Building Quality Organisation: Strategic Business Plan

This report focuses on developing a strategic plan for building a quality organization aligned with corporate goals, mission, and vision. It includes competitor analysis, advantages and disadvantages of the plan, and the role of organizational structure. The case study is based on Apple Inc.

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Building Quality Organisation
Strategic Business Plan

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................2
1.1 Apple Inc...........................................................................................................................2
1.2 Vision................................................................................................................................3
1.3 Mission Statement...........................................................................................................3
1.3 Goals.................................................................................................................................4
2. Competitor Analysis............................................................................................................4
2.1 SWOT................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Analysis.............................................................................................................................4
3. Development of Strategic Plan...........................................................................................5
3.1 Strategic priorities............................................................................................................5
3.2 Action Plan.......................................................................................................................5
4. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Strategic Plan........................................................6
5. Role of Organisational Structure to support the strategic plan.........................................8
6. Organisation of the 21st century.........................................................................................9
7. Conclusion.........................................................................................................................11
8. References........................................................................................................................12

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1. Introduction
The objective of this report is to create the competitive organisation of the 21st century by
developing a strategic plan that aligns with the corporate goals, mission and vision of the
organisation. In this report, Apple Incorporation is selected as the company for which the
strategic plan will be developed after conducting its competitor analysis. The advantages
and disadvantages of the plan will be evaluated in this report along with an analysis of how
the organisation structure of the company supports the chosen strategy. Lastly, a discussion
will be made on what defined the organisation of the 21st century in engineering.
1.1 Apple Inc.
Apple is a leading technology company that has established its operations across the globe;
the company operates in consumer electronics, computer hardware engineering, software
engineering and digital distribution industry (Apple 2019). The company has created a
positive brand reputation in the market due to its effective engineered products and
services that are loved by customers on a global stage. The company is one of the most
innovate engineering organisations as it finds solutions to major engineering problems while
developing them and it overcomes those challenges through its talented workforce. The
company has hired over 132,000 which include hardware engineers, software engineers,
developers, management staff and other employees that handle the operations of
manufacturing of devices and the company spends around $14.2 billion on research and
development (R&D) to offer innovative products to its customers (Rossignol 2018).
Recently, the company achieved a major milestone of reaching the market valuation of $1
trillion, and Apple is the first ever technology company that has achieved this title (Davis,
2018). The recently launched products of the company are considered as some of the most
innovative engineered products, for example, Apple Watch allows its customers to take
Electrocardiogram (ECG) directly from the watch which expanded the ability of healthcare
sector to better understand the problems of heart patients (Cipriani 2018). Another example
is Apple MacBook 12 logical board in which the engineering team of Apple was able to
include all the hardware components to run the machine while keeping its size only twice
the size of iPhone 6 (Hein 2015).

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1.2 Vision
Figure 1: Vision Statement of Apple
(Source: Serna, 2016)
The vision of Apple is to commit toward bringing the best personal computing experience
for its customers which include creative professionals, students and educators across the
globe which it achieves through its innovate software, hardware and internet offerings
(Serna 2016).
1.3 Mission Statement
Figure 2: Mission Statement of Apple
(Source: Serna, 2016)
The mission of Apple is to design Macs for its customers that provide that best personal
computing experience to its customers through services such as iWork, iLife, OS X and
professional software. The company is also focused on leading the digital music revolution
through products and services such as iPod and iTunes (Serna 2016). The company has also
reinvented the mobile phone by launching the iPhone and App Store that assisted the
company in defining the future of computing devices and mobile media.

