Organizational Vision and Strategic Direction Report for Apple Inc.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple Inc.'s organizational vision and strategic direction. It begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of vision and strategic direction for organizational success, using Apple Inc. as a case study. The report assesses the roles of key stakeholders (employees and customers) in relation to the company's vision, and analyzes the factors that impact the organization and its vision, such as company size and organizational culture. It then outlines the process of creating a written vision, establishing strategic direction, and analyzing methods to communicate the vision effectively through meetings, annual reports, and presentations. The report further explores ways to build support for the vision and communicate it to external stakeholders. It also examines the leadership behavior needed to promote the vision, the steps necessary to embed the vision within Apple Inc., the use of vision to derive organizational objectives, and the strategic planning process employed by the company. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and referencing relevant sources.

Developing Organizational Vision and Strategic Direction
1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Vision of Apple Inc..........................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Assess the role of key stakeholders in relation to the vision.......................................................3
Analyzing the factors which impact you’re the organization and its vision................................3
Task 2 ..............................................................................................................................................4
Creating a written vision for the Apple........................................................................................4
Establishing that how you intend to develop strategic direction for Apple Inc. .........................4
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................4
Analyzing the methods to communicate the vision which will engage and inspire others.........4
Assessing how to build support for the vision.............................................................................5
Assessing ways which can be used to communicate the vision and strategic direction to the
external stakeholders....................................................................................................................5
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................5
Analyzing the leadership behavior needed to promote the vision ..............................................5
Assessing what is necessary to embed the vision in the Apple Inc.............................................6
Using the vision to derive the organizational objectives which set the strategic direction.........6
Outlining the strategic planning process which you will use for the Apple Inc..........................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
2

INTRODUCTION
Developing Organizational Vision and Strategic Direction is an important part for the
organization as this helps in achieving the specific goals and objectives of company. In addition
to this, it is a type of management plan and helps in increasing the performance of company. The
present report is based on Apple Inc. an American multinational technology company (About us,
2016). This report explains the role of stakeholder in the organization. Along with this, it
discusses different factors that impact business entity to a higher level. At last, different methods
for developing communication strategy for the stakeholders are also covered in this report.
VISION OF APPLE INC
Vision of Apple Inc. is to control and adopt primary technologies for manufacturing the
product which serve to their customers (Rowland, 2015).
TASK 1
Assess the role of key stakeholders in relation to the vision
Stakeholders of the company are classified into internal and external category. External
stakeholders include government, customers and on the other hand, internal stakeholders include
employees, shareholders etc.
Employees- In relation to the vision, employees of the Apple Inc., has high involvement.
As employees have direct contact with the customers so, on the basis of this, they can gather
much information about the customer's preferences and demand. Through this information, they
can achieve the vision of company (Campbell, Edgar and Stonehouse, 2011).
Customers- Success of the cited company depends on customers. They play a vital role
as they help in getting more revenue to the company. Thus, they also help in achieving the goals
and objectives of business entity.
Analyzing the factors which impact you’re the organization and its vision.
There are different factors that impact the company and its vision. The first factor is the
size of company. As size of Apple is bigger so its objective formulation process is complex.
Other factor that affects the company is organization culture (De Wit and Meyer, 2010). Culture
is a system of shared set of belief and norms that guide the behavior of organization. Hence,
Formulation of the vision and company is affected by the organization culture. The most
3

important factor which impacts Apple Inc. a lot is environmental factors. Both internal and
external factors that affect the formulation of the vision are the competency, resource
availability, power relationship within the company.
TASK 2
Creating a written vision for the Apple
Creating a vision helps the company in developing strategies for achieving the ideas.
Building of the vision also helps the company in giving direction to the company. Until the
vision of cited company is implemented, it is useless for them. To implement the vision, Apple
Inc., should have proper plan and strategy. Vision includes a report which covers the value of
company, their goals and aspirations. Their vision is to provide the best services to the customers
by focusing on the innovating technologies (Swoboda, Seibel and Schlüter, 2015. Written vision
clarifies the present assured key values relating to the company. Vision must be clear as well as
measurable and also needs a time frame for accomplishing the objectives so that it can become
easy for employees to understand the vision of company.
Establishing that how you intend to develop strategic direction for Apple Inc.
To develop strategic direction, different strategies and plans are implemented. For
developing strategic direction for the cited company, HR plays an important role while
connecting the company (Sanchez, 2007). To achieve the aim, establishing of strategy for action
helps in achieving competitive advantage for the cited company. This will also help the company
in achieving one of their corporate strategy objectives. To develop strategic direction, Apple
focuses on producing innovative products for the customers with a motive to achieve goals and
objectives.
TASK 3
Analyzing the methods to communicate the vision which will engage and inspire others
There are different methods to communicate the vision. Some of them are:
Meetings- One of the effective communication methods is meeting. In meeting, there is
direct communication between all the levels of employees. Through this, company can
communicate the vision to all the employees and can also inspire them (Hunt, 2015).
4

