...Internal Environmental Analysis STR 581 August 27, 2012 Barbara Fuller External and Internal Environmental Analysis Apple Inc. was first launched into the technology market as a computer company. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak launched Apple Inc. with the mission of reaching a diverse community globally to market its products. Since that time, there have been changes in the external environment of the company that has an impact on the decisions the organization makes. Apple Inc. has implemented frameworks to assess its external and internal environment. The company has identifies the specific domains that affect the operations of the company from the outside. These forces of the organization enable the operations of the company to be influenced. Apple Inc. considers the global market to be of high importance. Globalization is becoming a criterion for large organizations to excel above their competition. Apple Inc. needs managers and executives proactively understanding that if the company is not globalizing it can leave them behind of the competition. This can be a tough challenge for Apple because many U.S. companies have not been successful capturing many global markets. Apple never thought about capitalizing on its digital future globally until they made a change in their strategy. Apple had to realize just how much influence it would make by expanding its products and service to a global level. It would help to increase...
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...and do influence routine decisions managers must make while planning, organizing, leading, and controlling their respective businesses. Managers also use delegation to manage the different internal and internal factors and the different management functions. Founded in 1976 in a garage behind a house, Apple Inc. through the visionary leadership of Stephen P. Jobs revolutionized the computer industry before his resignation in 1985 in large part because of his inability to respond to internal factors that should have affected his management decisions (Pollack, 1985). Over the next 10 years Apple struggled to maintain market share until Jobs returned and revolutionized the company again by deftly responding to external and internal factors to reinvent the Apple brand and return it to prominence by making products better (Bajarin, 2010). External and Internal Factors To be competitive, companies need to consider the external and internal factors, and choose the best way to implement their goals. Managers’ decisions are affected by the technological advances, competitors, government regulations, customers’ preferences, companies’ resources. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Inc in 1997, his decision to team up with the company’s then biggest...
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...Case Study on IB of Apple Inc. Introduction Apple Inc. is one of the world’s most successful multinational corporations engaged in researching, designing and producing electronic technology devices and solutions. The sensational success and tremendous profit of Apple Inc. are created through globalizing its businesses. According to Corteau and Milan (2011), globalization usually involves a series of interrelated activities such as internationalization of finance and trades. The company has realized significant globalization through extension in the global market. In the first half year of 2013, Apple’s revenue amounted to $98.115 billion. Only less than 35% of this revenue was generated in the US market. The global market was the source of over 65% of Apple’s revenue. This article intends to explain Apple’s globalization through analyzing one of Apple’s key creations: iPod. Special attention is given to the jobs and profits around the world generated by iPod, disparity in income and employment, and employee composition. Analysis of impacts of globalization on Apple Inc. since Jobs’ return Apple Inc. has undergone the golden time for business development and globalization from 2007 to 2011 under the leadership of Steve Jobs. The company was then on the verge of bankruptcy in 2007 when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. In order to save the company from bankruptcy, Steve Jobs took a series of restructuring and rebooting measures with a focus on innovation and internationalization...
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... The functions of management are not immune to these factors no matter how big or small the organization. Even an organization as large and complex as Apple is affected by these factors. Globalization Globalization has become a key factor for large corporations to excel above the competition. Who would have thought that the production of a computer being made in a garage in 1976 would have emerged into sales being over $750 million by 1982 shortly following Apple being incorporated in 1977? Globalization had to be a major influence to Apple’s revenue. It is known that globalization brings greater opportunity to a broader market while promoting competitors that will require a superior level of competence for any organization that will take advantage of it. Apple has made great profit by globalizing their company. Annual reports show that international sales take the lead in bringing in sales and are continuing to rise which is the result of good management. From my understanding, Apple had been trying to market Korea with their products for a long time since Korean market for the Cellular phone and mp3 market had been rising rapidly. The iPhone was the only phone that could not get into Korean market. They had studied the audience and the market very well and finally have welcomed the Apple stores in. They opened the Apple store right across from the oldest footwear company in the largest and most crowd city in Seoul, Korea. It shows that they have found the prime location...