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1.3 Goals
Apple’s goals include becoming the most customer-centric organisation through engineering
products and services that connect with its customers and help them achieve their
objectives while also being responsible towards other stakeholders such as employees, local
communities and the environment (Serna 2016).
2. Competitor Analysis
2.1 SWOT
Strengths Weaknesses
 Strong brand image
 High-profit margins
 Strong control of the supply chain
 Effective rapid innovation processes
 Sales of the company are driven in
high-end market segments mostly
 Limited distribution network in
developing markets
 High selling prices
Opportunities Threats
 Development of new product line
 Expansion of the distribution
network in developing markets
 Reduce prices to increase sales
volume
 Rising labour costs in most countries
 Imitation of products and services
 Aggressive competition
2.1 Analysis
Based on the SWOT analysis of the company, it can be evaluated that the key opportunities
for the company include the development of new product line while relying on the strengths
of its engineering team while ensuring that it expands its distribution network in emerging
markets (Sanchirico 2014, p. 207). The company can also reduce the prices of its products to
attract more customers and increase its sales which will enable the company to address
major threats such as aggressive competition and rising labour costs.
Moreover, there are a number of external and internal factors that make it difficult for
Apple to achieve its strategic goals. For example, the political environment in the United
States is not stable due to Trump Administration which resulted in creating obstacles for
Apple. The trade ban of the government and enforcement on Apple to shift its

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manufacturing facilities in the US might result in increasing the costs of the company (Bing
2018). The demand for engineers in the hardware and software industry is increasing, and
companies such as Apple are finding it difficult to fulfil their employment requirements. The
importance of fulfilment of social responsibilities of companies is also increasing as pressure
is imposed on major corporations to ensure that they reduce their carbon footprint and take
appropriate actions to protect the interest of their customers and employees.
3. Development of Strategic Plan
3.1 Strategic priorities
Following are the key strategic priorities for Apple in a five-year strategic plan:
 Create a framework that supports sustainability principles which resulted in reducing
the carbon footprint of the company and improve working condition for its
employees.
 Building a supply chain and distribution network in the United States to increase its
operations in the country and maintain control over the product quality.
Following are the key short term strategic prioritised for Apple:
 Increase its sales in the computer and smartphone market to compete with Chinese
and Korean brands in emerging markets.
 Increasing the use of Apple products and services in different industries such as
education, professional development, music and others.
3.2 Action Plan
The strategic plan of Apple should align with its vision and mission statement to ensure that
the company is able to create a positive brand reputation in the market while increasing its
sales. This strategic plan should be focused on key issues faced by the company such as
fierce competition, rising labour costs and imitation of products (Heracleous 2013, pp. 92-
99). The strategic plan should also rely on the strengths of the company to leverage them in
order to achieve its goals. Therefore, the company should focus on improving its supply
chain operations in the US to ensure that it is able to sustain its growth in the market while
controlling the quality of its products and services. In order to achieve yearly and long term

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goals of the company, it is important that the management focuses on aligning them with its
vision and mission. As per its vision and mission statement, Apple is a customer-centric
company, and it should use this quality to achieve its yearly and long term goals. The
company should improve its customer services to increase the satisfaction level of its
customers which will enable it to expand its operations in major markets (Ayanso &
Lertwachara 2015, pp. 73-80). The company should contract with educators and other
professional developers and artists to increase the use of Apple products in education,
music and other sectors. For example, in the education sector, the use of iOS, the mobile
operating system of Apple, has reduced from 26 percent to 14 percent between 2014 and
2016 (Reisinger 2017).
Similarly, the computer only operating system of the company has also reduced from 8
percent to 5 percent between 2014 and 2016. On the other hand, the use of Google’s
operating system, Chrome OS, has increased from 38 percent to 58 percent in two years
(Reisinger 2017). The main reason for this growth is the easy availability and inexpensive
nature of Google’s operating system. Thus, Apple should focus on using its engineering team
to build products and services that are cheaper and easily accessible to users. The company
should also increase its operations in the United States since it is facing pressure from the
government to increase employment in the country. Currently, the company outsourced its
assembling operations in China and India because the labour costs are cheaper (Backer
2013, p.805). Although assembling products in the United States will result in increasing the
operating costs of Apple; however, the company will be able to control different operations
in its supply chain which will enable it to ensure the quality of its products which will assist it
in achieving its goals while relying on its values. Moreover, the company should focus on
implementing renewable energy sources to fuel its operations, and it should adopt policies
that reduce wastage of products to ensure that it implements a sustainable supply chain its
operations while ensuring that it engineering products that did not harm the environment
(Kim Shim & Morrison 2014, pp. 85-95).
4. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Strategic
Plan
Advantages