Annual reports- Every year, company present its business annual report which covers the
mission, vision and objectives. Through this, they can communicate their vision to others.
Presentation- This is an innovative method by which company can deliver an effective
presentation related to the vision of business to a variety of people (Chacour and Ulaga, 2015).
Assessing how to build support for the vision
Support for the vision can be built through various sources. To carry out business in an
effective manner, resources will help in achieving the vision of company. For implementing the
plan and strategy, it is necessary to verify about the availability of resources. Availability of
human resources is necessary as this will help in building support for the vision. For creating the
vision, there should be availability of core capabilities in the cited company. There should also
be availability of proper finance as this will support the company in building the vision
effectively (Athanasopoulou, Giovanis and Avlonitis, 2015).
Assessing ways which can be used to communicate the vision and strategic direction to the
external stakeholders
There are different ways to communicate the vision to the external stakeholders. There
should be proper communication with all the stakeholders as they are the key factors on which
company's success depends. Through electronic media, company can easily communicate its
vision to the stakeholders. This is the fastest method to aware about the vision. Other way is
from company’s website by which they can communicate with the government, customers etc. In
addition to this, through e-mail, company can easily communicate their messages regarding the
vision and new strategic direction (Kumar, 2015).
TASK 4
Analyzing the leadership behavior needed to promote the vision
To promote the vision of the cited company they use participative leadership. There
vision is to use of new technologies and bring innovation in their product (About us, 2016). This
vision can be achieved if they will allow internal and external stakeholder to participate in the
company's decision. If the stakeholders will participate more in their decision making process
then more innovative ideas will come out from the stakeholders. Participation of stakeholders
will bring innovation in their product and further help in achieving the vision of the company.
5

On basis of participate leadership, company will achieve in promoting the vision of the
company.
Assessing what is necessary to embed the vision in the Apple Inc
If the cited company will design the strategic direction in their firm, they will achieve the
vision of the company. In order to realize the goals and attain their vision, strategic formulation
is the best way as this deal with primary layout of the detailed path. For designing a strategy, the
various elements involved in the steps are the determination of the required culture, classification
of the strategic trust,identification of the major lines of the business and the last is establishment
of the critical success indicators. Hence, to achieve the vision, this step is necessary to embed the
vision in the Apple Inc. (Hartman and Boscoianu, 2015)
Using the vision to derive the organizational objectives which set the strategic direction
Vision of the cited company will help the organization in achieving organizational
objectives. The foundation of organizational objectives is linked with the vision of the cited
company. Vision identifies and defines organizational objectives and how they will accomplish
their objectives in the future (Campbell, Edgar and Stonehouse, 2011). The visions are divided
into small goals, with a motive to achieve company’s objectives. These yearly goals provide
direction to the organization so that they can achieve their vision. To implement the vision or to
achieve the vision in the company, Apple Inc. must have to plan strategies.
Outlining the strategic planning process which you will use for the Apple Inc.
The strategic planning process for the Apple Inc is as follows. The planning process starts
with describing mission and objectives of the company which includes values and purpose of the
mentioned company. After describing the mission, the next step is to analyze internal factor by
identifying internal strength and weaknesses of Apple Inc. The next process is to formulate the
strategy, to attain superior profitability; Apple seeks to develop competitive advantage over its
rivals (Swoboda, Seibel and Schlüter, 2015). After the formulation and implementation of the
strategy is done, company starts motivating the employees to achieve the vision of the company.
The last step used by the Apple Inc, is evaluation and control which can be done by performing
the different measurements and at last by comparing the results.
6

CONCLUSION
The aforementioned report explains the vision of the Apple Inc. Along with this it
concludes that customers play vital role as they help in providing revenue to the company.
Furthermore, creating a vision helps the company in developing strategies for achieving the
different ideas. Different methods used by the company to communicate the vision are meeting,
presentation, annual reports etc. To promote the vision of the cited company, Apple Inc. use
participate leadership in order to bring more ideas and innovation in their productss
7

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Athanasopoulou, P., Giovanis, A. N. and Avlonitis, G. J., 2015. Marketing strategy decisions for
brand extension success. Journal of Brand Management. 22(6). pp.487-514.
Campbell, D., Edgar, D., and Stonehouse, G., 2011. Business Strategy: an introduction 3rd
Edition. Palgrave Macmillan
Chacour, S. and Ulaga, W., 2015. Customer Value Audit in International Business Markets: A
Strategic Marketing Tool. In Proceedings of the 1998 Academy of Marketing Science
(AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 505-506). Springer International Publishing.
De Wit, R., and Meyer, R., 2010. Strategy: Process, Content, Context 4th Edition. Cengage Ltd.
Hartman, N. and Boscoianu, M., 2015. Single European Sky-the transformation of the aviation
industry based on the dynamic capabilities.INCAS Bulletin. 7(1). p.97.
Hunt, S. D., 2015. The theoretical foundations of strategic marketing and marketing strategy:
foundational premises, RA theory, three fundamental strategies, and societal
welfare. AMS Review. 5(3-4). pp.61-77.
Kumar, V., 2015. Evolution of marketing as a discipline: What has happened and what to look
out for. Journal of Marketing. 79(1). pp.1-9.
Swoboda, B., Seibel, C. and Schlüter, A., 2015. Successful GAM Organisation for Companies
that Supply International Retailers and the Role of international Marketing Strategy.
European Retail Research: 2014. Volume 28. (1). p.27.
Online
About us. 2016. [Online]. Available through: < http://www.apple.com/>. [Accessed on 21th May,
2016]
Rowland, C., 2015. Apple’s Vision Statement & Mission Statement. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/8-strategies-for-achieving-smart-goals.php>. [Accessed
on 21th May, 2016]
Sanchez, M., 2007. 8 Strategies for achieving smart goals. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/8-strategies-for-achieving-smart-goals.php>. [Accessed
on 21th May, 2016]
8