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...Government Policies of Apple, Inc. Competitive Strategies and Government Policies of Apple, Inc. In any industry, when a company is seen as competition, there becomes some sort of target on the company’s back. The company that is successful will now feel the pressure to succeed and to continue leading the industry. This pressure can either be a crippling affect or can be the best motivation for the company. Apple has entered into the technological mobile devices industry with a boom and instilled fear into competitors inside the same industry. Although Apple prices their products at a higher selling price, their products are often referred to as elite and worth the extra cost. The cost of Apple’s merchandise, which was seen as a weakness to competitors, has proven to help boost in their success. Competition and Mergers As a new company entering the market, one would aspire to be like Apple. Apple is a billion dollar industry in technology that has over 30 years of experience that can teach any new business how to be successful. In addition, Apple has learned from past mistakes like pricing a product too high and also limiting the color of a product to one color. For example, when the IPod first came out in the early 2000's it was priced at $999.99 one cent short of one thousand dollars. The IPod was priced at this point because they wanted to seem like an exclusive product. The downfall to their new product was that it only synced with Apple computers restricting...
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...That culture has also been tied to the innovation created at Apple and how they became the pioneer of the “Work Hard Play Hard” ethic. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, he totally change the whole organization. With the help from his Human Resources Director, Jay Elliot, he reorganized the hierarchy of the company from the more traditional functioning vertical organization designed by the previous CEO to a flat organization, launching open communication policies and recruiting employees who were genuinely excited about creating products for the company (Shelly, 2011). Steve Job’s leadership skills and the principles for hiring the right people and developing management policies were the basis for Apple’s start and what has helped shaped the organization and defined their corporate culture. Apple's human resource management attracts a quality workforce by attracting visionary people that think freely and can see the potential in different objects. It does this through excellent human resource planning, job specifications, recruiting and the selection process. It all begins with hiring the right people, so how does Apple go about finding the best people who are passionately committed to the brand and the customer experience? The company hiring managers start by gauging candidates based on some basic requirements. The first is whether the individual has the ability to perform under pressure – “Grit” as Apple calls it. The courage and confidence that the individual...
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...SWOT Analysis for Apple’s new iphones Apple is a very successful producer of computer software and hardware that leads in its competitive industry. To evaluate the progress, success, and faults of the company, the SWOT analysis is used. The SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the organization. This model is used to help it identify internal and external areas that need improvement and internal and external areas that prove to be successful. Strengths: Over the years, Apple has grown by offering superior products compared to competitors. Apple has positioned itself to be a pioneer in the personal computer industry. It is one of the original hardware producers in the market that controls both the manufacturing of its products as well as its operating system. Apple is self- sufficient and creates its own internal components for the core of its iphones. Apple has set standards for high quality products in order to meet customer satisfaction. It is dedicated to research and development in order to create new products, which are expected to make Apple’s products more efficient and feasible to use. As a result of the company’s commitment to excellence, most of its products are compact and simple to operate. Apple is known for its loyal consumers who purchase its products for quality, regardless of price. Apple has ascended to a brand of distinction in the computer industry, which yielded a successful...
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...Mac Memory Management For rough draft Mac OS is available on two processor architectures: the Motorola 68k series and the PowerPC. Mac OS has a flat address space, shared between all processes. There is no per-process memory protection. Application code runs in supervisor mode, so there is no instruction protection. Mac OS has virtual memory, in the limited sense that a larger fixed address space can be simulated, by storing the entire address space on disc. This size of this address space is fixed at boot time. The lowest part of memory is occupied by the system partition. This contains some system global values which applications should not access directly, although there is nothing to prevent them doing so. Historically, the Mac OS used a form of memory management that has fallen out of favor in modern systems. Criticism of this approach was one of the key areas addressed by the change to OS X. The original problem for the engineers of the Macintosh was how to make optimum use of the 128 KB of RAM that the machine was equipped with. Since at that time the machine could only run one application program at a time, and there was no fixed secondary storage, the engineers implemented a simple scheme which worked well with those particular constraints. However, that design choice did not scale well with the development of the machine, creating various difficulties for both programmers and users. References: The Memory Management Reference Memory management in Mac OS, en...
