Integration of Business Modules: Apple Inc. Strategic Changes Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the strategic changes implemented within Apple Inc., examining the impact of these changes on the organization's structure, culture, and overall performance. The report begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction that outlines the scope and objectives of the analysis. It then delves into the company background, highlighting key products and its mission. The core of the report focuses on the strategic changes undertaken, particularly the transition in leadership from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook, and the resulting shifts in organizational culture and business approaches. Key areas affected by these changes, such as leadership, are explored in detail, supported by a SWOT analysis to assess the effectiveness of the strategic implementations. Furthermore, the report examines the role of various business functions within Apple Inc. and concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations. The report utilizes references to support its arguments and provide context to the changes analyzed.

Integration of Business Modules
Analysis of Strategic Changes and its Impact in Apple Inc
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Integration of Business Modules
Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Company Background................................................................................................................4
Strategic changes undertaken in Apple Inc and its impact on the organization.........................5
Key areas in Strategic changes in Apple Inc..............................................................................6
Leadership..............................................................................................................................6
SWOT Analysis......................................................................................................................7
STEEP Model Analysis..........................................................................................................8
Stakeholders involved in strategic change process................................................................9
Apple’s Organizational Culture..............................................................................................9
Apple Organizational Structure............................................................................................11
Role of Business Functions in Apple Inc.................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13
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Executive Summary
Apple Inc. is a worldwide PC producing organization that is experiencing real
changes in its hierarchical culture and it's authoritative structure because of a few occasions
of the previous couple of years. Apple Inc is one such organization that improved its
operations and processes in a very short period and developed a unique administration and
management that entirely focused on adding innovation in their products. Apple Inc. has been
compelled to rethink and update it's authoritative culture and hierarchical structure to
maintain a strategic distance from bankruptcy. The authoritative culture of Apple is one of
progress; with the drive to beat and prevail as their significant goals. The authoritative
structure of the organization has additionally changed to be more focused in a basic
crossroads in the organization's history. Apple is experiencing a noteworthy rebuilding to
recover control of its operations and funds keeping in mind the end goal to remain focused on
the worldwide market. This report covers the key strategic changes experienced by Apple Inc
and the changes observed in the organizational culture during this change management and
the role of business functions in the change management has also been covered.
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Integration of Business Modules
Introduction
There are several types of changes which the organizations come across at different
stages of business. Internal managerial problems, significant changes in organizational
structure, technology upgrade or technological advancements etc are a major part of
organizational changes (Gabriel, 2015). On the other hand, strategic changes are different
from other types of change as they have an impact on each level of the company. Thus,
strategic change can be described as the specific changes that are included in the firm’s
strategy defined by synergy, competitive advantages, resource deployments and scope. In
other words, strategic change can be said to be a way or method to change vision and
objectives of the company to acquire greater business success (White et al., 2016).
Implementation of strategic change requires lot of knowledge, effort and planning and thus,
there are many managerial issues that arise in the process of implementation. The leaders or
managers who are responsible for strategic change implementation should mainly consider
employee behaviour and the organizational culture (Ali Naghibi and Baban, 2011)
The main purpose of the essay is to discuss the strategic changes that have occurred in
a specific global organization and what are the impacts on the stakeholders and the
organization has also been discussed. The organization chosen for detailed discussion is
Apple Inc. Key areas in Apple Inc that were involved in strategic change in organization and
the business functions have also been covered in the essay.
Company Background
Apple Inc is an American - based leading manufacturers of world – class electronic
products and computer software and was founded by Steve Jobs. Today, Apple Inc is very
popular in many countries and the concept of Apple is “Imperfect makes improvement”. All
the Apple products are highly innovative and Apple is known for manufacture and sales of
high technological electronics (Company Overview: Apple Inc, 2014). Some of the popular
Apple products are iPhones, iPad, Mac Computers etc. In order to be successful globally,
Apple Inc has considered and implemented several strategic changes in their organization to
achieve their business goals and objectives. The mission statement of Apple Inc clearly
defines the wide range of products and services provided by the company and exhibit a
unique and single core value – “Superiority”. Apple Inc aims to be the best in global markets
and thus, in this way they outperform their global competitors. Considering the major
changes that come in the industry, Apple Inc is highly committed to provide best quality and
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innovative products and computer software. Having understood the overall company’s goals
and mission, it is clear that Apple Inc has undergone many strategic changes within their
organization in order to constantly improve their products and meet their customer
expectations and demands and also make use of latest technologies in their wide range of
products. The application of “Blue Ocean Strategy” for Apple Inc is a clear win in this case
(Johnson et al., 2012).