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There are various advantages of this strategic plan which will assist Apple in achieving its
corporate goals and objectives. The key advantage is that this plan is focused on the key
strengths and values of Apple in order to address key threats faced by the company. These
policies are joined together in order to achieve yearly and long term goals of the company.
Values such as customer-centric, priority to the environment and focus on the quality of
products are already a part of Apple, and they will assist the company while implementing
this strategic plan. For example, the company has recently announced that it uses 100
percent renewable energy to power its stores across the globe which is a major milestone
(Statt 2018). These actions resulted in creating a positive brand image of Apple and enable
the company to reach a wider audience. It was found in a recent study that 73 percent of
millennial customers prefer to pay higher prices for products that are sustainably produced
(Curtin 2018). Apple can leverage this position to increase its profitability. For example,
although the operating costs of the company will increase in case it install its operations in
the US, however, it will also allow the company to sustainability manufacture its products
and customers will purchase them at higher costs.
Another advantage in this plan is that it will also assist the engineering team of Apple in
controlling each aspect of the supply chain which will result in increasing the quality of
products since engineers will be able to develop solutions to major products that hinders
the quality of Apple products. Apple will be able to promote the actions of its engineers
through innovation because it will be able to control the quality and production of its
products (Montgomerie & Roscoe 2013, pp. 290-299). The past success and engineering
breakthroughs of the company has been achieved through effective control of Apple on
each and every part of the design and manufacturing process; therefore, the company
should use this strength to address the issue of fierce competition and imitation of its
products by other companies. The competitors of Apple can imitate the outside design of its
products; however, they cannot copy the engineering of the products which will provide a
competitive advantage to Apple (Froud et al. 2012, pp. 1-29). Moreover, this strategy also
assists the company in discharging its social responsibilities towards stakeholders such as
employee, customers, local communities and the environment by ensuring that the
company conducts its operations in a sustainable manner.
Disadvantages

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One of the key disadvantages of this strategic plan is that Apple is likely to lose a substantial
amount of profit at the beginning which might shake the trust of its shareholders in the
company. Currently, the profitability of the company is strong, and it is generating
substantial profits; however, one of the key reasons due to which the company is generating
this profit is because it outsourced its operations to developing countries in order to save its
labour costs (Pun et al. 2016, pp. 166-185). Due to the reduction in costs, the company is
able to charge higher prices for its products and services while it offers them to its
customers. Another disadvantage is that the competitors of Apple also rely on a cost-
effective advantage while managing their business operations based on which it will become
difficult for Apple to sustain its growth even after reducing the prices of its products. While
establishing its operations in the US, the company will not only have to pay higher labour
costs, but, the company will also require to provide healthcare and other facilities to its
employees which is not the case in other emerging markets based on which the profits of
the company will be reduced (Qiu, Gregg & Crawford 2014, pp. 564-581).
5. Role of Organisational Structure to support the
strategic plan
Organisational structure is defined as a system in organisations that outline how certain
activities will be directed in order to achieve corporate goals; these activities include
defining the key rules, responsibilities and roles in the company (Foss, Woll & Moilanen
2013, pp. 298-322). Companies of all shapes and sizes use organisational structure to define
a specific hierarchy in the organisation that is crucial to avoid ambiguity and promote the
effectiveness of workers. There are different types of organisational structures such as
hierarchical, matrix, horizontal, network, divisional, line organisation, team-based and
others. When it comes to implementation of the chosen strategy, some organisational
structures support these policies whereas the management in other companies finds it
difficult to adopt this plan. For example, in the case of matrix organisational structure, it
becomes difficult for companies to adopt policies in order to control each part of the supply
chain since difference managers are responsible for handling difference departments and
maintaining integration between them is difficult (Govindan et al. 2014, pp. 555-568).
Moreover, in organisational structures such as network and team-based organisational

