission: The organisational mission is on the creation, development, and innovation of high quality products, with the available technology and resources in the market. In this case, the organisation has a mission of exploring its capabilities and core competencies to develop customer oriented and needs satisfying products. As such, the organisation designs and develops products such as Macs, OS X, iLife among other products. Moreover, it has diversified its product base to the music industry. Core Values The Apple company core values are its underlying beliefs. These are the set of values and principles that guide its day to day running and its focus on achieving its key vision statement goals. Among the key organisational beliefs include: The organisation believes in the need to own and control its primary technologies in the SCM process Believes in competing only in markets it has a competitive edge Believes in developing market partnerships and collaborations with SCM partners to allow for effectiveness and efficiency in operations. External Stakeholders Analysis As a profit making electronics industry market leader, the organisation works with diverse stakeholders. They include the government, customers, environmental lobby groups, and supply chain partners respectively. In the determination of a suppliers influence, this analysis combines the respective supplier’s interest in the organisational operations and their power over the venture operations respectively (Kimmich, 2012). Stakeholder Degree of Influence Comments Government Medium As a commercial entity, government influence is limited to regulation and inspections of operations and products quality. Customers High The customer is customer and innovation driven Thus, the references and opinions are highly incorporated in the creativity process suppliers Medium The organisation conducts diversified and global sourcing. This reduces the influence of any single supplier on its supply chain process. Lobby groups High The elements of social responsibility, environmental conservation and sustainability are core to modern manufacturing systems External Environmental Analysis In the evaluation of organisational market competiveness and positioning, the PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) analysis is imperative. Rao, Rao and Sivaramakrishna (2008) noted that the PEST analysis allow an analyst to gauge the existing external factors that provide both growth opportunities and threats to an organisation, both in the present and into the future. The analysis below presents an external analysis of the Apple Company. External Element Description Political Since 2005, the company has over 50% of its products sold beyond USA. Thus, the risks of terrorism and international conflicts pose a significant threat on its products portfolio and sales revenues. Economic Rising labour costs in the Asian market, such as China where Apple offshore its production reduces its cost effectiveness strategy success. Moreover, a stagnating middle class is likely to reduce the rate of products sales growth rates in the future. Social Social interactions have increased with rising globalisation. As a globally recognised brand, Apple portrays the identity of the modern world and thus is ales are bound to increase with rising social integration globally. Technological There is a rising technology penetration globally, even in the developing worlds, where technology infrastructure and internet connectivity has increased. This is bound to increase Apple Company products demand in the future. Geography The Apple Campus, that house the key organisational functions is located in Cupertino, California, U.S and was constructed in 1993. The campus is comprised of a serene environment in a land that extends to over 850,000 square feet. Internal Environmental Analysis An internal organisational analysis evaluates the existing organisational resources, capabilities, and core competencies and how they are applied to create a competitive market edge. As Varbanova (2013) stated, a critical internal analysis enables an organisation realise its strengths to explore as well as weaknesses to counter into the future. The following analysis offers a critical review of the Apple Company. Internal Element Description Organisational Structure Although structured in departments, it mainly operates through a project management approach. Employees are assigned to different projects, upon which completion they move on to even more challenging projects. Organisational Culture The Apple company has a global reputation of ran innovation and creativity culture. The employees are encouraged to innovate and develop new products. This has enabled it remain competitive through a differentiation strategy based on innovation Internal Policies and systems The company is built on the pillars of accountability, transparency and integrity. This has boosted its market brand equity Organisational Leadership The organisational applies a participative leadership. Since the leadership of Steve Jobs and the current CEO Tim Cooks, the employees are engaged in key decision making. This increase the organsiational decision making quality. Organisational Staff The Apple company employees are recruited based on tier team playing skills and talents. This reduces the pool from which the company can source. Financial Resources The company has a stable financial base; However, its profitability margins have declined in the recent past. This reduces its ability to use financial resources s a competitive edge in the industry. SWOT Analysis Based on the developed external and internal analysis, this section offers a summary through a SWOT analysis. Strength A strong innovative culture Matching organisational structure and leadership styles Talented and highly innovative employees A strong Brand reputation Low employee turnover Weakness Minimal pool for employee recruitment Declining financial competitiveness Opportunities Increased technology use globally Rising economic standards globally Increased globalisation and integration Threats Risk of political instability Rising terrorism threats Rising labour costs in the outsourced production markets A stagnating middle class in the USA and entire Europe The Implication of SWOT Analysis to Strategic Planning The analysed Apple Inc. Company SWOT analysis has far reaching implications on its future strategic planning approaches and path. First, a review of the analysis indicates that the organisation has an innovative culture that is supported by the highly participative leadership style (Apple Company, 2016b). As such, this has enables an increased employee satisfaction and a low turnover. This implies that in the future, the organisation should seek to retain these aspects into the future. In this case, the organisational strategic planning process should focus on engraining the current leadership process into its core foundation. This will ensure that in the event the current leadership exists, any new leadership will have as strategic management policy and guideline to follow with regard to the applied leadership style. In addition, the analysis indicates that the organisation has its main weakness in the declining role of financial stability as a core competitive edge. This is due to the fact that the financial resources are a component of the unsustainable competitive edge. As Lubit (2011) noted, a competitive edge is sustainable if it is rare and hard for the competition to imitate. However, the financial resources do not meet this threshold as it is easy for the competition to acquire finances in the modern global world. Therefore, the Apple management should focus on creating an alternative sustainable competitive edge In this case, the management should consider the use of the existing brand equity elements to formulate a competitive edge. For instance, its employee skills, experience and talents can be formulated and used as its key competitive edge. The use of this edge will be sustainable as it is a rare and a hard commodity for the competition to emulate it. The use of this strategic management shift on competitiveness would support the Apple Company differentiation strategy. As Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson (2007) noted, the foundation pillars of a differentiation strategy is on the formulation of innovative and market unique products. In this regard, the ability to sustain such a differentiation strategy for Apple Company is based on its ability to retain skilled and talented employees. A further analysis of the company opportunities reveals that increased technology penetration, especially in the developing worlds creates a market gap. The organisation should focus on a strategic expansion strategy. In this case, it should seek to establish and position itself in the developing market in Asia and Africa s the key technology leader. This would in turn offer it a competitive edge over future market competition from peers. This would be a critical approach to overcome the threat of declaiming market base in the USA and Europe. Finally, with the rising labour costs, the organisation should seek out a different leverage aspect rather than the low cost production. This may be achieved through increased investment in automation technologies that will reduce the need for manual labour and the high associated costs into the future. If such an investment is developed in time, the venture could tame the rising labour and product costs, and in return allow for the production of low cost yet quality products for the emerging markets that have a lower purchasing power. References Apple Company (2016). Inclusion inspires innovation. Retrieved From < http://www.apple.com/diversity/ > Copras, M., (2009). Apple’s Core Values According to its CEO Tim Cook. Retrieved From Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2007). Strategic management: Competitiveness and globalization; [concepts and classes]. Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western. Kimmich, C. (2012). Methods for stakeholder analysis. London: Europ Ischer Hochschulver. Lubit, R. (2001). The keys to sustainable competitive advantage.Organizational dynamics, 29(3), 164-178. Rao, C. A., Rao, B. P., & Sivaramakrishna, K. (2008). Strategic management and business policy: Texts and cases. New Delhi, India: Excel. Rowland, C., (2015). Apple’s Vision Statement & Mission Statement. Retrieved From Varbanova, L. (2013). Strategic management in the arts. New York: Routledge Read More