Strategic changes undertaken in Apple Inc and its impact on the organization
Former Apple Inc CEO and Chairman, Steve Jobs is considered to be one of the
unconventional leaders in the World who showed the World the excellence of quality
electronic products which are a class apart. During the era of Steve Jobs, the Apple Inc’s
organizational culture was classified and defined as ‘Power Culture’. Steve Jobs was more
focussed on making most of the important decision making powers and constantly challenged
his subordinates to meet his expectations and ensure better performance (By and Burnes,
2013). The strategy of using power culture as the organizational culture pressurized
individual employees and teams to improve performance and develop an organizational
culture of high performance level (Proctor and Bicknell, 2012). The strategy of “Power
Culture” was both an advantage and disadvantage to the Apple Inc. Apple Inc was capable of
achieving high success level among the global competitors and global market place because
of the contribution of benefits of power culture strategy. Steve Jobs possessed the visionary
leadership skills and effectively used his intuition, creativity, overall competence and self –
confidence as a leader in Apple Inc. In this way, Apple Inc managed to become the most
valuable global company by market capitalization (Dudovskiy, 2013).
The era of Steve Jobs came to an end and there was a complete change in leadership
in Apple Inc when Tim Cook took over the powers withheld by Steve Jobs in the year 2011.
Steve Jobs departure from Apple Inc Organization from the top position created major chaos
and issues for Apple Inc associated with the organizational culture (Soyka, 2013). The
strategy of power culture was a major disadvantage here, as the organization has a very high
tendency to experience a major performance drop as well as experience drawbacks if the
leader (chairman or CEO) of the organization does not possess leadership and business
competencies. High competency level, exceptional creativity level and effective business
acumen has efficiently helped Steve Jobs to make Apple Inc a very successful organization in
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the strategic environment of power culture. There were major significant changes that were
observed in Apple Inc when Tim Cook took the lead of the organization (Dudovskiy, 2013).
Under the leadership of Tim Cook, the organizational culture of Apple Inc and the
business approach in global markets has entirely changed. Earlier during the leadership era of
Steve Jobs, the Apple’s official website offered 14 products of Apple only. Now, the line –
up has boosted to about 27 different products that are available for global customers in more
than 200 different variants. It is very clear that, Tim Cook did not follow the footsteps of
Steve Jobs and effectively replaced the minimalist approach used by Steve Jobs and this has
helped the Apple Inc to grow extensively in the global market place (Financial Post, 2017).
Apple Inc has been highly successful to sell all of their innovative products in global markets
and the company has been extremely successful to maintain steady growth in their other /
peripheral products such as watches and AirPods. Apple Inc has seen a very drastic growth
and has occupied a very different position in global markets after the emergence of Tim
Cook’s leadership skills. There was a drastic increase in revenue of Apple Inc of about 52
percent in the presence of Tim Cook’s leadership. Currently, Apple Inc has annual revenue
that exceeds US $ 200 billion which was impossible under the leadership of Steve Jobs
(Financial Post, 2017).
Key areas in Strategic changes in Apple Inc
Having understood the key strategic changes that occurred in Apple Inc from past ten
years, it is also very important to understand the key areas that were affected by the strategic
changes within the Apple Inc Organization. Following is the detailed analysis and assessment
of the key areas that were impacted by the strategic changes in the Apple Inc Organization.
Also, in order to understand the effectiveness of the key strategic changes, SWOT (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis has been used.