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structure, it is easier for the management to promote engagement and communication
which allow them to establish an integrated system through which they can exercise control
over the supply chain.
In the case of Apple, the company has adopted a hierarchical organisational structure in
which the power of decision making is exclusively limited to the top-level management of
the company. Through this organisational structure, Apple will be able to ensure that it
maintains effective control between different departments to control the supply chain of
the company (Kumar, Teichman & Timpernagel 2012, pp. 1278-1296). This organisational
structure of the company will assist Apple in implementing policies that support the vision
and mission statement of the company. This strategic plan will be able to assist the
company in increasing its profitability since the vision and mission of the company is to
become the most customer-centric organisation that continuously rely on innovation to
deliver high-quality products to its customer. Effective control over supply chain will ensure
the engineers of Apple to develop products while catering to the needs of customers which
will increase the profitability of the company in the long run (Govindan & Popiuc 2014, pp.
326-336). Although this strategic plan might result in reducing the short term profits of the
company; however, in the long run, the company will be able to sustain its growth in the
market. Thus, this strategic plan assists in supporting the corporate goals of the company
while relying on its core values.
6. Organisation of the 21st century
The importance of ethical and sustainable organisations are increasing, especially in the field
of engineering as the number of illegal actions by engineers increases on a global stage. For
example, Volkswagen used its engineers to create engines that were specially designed to
cheat emission tests which resulted in increasing the profitability of the organisation while
causing harm to the environment that adversely affected the interest of customers, the
environment and society as a whole (Siano et al. 2017, pp. 27-37). Therefore, organisations
in the 21st century should rely on sustainable principles and the engineers should focus on
developing products that did not harm the environment. Apple is a good example of a
competitive organisation of the 21st century since the company relies on sustainable
engineering practices while developing its products. For example, the company uses 100

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percent renewable energy sources in order to power its operations across the globe (Statt
2018). The engineers of the company also make sure that they avoid using harmful
materials such as mercury, lead and others while developing the parts of its products such
as mobile chips, body and other parts.
The engineers at Apple have also introduced two robots name Liam and Daisy that are
capable of dissembling iPhones, and the company uses those parts for recycling. These steps
show that Apple has taken various steps that assist the company in becoming a competitive
organisation of the 21st century (Lopes, Antunes & Martins 2012, pp. 4095-4104). However,
the strategic plan discussed in this report will assist the company in further take steps in
order to ensure that it is able to continue its innovate journey to develop products which
are highly sustainable. The strategic plan will assist Apple in ensuring that it takes
reasonable steps to achieve its goals implemented in its mission and vision statement and
achieve its yearly and long term goals within a reasonable timeframe. Therefore, the
organisations of the 21st century did not solely rely on profit maximisation; instead, they
focus on reducing their carbon footing and increasing their positive impact on society
through their actions (Lozano, Ceulemans & Seatter 2015, pp. 205-215). They actively
engage with their audience and taken engineering decisions while taking their interest into
consideration.

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7. Conclusion
In conclusion, Apple is a multinational corporation that focuses on delivering high-quality
products and services to its customers through a team of highly skilled engineers. A strategic
plan is developed for the company in order to ensure that it is able to address major issues
such as intention competition, imitation of products and raising labour costs while exploiting
its strengths. The company should establish its manufacturing operations in the US to
improve control over its supply chain that will enable engineers to improve the quality of its
products and services. The company should also reduce its prices and focus on sustainable
ways to manufacture its products. The disadvantage of this plan is the reduction of profits
for the short run; however, its advantages are positive brand reputation, better control on
operations and increased profitability in the future. These factors should be taken into
consideration by organisations to ensure that they become a competitive organisation in the
21st century in the field of engineering.

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