Analyzing Apple Inc.: Management, People and Teams - MGT600, Part A

This assignment analyzes Apple Inc.'s organizational structure, focusing on its management practices, communication patterns, and internal challenges. The student identifies a rigid hierarchical structure and declining product quality as core issues. To address these, the assignment recommends a PESTLE and SWOT analysis to understand the market environment and competitive positioning. It proposes implementing Lewin's change model (Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze) to improve product quality and overall operational processes. The analysis highlights the importance of adapting to market changes and understanding the nuances of organizational minutiae to guide future practices and regain market share. The assignment draws upon several academic sources to support its findings and recommendations.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT PEOPLE AND TEAMS
MANAGEMENT PEOPLE AND TEAMS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Name

1MANAGEMENT PEOPLE AND TEAMS
Apple Inc., an American multinational technology company which stands as a synonym to
bringing technological innovation (Heracleous, 2013). The brand is significantly popular all
around the globe essentially because of its superior quality of product and status associated with
the brand. Thus, this project helps to give a deeper insight about the organizational structure of
this global brand and prepare a script to help understand its internal functioning, their
communication practice and how the firm intends to deal with its internal as well as external
challenges.
The organizational structure of Apple Inc. is often attributed for its rapid growth and
success. Though there has been a change of ownership from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook, yet the
company has stood strong in working in utmost collaboration among its different sectors like the
software team and the hardware team. However analyzing its internal and external functioning
the core problem that I could notice stands as following:
Rigid Organizational structure:
However there still exists a spoke-and-wheel hierarchy structure (Seth Agarwal&
Singla, 2013) where Tim Cook is in the center and effectively communicates his decisions to his
sub-ordinates. Apple Inc. believes in an authoritative and formal communication flow pattern
(Jyoti, 2013). A formal organizational structure often restricts free flow of ideas and leads to
stagnation. This is the very reason that we find the organization has a senior vice-president for
the retail section, a senior vice president for the global marketing section and all the necessary
communication pertaining to specific sectors inside the company is communication from them to
the employees.

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Descending product quality:
Being an apple user as well as going by the market statistics I can easily conclude that
Apple is facing serious challenge in its quality of output especially in the smart phone sector
(Zhang, 2017). Moreover the battery replacement program which was adopted by the company
did not seem to bring fair enough results as the company made a significant shift from
concentrating on the quality of product to its outer look and aesthetics. From a customer’s point
of view I can easily understand that Apple Inc. had majorly failed to recognize and build on its
USP or the unique selling proposition of the brand which has always been quality over quantity.
This indeed led its competitors win the market and the most significant example is the South
Korean company named Samsung known producing both personal computers and smart
phones (Coughlin, 2016).
. However, Challenges and risks are part of every origination’s functioning. However an
ideal management team knows how to react to these challenges, and safeguard the company
from facing such crisis situation in future. Thus a major recommendation for this brand to regain
its market position is to conduct a PESTLE Analysis followed by a SWOT Analysis to help the
brand understand the overall market environment as well as gauge the position of its competitors
in the market. (Khan, Alam & Alam, 2015).
One of the fundamental principles in initiating any change in the whole managerial
process of the firm is to ascertain a specific change model which needs to be adapted by the
managerial authority that can act as a future guide for the proper functioning of the organization.
Thus in case of Apple Inc. Lewin’s model can be considered as an effective change management

3MANAGEMENT PEOPLE AND TEAMS
strategy (Manchester, et al. 2014). For instance taking into concern the current market scenario,
where the firm is facing strict competition from its contemporaries it needs to first understand the
core problems in its functioning process, make is employees aware of the same and finally begin
with the process of incorporating new changes. Thus going by Lewin’s Model there are three
steps involved that is; Unfreeze, Make changes and refreeze. First Apple Inc. needs to bring stop
its current manufacturing practices which are more concerned with the finishing of the product
than its actual quality concern, then incorporate changes in its quality measurement tactics to
ensure that the brand stands strong to its USP and finally once the required internal operational
changes have been made the company needs to refreeze these changes and make sure that they
are implemented thoroughly throughout the manufacturing process. Thus, this incorporates the
whole process that can be used in the organizational minutiae to guide future practices of the
firm.

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References:
Coughlin, T. (2016). Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co.: Economics of Design Patent
Trolling. Cardozo Arts & Ent. LJ, 35, 209.
Heracleous, L. (2013). Quantum strategy at apple inc. Organizational Dynamics, 42(2), 92-99.
Jyoti, J. (2013). Impact of organizational climate on job satisfaction, job commitment and
intention to leave: An empirical model. Journal of business theory and practice, 1(1), 66-
82.
Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N., & Alam, S. (2015). A critical analysis of internal and external
environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and
Management, 3(6), 955-961.
Manchester, J., Gray-Miceli, D. L., Metcalf, J. A., Paolini, C. A., Napier, A. H., Coogle, C. L., &
Owens, M. G. (2014). Facilitating Lewin's change model with collaborative evaluation in
promoting evidence based practices of health professionals. Evaluation and program
planning, 47, 82-90.
Seth, A., Agarwal, H., & Singla, A. R. (2013). Testing and evaluation of service oriented
systems. arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.1912.
Zhang, Q. (2017). Research on Apple Inc’s Current Developing Conditions. Open Journal of
Business and Management, 6(01), 39.