Leadership
Tim Cook not only focused on changing the strategic leadership type and Apple’s
minimalist culture, but also focused to make certain significant strategic changes in the
company’s marketing and sales domains to achieve high degree of success for the global
organization. One of the important strategies considered by Tim Cook include his business
visits to China to interact with the Chinese government officials as well as to audit Apple’s
manufacturing units and factories in China. His leadership skills are so effective as now
China is considered to be fastest growing sales market of Apple Inc by far and the company
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has been capable of generating about US $ 5.9 billion in revenue from Chinese market for a
specific quarter. According to a Financial Analyst called Thomas Husson at Forrester, Tim
Cook has taken strategic moves towards betterment of the global organization and recognized
China to be Apple’s leading market in the world (Hoang, 2017). Tim Cook’s leadership
paved off in terms of finance too and was extremely successful to diversify the core products
of Apple in global market place. Part of the success (financial) of Apple Inc lies in the fact
that the company manufactures a comparatively smaller – scale of products that are sold on a
larger scale. Tim Cook took the decision and somewhat deviated from the strategy and
introduced different variants of their products, such as – iPad called iPad Mini and in the
iPhone called as iPhone 5c, which serves as comparatively cheaper alternatives to the
flagship and high – end devices of Apple Inc (Edson and Beck, 2012). More significant than
the increased sales, it is very impressive that Tim Cook has been capable of maintaining
margins of Apple Inc very high and has also added new production costs. Steve jobs
leadership was more focussed to develop their premium electronics products such as iPhone
and iPad and whereas, under the leadership of Tim Cook, there has been a considerable
extension to all those products and also this has improved the profitability of the company in
global markets (Lashinsky, 2016).
Also, Apple Inc has successfully increased their partnerships as well as acquisitions
after the emergence of leadership of Tim Cook. Steve Jobs made certain acquisitions which
were generally smaller, but, whereas, under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has bought
about 23 new companies. Also, recently Tim Cook announced a new partnership deal with a
former nemesis IBM in order to introduce a suite of enterprise apps to their Operating
Systems, which is iOS (Sander, 2012). Apple’s growth has taken the form of an exponential
trajectory and the sales of iPhones and other premium Apple products has gone very high and
the company is under high profits. Thus, the leadership of Tim Cook and his strategic
approaches to organizational changes has been extremely successful and thus, Tim Cook is
said to be an excellent executor (Luckerson, 2014).
SWOT Analysis
After having researched and assessed the leadership changes, organizational changes
and strategic changes experienced by Apple Inc, the next step is to conduct a SWOT analysis
to identify the effectiveness of the strategic change implemented in Apple Inc.
Table – 1 shows the SWOT Analysis conducted on Apple Inc.
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Strengths Weaknesses
 A clear market leader in the global
marketplace
 Increased sales and thus, increased
revenue
 Enhanced innovation in products and
different variants released in markets
 Strategic changes implemented by
Tim Cook encouraged employee
giving strategy
 Increased partnerships and
acquisitions
 Core products of Apple Inc were
diversified in global markets for
increased profitability
 Immediate actions and strategies
affected the ongoing organizational
culture
 The workflow in Apple Inc and the
productivity of employees was
slightly affected during the transition
in strategic change management
Opportunities Threats
 Enhanced employee engagement and
improved employee giving
 Entry into new markets
 Frequent visits to China by Tim Cook
made it the leading sales in the global
marketplace
 Entrants of new companies into
markets
 Apple designs and features are often
copied by other competitor global
companies, which can be a major
threat to Apple Inc in the industry
Table – 1 The SWOT Analysis conducted on Apple Inc for Strategic Changes implemented
in Organization
STEEP Model Analysis
 Social: Social factors that has an impact on the business environment of Apple Inc are
increasing use of social media and mobile access. Both these factors are considered as
an opportunity for the Apple Company to develop its business verticals. Apple has
been continuously developing strategies to exploit this opportunity via Apple Watch,
iPad and iPhones. Social media is also a great opportunity for Apple Inc as the
demand for Apple products are increased using this platform.
 Technological: With the significant changes in organizational culture of Apple Inc,
there are drastic changes in technological aspects as the production rate and other
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important factors are also changed. Quality has been the major element of every
Apple product and with organizational changes, quantity and variant products made
significant changes in technology (Cusumano, 2008)
 Economic: Considering the organizational changes in Apple after the Steve Jobs era,
there has been drastic increase in the economic factor of the company as the new
leader Tim Cook managed to produce variants, wide range of products and also
increased business relationships with external stakeholders .
 Environmental: Environmental changes observed in Apple Inc are similar to the ones
observed in the technological aspects. Employees were not harassed at work and each
one of them was provided an opportunity to showcase their talent at workplace.
Significant environmental changes observed in Apple include: trend in labour rights,
product energy efficiency and business sustainability.
 Political: Lastly, political changes observed in Apple Inc after strategic organizational
culture changes include increased privacy regulations and also increasing
telecommunications. These factors can pose a big threat as it gives rise to challenges
for Apple to design products that include exchange of private information (Thao and
Tsanthaiwo, 2017).
