Assessment 3: Leadership and Change Management at Apple Inc.

This case study examines Apple Inc.'s evolution, focusing on leadership challenges and change management strategies. It begins with the company's founding and early product development, highlighting the roles of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne. The case explores the challenges faced, including hardware development issues, competition in the mobile market, and the need for improved user interfaces. It analyzes the leadership styles employed, particularly transformational leadership, and argues for the adoption of situational leadership to address current challenges and improve marketing strategies. The study emphasizes the need for customer-centric approaches, including improved connectivity, cloud storage options, and free content to retain customer inclination. The analysis concludes with recommendations for enhancing user interface, connectivity, and content offerings to regain market share and improve brand image.

ASSESSMENT 3

Table of Contents
Case: Company Background...........................................................................................................3
Situation: Challenge.........................................................................................................................4
Change desired.................................................................................................................................4
Leadership styles.............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Case: Company Background
Apple Inc. had been founded in the year by three collaborators namely Steve Wozniak, Steve
Jobs and Ronald Wayne. The company had been established and founded with the sole objective
and intention of selling their Apple 1 Personal Computer which was hand-built by Wozniak. This
personal computer had, back at that time, barely qualified as a finished product which eventually
lacked many built-in Human Interface Devices such as keyboard, or even a case. Regardless of
all these shortcomings, the computer eventually attracted the attention of the millionaire Mike
Markkula. Eventually the first Macintosh (Mac) had been designed and with the initial ground
breaking advertisement, Apple had set itself apart from the many competitor firms that had been
targeted in the field of advertisement such as the IBM (Allurwar et al,. 2016). Mac had been a
revolution in the field of personal computer design. This system came with its own Graphical
User Interface (GUI) and also enabled the users to use a built-in “mouse”. Steve Jobs had
effectively improvised a focus on the consumer marketing with respect to product development
to which he had suggested the selling price of Macintosh at 1000 USD in the 1984 currency. Due
to this reason and his eccentricity, he had been restricted from taking a lead role in the company
and eventually he had resigned in the year 1985 (Khan et al,. 2015). After this had been proven
that the High Right policy went unsustainable, the company initiated yet again to introduce
products for its customers such as The Mac Classic, the LC and the latter released Performa
budget series wherein the latter failed miserably due to the inexplicable approach towards
consumer-market electronics.
With the intervention in the world of mobile accessories and telecommunication, the sole
objective of the company had shifted from personal computers to mobile devices with the
introduction of iPhone and iPad that quickly attracted the mainstream consumer market. The
Apple Inc. was not the first company to introduce smart phones wherein Blackberry already
seized considerable amount of the market share long before Apple. With the periodic
improvements in their user interface and the introduction of built-in music player options and
cloud storage facility, Apple Inc. was fast enough to grab hold of the larger consumer forum in
the highly competitive market.

Situation: Challenge
The company had been facing tremendous issues with respect to the development of the proper
and advanced hardware. At this point, the partner Ronald Wayne had eventually left the
company followed by Wozniak after the immediate launch of the Macintosh. Steve Jobs
eventually left the company after he had been restricted passage into the leading designation of
the company being a partner of the same (Wesley and Barczak, 2016). After his resignation from
the company, the organization had been dealing with tremendous financial and liquidity crunches
in accordance to the lack of improvisations in the field of hardware and its user interface which
Steve Jobs used to handle. The Apple products also lagged behind its potent competitors in the
field of mp3 section as its user interface was not that upgraded to load high number of songs.
Moreover, after the introduction of iTunes which acted as an online mp3 selling platform for the
company, the customers had to buy every sing and then load them in their gadget wherein other
competitors had been providing some of the song albums completely free of cost. Moreover,
another challenge faced by Apple Inc. was related to its excessive overpriced cloud storage that
had to be renewed every single time it lapsed (de Mazieres et al,. 2015). This not only declined
the customer inclination towards the company to a slightest extent but also eventually
decelerated the brand image.
Change desired
The change management model improvised throughout the marketing segment of Apple Inc. had
effectively denounced the fact that the organization requires more effective leadership regime
along with sustained approach in the every competitive and dynamic market of the field of
electronics and telecommunication. Moreover, this has also been proclaimed that the
organization requires more number of outsourcing staffs with the ability of introducing better
user interface such as Bluetooth connectivity, wireless connectivity to mobile devices other than
Apple, mp3 spectrum with wide diffusibility and a reversible yet permissible amount of cloud
storage (Heracleus and Papachroni, 2016).

Leadership styles
The leadership style that has till date taken place in the marketing sector of Apple Inc. is
transformational leadership through which all the leaders and the managing directors of the
company had been willing to transform the marketing sector of the entire electronics and
telecommunication industry towards its own benefit (Kobe et al,. 2016). With the attempt of
doing so, the company had eventually forgotten to improve its user interface through which the
consumer forum was reliant on. This eventually provided a wide angle spectrum dimension to
the competitors to come up with user interface far more approachable and user-friendly for the
cuaomters due to which, the sale of Apple products dramatically declined in most of its
potentially impenetrable market place such as in some of the Asia-pacific markets (Jackson and
Ahuja, 2016).
Currently, the company is in need of situational leadership style that can improve the marketing
strategy of the organization and it’s available and yet to be introduced products. This can be
ascertained through the thorough market and competitor analysis followed by identification of
the shortcomings of the current Apple products with the help of customer feedback to be
gathered on an online survey system (Lockamy, 2017). This can help the leaders to understand
the current situation of the Apple products and their tentative status in the extended marketplace.
With the help of this information, it would be easier to prepare an action plan through which
intended changes can be made on the upcoming products so as to satisfy the customers.
Conclusion
On a concluding note, it can be stated that improvising newer user interface in the company
devices is a good idea in order to retain the customer inclination towards the company. This can
be done by providing more number of free trials with respect to storage facility, more number of
free downloads from iTunes and cloud store. In addition to these, the connectivity issue which is
a recurring challenge in Apple’s systematic needs to be improved and made at par with other
miscellaneous devices from other companies so that no facets remain left.

References
Allurwar, N., Nawale, B. and Patel, S., 2016. Beacon for proximity target marketing. Int. J. Eng.
Comput. Sci, 15(5), pp.16359-16364.
de Mazieres, E.J.L., Walliser, M.R. and Green, C., Amazon Technologies Inc, 2015. Electronic
device case. U.S. Patent Application 29/491,253.
Heracleous, L. and Papachroni, A., 2016. Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Apple Inc.
SAGE Publications Ltd.
Jackson, G. and Ahuja, V., 2016. Dawn of the digital age and the evolution of the marketing mix.
Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 17(3), pp.170-186.
Khan, U.A., Alam, M.N. and Alam, S., 2015. A critical analysis of internal and external
environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management,
3(6), pp.955-961.
Kobe, T., Clark, H., Ely, M., Tay, L., Herman, D., Baker, S. and Wisco, A., Hearts On Fire
Company, LLC, 2015. Retail marketing environment. U.S. Patent 8,955,261.
Lockamy III, A., 2017, July. An examination of external risk factors in Apple Inc.’s supply
chain. In Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal (Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 177-188). Taylor &
Francis.
Wesley, D. and Barczak, G., 2016. Innovation and marketing in the video game industry:
avoiding the performance trap. Routledge.