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...1.0 Executive Summary Formally known as Apple Computer Inc., this company was founded April 1, 1976. In January of 2007, the word “Computer” was removed from its name to reflect on its shifted focus towards consumer electronics. Being the World’s Most Valuable Brand today Apple manufacturers a host of hardware products such as the iPhone, iPod, Mac, and as if that isn’t enough they offer quite a bit on the software side as well such as their iOS6 and services such as iTunes. The purpose of this Marketing Plan focuses on the iPad through implementing various marketing strategies and innovations to improve sales and increase its tablet market share. We have found these goals to be attainable through enhancing the iPad’s features. More specifically by making it Adobe Flash compatible, the addition of a USB port, along with an expandable memory slot. 2.0 Situation Analysis Apple’s mission is to be committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings. Currently Apple holds the title of, “World’s most Valuable Brand.” It is evident that being committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to all its customers is paying off. Focusing on the company’s most recent addition to its products, the iPad; we would like to come up with new features to not only boost sales...
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...An Apple for an Apple CGD 218 Apple “A sign is anything that stands for something else...Logos are designs that are used to stand for and help reinforce the identity of a corporation” (Berger, page 49-50). Apple has achieved just that, by using an apple as their logo. However, the use of an apple can go so much deeper than just a logo-it is an indexical sign, causing consumers to feel loyalty, trust, and an association with knowledge. I first remember seeing the logo of an apple in grade school on old computers manufactured by Macintosh, the same corporation that is known today as “Apple”. For centuries, apples have been associated with knowledge. For example, Isaac Newton used an apple in his famous experiment, students often gift their favorite teachers apples, and “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” anecdote to follow for a healthy life. It is only fitting that a company would capitalize on this infamous fruit and associate it with technology-especially a company that is as cutting-edge as Apple. In this way, the apple is an indexical sign which logically connects it to what it represents-knowledge (Berger, page 49). The logo itself uses very simple graphics and design elements-basically the logo is just an apple with space between the actual fruit and the stem. The open, blank, or “white”, space between the fruit and the stem represents wealth, and in this case a wealth of knowledge (Berger, page 77). By using just one color for the apple (white or black depending...
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...things that seem to work well for apple: They have a diverse product line. They have opened jop oppunities. In africa and asia they have wear houses that produce parts of there products. They have also been known to hire musicians and historians. They also parner with the competition. Most noteable samsung and microsoft. they have achieved massive success. People wait year round for there keynotes and conferances. They have a dinimic business plan. They are allways trying new ideas. Apple stores: There are over 250 stores all over the woruld. Apple gives there customers that face to face interaction with an employee that can fix,setup and troubleshoot any of there products. Another reason why they are so successful is because there products just "work" together. In other wirds, if you plug an i phone into a mac it's easier to figure out how to import your music photos and oher media. I cloud is another reason why appple is so successful. They are a firm believer in having all your documents, music photos and even your settings in sync for transfering or setting up a new device. 2 products that have contributed to apple's success are the i phone and i pod. Steve jobs has said that he wanted the first i phone to be "An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator," A brand that inspires innovation, engineering, user experience and design. Like any other Apple product; iPhone has set new standers on every front living up to and surpassing user expectation. This...
