Apple Research Paper Example

Apple Research Paper: Introduction

Correct organizational structure is one of the backbones of a company after growing its business or keeping the rate of growth above a specific rate. As a company overcomes the limit of being a startup and steps into the corporation level, changes in the methods and practices in managerial decisions come along by the growth's nature. It is and has to be quite different to decide on business strategies for a startup of a group of friends that is a couple of months old than to decide on a business strategy of a decade-old company that has thousands of employees. The imperative changes in managerial decisions are not limited to the company's type, growth rate, and age. As the dynamics in the market and the world economics act up, the companies that seek development should adjust their products and management structure accordingly.

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Apple Inc. would be a suitable example for analyzing the structure's current organizational chart, structure, and past changes. Taking these two into account, an efficient diagnosis for managerial change could be performed accurately.

Apple was founded by three friends in 1976, and by magnificent marketing strategies, it has become one of the largest corporate companies throughout the history of marketing. As stated before, the managerial strategy and management structure of Apple Inc. in 1976 and 2020 are totally different. As Courtney stated, today’s organizations should continuously change and evolve to respond to the fast-moving external business environment, local and global economies, and technological advancement (2017). Thus, workplace processes, systems, and strategies must continuously change and evolve for an organization to remain competitive (2017). Today’s Apple's organizational structure is an excellent instance to be examined and offer possible improvements afterward.

Table 1- Source: https://ped30.com/2019/03/05/information-apple-org-chart/

Meyer describes the structure of today’s Apple Inc. as following, “Apple Inc. has a hierarchical organizational structure, with notable divisional characteristics and a weak functional matrix (2019). The hierarchy is a traditional structural feature in business organizations. The divisional characteristics refer to the product-based grouping within Apple, such as for iOS and macOS. The weak functional matrix involves inter-divisional collaboration, while the hierarchy is preserved. The following are the main characteristics of Apple’s corporate structure: spoke-and-wheel hierarchy, product-based divisions, and weak functional matrix” (2019). Apple Inc., known by almost everyone, is a technology giant that develops, produces, and sells customer electronics and intelligent devices. It had over one hundred and thirty thousand employees in 2019.

Secrecy is the gold mine of Apple. Therefore, to be able to analyze the company's current HR practices, the sole principal of the company. The strict hierarchy in Apple is caused by this obsession with secrecy, which is why Apple is as popular as it is today. It is hard, and a number of eliminations are required to get to be an Apple employee. However, once an applicant gets involved in the Apple family, he or she has to sign many agreements about confidentiality and compliance.

The company strictly defines the complete set of rules and you have to comply limits employees’ comfort zone and creativity. Meyer (2019) states that the ongoing hierarchy in Apple’s organizational structure involves strict control of top leaders, CEO Tim Cook, particularly all over the company. Since the smallest change in plan or strategy is subject to these decision-makers' approval, it is a relatively slow process to change a strategy in an operational project in Apple.

Through the hierarchy, business functions and product-based groups are effectively controlled through the CEO and other top executives' decisions. However, in today’s market, time and speed of change is almost everything. A company should follow the changes in day-to-day and even on an hourly basis in some extreme cases. It is apparent that this policy of Apple Inc. influences not only the engineering and marketing branches but also the HR department as well and in order to make employees feel more secure and lower the level of bureaucracy through operations. The best practice for improvement in Apple Inc.’s current state of organizational structure would be the ADKAR Model. ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. ADKAR is a goal-oriented tool by its definition. Since Apple is innovative and sticks to the point company, awareness, knowledge, and ability are best matches for the better-to-have changes that Apple has to implement.

ADKAR Model is defined as following by Belyh (2019), “ADKAR model or theory of change is a goal-oriented tool or model that makes it possible for the various change management teams to focus on those steps activities that are directly related to the goals it wants to reach. The goals, as well as the results derived and defined using this model, are cumulative and in a sequence. This means that while using this model, an individual must get each of the outcomes or results in a certain orderly fashion so that the change can be sustained and implemented. The model can be used by managers of change to find out the various holes or gaps in the process of change management so that effective training can be offered to the employees.“ Therefore, since ADKAR is a model that involves both the needed change and the control over the change during the change process, it is the most applicable for Apple Inc. Taking, Awareness – knowledge of the need and requirement for change, Knowledge – having a plan of how to bring this organizational change and applying a suitable model for it, and Ability – the capability to incorporate and control the change on a regular basis.

Considering the company's current status according to the clauses of the ADKAR Model, Apple Inc. is ready for a change in especially HR strategies. Two main reasons for this change are the need to keep up with the market changes and meet customer demands. Keeping secrecy, the company's sole motivation, alive, improvement in the flow of information through the company, and the development of staff and products is highly possible.

It is known that Apple works with some third party companies all over the world. In some cases, the third-party company is a material supplier, and in some cases, it is a support team trained by Apple. Especially in the case of Apple trained third party support teams, the slow flux of business causes inconvenience.

Apple Research Paper: Conclusion

After all, Apple should apply the ability clause about this issue and either enlarge its support teams worldwide or assign Apple employees for constant and continuous control over the business. The second issue is the product design of Apple. To keep customer satisfaction at a high level, Apple Inc. should apply awareness and recruit more qualified staff through correct HR strategies. Lastly, by applying the knowledge clause, Apple should give its employees every level a bit more space to move freely. A new security concept could be applied to keep secrecy at the top tier as providing employees with a more secure feeling with more space to move, which would increase creativity.

References

Belyh, A. (2019, September 20). Major Approaches & Models of Change Management. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://cleverism.com/major-approaches-models-of-change-management/

Courtney, F. (2017, February 22). 6 Steps to Effective Organizational Change Management. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://pulselearning.com/blog/6-steps-effective-organizational-change-management/

Meyer, P. (2019, February 14). Apple Inc.'s Organizational Structure & Its Characteristics (An Analysis). Retrieved October 21, 2020, from http://panmore.com/apple-inc-organizational-structure-features-pros-cons