Stakeholders involved in strategic change process
Apple Inc considers the concerns and interests of various stakeholders in its programs
and policies that are a major part of strategic changes in the organization. Following are the
important stakeholders who were involved in the strategic change process in the organization:
 Higher – level management – This includes the CEO, Chairperson and other high –
level management individuals who have the authority to take key decisions within the
organization.
 Investors – Investors are the people having majority of shares in Apple Inc and thus,
their involvement in strategic change process was considered for betterment of the
company
 Employees – They are the second main stakeholders involved in the strategic change
process within the organization. The marketing team ,sales team, resources team etc
are some of the key employees who were involved in the process (Budnikas, 2011)
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Apple’s Organizational Culture
After the era of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc has undergone various changes in their
organizational culture, due to various strategic change moves made by the new CEO, Tim
Cook. Steve Jobs believed in minimalist approach to sell the Apple Inc products which was
entirely replaced by Tim Cook and made variants available in their official website. This
clearly proves that the organizational culture of Apple Inc was made more effective and
innovative and the organizational culture now focused on their employees and helped them to
improve individual as well as product performance and innovation (Budnikas, 2011).
Organizational culture of Apple Inc is now being effectively managed and the functionality
of various business functions have also been managed. The acquisitions and partnership deals
signed by Tim Cook are also a major part of the company’s culture to deal with different
companies and people around the globe. The focus on increased profitability, variants, and
employee giving, and focused employee performance etc form the major highlights of the
changes observed in the organizational culture of Apple Inc (Asay, 2007).
The organizational culture of Apple depended on a perfect that self-spurred people
will work harder in the event that they don't have a supervisor micromanaging each activity.
The extraordinary structure of Apple had enabled it to develop and respond more rapidly to
changes than its rivals (Dunphy, Griffiths and Benn, 2014). The explanation behind the
snappy responsiveness is straightforward; it is substantially less demanding to kick a task off
if there are just a couple of individuals to get endorsement from. Apple at first developed
quick, since choices were made at the most reduced conceivable level. Corporate home office
made approach and administered all exercises, however the nearby representatives settled on
the everyday choices on the ground in nations everywhere throughout the world. This sort of
best down theory took into account fast responsiveness and resolutions to circumstances
without including the corporate headquarters (Sawayda, 2015).
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Apple Organizational Structure
Figure – 1 Apple’s Organizational Structure
Source: (Dudovskiy, 2017)
Role of Business Functions in Apple Inc
Having considered the strategic changes implemented in Apple Inc and the changes
that were seen in the organizational culture of the company, it is quite clear that the business
functions in Apple Company are very significant. The strategic change management in Apple
has significantly managed all the business functions within the organization (Rosenberg and
Mosca, 2011). The sales and marketing team was highly innovative and attractive to
introduce the new variants of iPad and iPhones in the global markets. Whereas, the human
resources were made to quickly adapt to the new organizational culture of the most valuable
company in the World. Employees of Apple Inc were a major success factor for effectively
managing all the business functions in the company (England, 2015).
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Conclusion
Strategic changes and its effective management are a part of every organization.
Managing strategic changes is a very complex and challenging task for any organization.
Strategic change is described to be structured approach to transition organization and the
individual employees from a present state to a desired future state. From the research,
assessment and analysis carried out on Apple Inc, it is quite clear that the organization has
mastered the concept of strategic changes and its management and has effectively and
efficiently managed to develop customer loyalty and users’ following and has introduced new
technologies and new concepts and also has successfully achieved complete implementation
of changes within the organization. Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple Inc has
experienced much higher growth in the global market place, both in terms of sales and
revenue. Also, the popularity of Apple Inc’s products is increased as the company has been
successful to release about more than 200 variants of their products in the official website.
Tim Cook considered the strategic changes in Apple Inc very seriously and ensured that
Apple Inc stands apart from other leading global electronics manufacturers. All the new
device features are released slowly and Apple Inc strategy is to follow their own cycle of
updates release. The company do not release updates or any new device in market pre –
maturely to compete in global market and catch up with the electronics industry. Also, there
has been a significant change in the organizational culture of Apple Inc under the leadership
of Tim Cook. Apple Inc employees are provided an opportunity to increase the performance
and develop innovative features in the devices and updates released in markets. Apple Inc’s
organizational culture is now well structured and they give a very high priority to make
unique – innovative designs in their products and enhance their user experience. Also, it can
be concluded that all the business functions of Apple Inc are functioning effectively and are
in precise place and make Apple Inc a very successful and most valuable electronics
manufacturing company in the World.
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