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...One of the most renowned companies in the technology word today is Apple. Created by Steve Jobs, Apple revolutionized the computer in 1976 with the release of the Apple 1. From that point on Apple has always been on the top of the market with its products. Presently they lead the market in Smart Phones, Tablets and Personal Computers. With the huge demand for their products, there comes an enormous responsibility for manufacturing the devices in a quick and cost effective matter. With the rapidly growing market of Apple computers and the technology/electronic industry as a whole, Apple eventually had to rethink how they manufactured their products to create the most efficient outcome; the highest revenue with the lowest cost. The competitive nature of the technology industry causes companies to look for a competitive advantage, which will make them much more profitable than their competitors. For the majority of the company’s history, they have been known to manufacture their products in the USA and even prided themselves with building the Macintosh computer which Steve Jobs described as “a machine that is made in America”. In 2004, when the company was not nearly as financially profitable as they are today, they decided their best option was to start manufacturing their products in other countries. The company, who is now a leader in foreign manufacturing, was lagging behind many American companies in terms of manufacturing abroad at that point in time. The majority of...
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...Apple has been a highly successful company in the computer industry for over thirty years. It has changed the way the world communicates. With all its success, popularity, and profitability Apple is not without flaw. One of the major growing concerns for this company is that being secretive has caused a lack of communication between employees, most notably being between low- level sales people and its customers (Apple’s Communication Problem). The reason for this lack of communication is security. That’s right, they are told not to speak to each other. This may be a necessary evil in the highly competitive world of computers and electronics but it can be detrimental to the work environment. Imagine the distrust within the company when only a few employees know what it is going on. Not to mention the fact that it elevates the risk of an employee selling the secret if he is the only one knowledgeable of it. Keeping the knowledge to a minimum also reduces the creativity within the company. There are less people thinking on how to make a product better and that means less brainstorming and creative ideas. Not only is this problem found at the corporate and administration levels, but also down to the very bottom at the Apple stores. Apple is a firm believer that the less people that know about the product, the less likely it is be leaked to the public or competitors. The sales people have no idea when a product is coming out until the last minute and are ill prepared for selling the...
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...Summary of Apple Inc……………………………………………………. An Analysis of the Financial Status of Apple Inc. “Apple's recent success in the marketplace is founded on a philosophy that derives its insights at the intersection of technology and consumer values” (Wingfield, 2007). A prestige young owned company with its very own creative viewpoint to the way things should be done was founded by Apple Inc. in 1976. Apple has created among the most amazing technology mankind has ever known. Their three major products: Mac computers, iPod music player, and the iPhone. Database software, operating systems, and developer tools are all additional offerings Apple Inc. provides to their customers. Apple is a global product which has produced approximately 40% of sales from international operations. Rather than licensing the mac operating system to PC makers, as Microsoft did, apple chose to be the sole producer of its mac hardware, in the 1980's. Financially, Apple has grown into a large organization with profit growth each year. This company has taken its’ toll on how technology should be produced. Their financial status in the year 2010 and moving forward shows their growth in income and sales as well as Apple’s performance overall. This report will discuss Apple Inc.’s financial statements, assets and liabilities towards the company, and their overall income. The chart below shows Apple Inc. revenue earned by each product sold from 2006 to December 2011: Section I: Apple Inc. Financial...
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...Chinese Culture University Department of International Business International Business Administration Leadership Style of Steve Jobs Professor: Ph.D. Johnny Shaw /………………/ Group members: Tumennast (A2123706) Maria (A2125229) Thelma (A2506486) Enkhgerel (A2123731) Steve Job’s Leadership Style 1. Leadership, transformational leadership style. 2.1. Definition of a Leadership Leadership itself can be defined by many alternatives: Leadership has been described as "a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task" Some understand a leader simply as somebody whom people follow, or as somebody who guides or directs other, while others define leadership as "organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal” . Who is a leader? At the most basic level, a leader is someone who leads other. But what makes someone a leader? What is it about being a leader that some people understand and use to their advantage? What can you do to be a leader? Here's what you need to know and do. A leader is a person who has a vision, a drive and a commitment to achieve that vision, and the skills to make it happen. Let's look at each of those in detail. The Leader's Vision A leader has a vision. Leaders see a problem that needs to be fixed or a goal that needs to be achieved. It may be something that no one else sees or simply something that no one else wants to tackle...
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