Organizational culture of Apple was one of several extremely successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of organizational culture. Apple's informal culture had become a key characteristic that differentiated it from its competitors.
Apple has arguably lost some of its original character as the company has grown and been led by a series of differently opinionated chief executives. Nonetheless, it has maintained a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably attracts talented workers, particularly after Jobs returned to the company. A lot of Apple employees said that projects without Steve Jobs’ involvement often take longer time to complete. One of the most important things it expects is for both stakeholders to believe in Steve Jobs. Over the past decade, Jobs has been Apple's saviour. He has helped the company revive its aging business model, innovate beyond all expectations and deliver some of the better products on the market.
Apple hates to admit defeat. Every time the company has proved that it would rather come up with a solution that benefits it, rather than defeated by critics. No matter how badly its products are getting beaten, the company
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Unlike other tech firms in market, Apple is well-known as one of the most secretive companies. It has become infamous for its secrecy around new product announcements and launches. Apple accomplishes this by closely monitoring work spaces, making developers chain products to desks, and even requiring employees to cover up devices with black cloaks while working on them. A former Apple engineer said, ‘We were constantly under threat of losing our jobs for revealing any shred of anything. And even within Apple, your neighbors often didn’t know what you were working on…The secrecy was like a gun to your head. Make one false move and we’ll pull this
It is quite obvious from the case that Apple is facing many obstacles. It has way more competitors today than it had two or three decades back. Part of it has to with the highly globalized environment that companies are operating in these days. Another major obstacle is the technological environment which is rapidly changing compared to the one that Apple experienced when it first emerged on the global scene. But the most important of it all seems to be a mental thing. It appears that Apple, over a period of time, developed a rigid mental model that related success of Apple with sheer innovation. This same mental model has lead to demise of many companies in the past, Xerox Corporation being the prime example of that.
Even the greatest companies in the world have a weakness, and Apple Inc. is no different. The few weaknesses of Apple Inc. include higher prices than competitors, matching consumer expectations, overdependency on a few products, and incompatibility with third-party products and software (Bhasin, 2018; Dudovskiy, 2018). In 2017, the average price of a cell phone was $400. The cost of a new iPhone in 2017 was about $749 (Dudovskiy, 2018). However, Apple Inc. claims the value and superior craftmanship justifies the higher price tag. As mentioned earlier, Apple Inc. has produced unapparelled products year after. The downside to this is that consumers now have great expectations of Apple Inc (Bhasin, 2018). Consumers want the continued high level of innovativeness year after year which is difficult for any company to provide. The product line-up of Apple Inc. includes seven to eight main categories of products. A fail in any category results in a huge hit to Apple Inc. Apple Inc. products are mostly only compatible with other Apple products. This is really a double edge sword for Apple Inc. On one side, it forces consumers to purchase other Apple products on the other side some consumers refuse to own any Apple products and Apple Inc. loses out on many possible relationships with third-party products and
Innovation. Apple’s organizational culture is also highly innovative. In fact, Apple is frequently appraised as one of the most innovative companies in the world. All employees are trained and encouraged to innovate in terms of individual work performance and by contributing ideas to the firm’s product development processes. Apple’s organizational culture succeeds in facilitating rapid innovation, which is at the heart of the
Jobs demanded products with ultimate sophistication, high quality, and superior capabilities yet, simple UIs. It was his persuasion to have Apple computers for personal computing, when the rest of the industry was busy creating enterprise solutions. His drive for excellence, and total involvement in every stage of product development and its presentation to the customer, have been the principal elements responsible for the innovation at Apple and the way the company is shaped up.
Steve Jobs was most famously known for his ideas that skyrocketed the Apple’s revenue in the American entertainment and technology market. It was not Apple as a company that created such an impact in the American economy but it was Steve Jobs’ creativity, vision, and leadership. When Steve Jobs left apple for six months due to health
Organizational culture is the heart of the organization performance it is critical for organizational success. It is a culture in which the core values are intensely and widely shared among the employees and stake holders.
Apple corporate culture has played a major role in its success; the corporate culture is founded on values, traits, morals, principles and standards that are believed to be crucial in assisting it and its employees to succeed. The corporate culture is the foundation for what is done in Apple and how it is done. Cumulatively, the distinctive values make Apple a unique company. Apple’s core corporate culture is founded on innovation and nurturing talents of creative people. The company strives to build highly innovative products that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of the customer. Apple’s products embody outstanding designs and styles that attract consumers across the world. Since its inception, Apple has always been associated with cutting edge technology; the company boasts of the most
Steve Jobs is the CEO at Apple. Jobs founded Apple in 1976, and the company has developed into a major force within the electronics industry. Much of the success of the company has been due to the leadership of Steve Jobs. He has the personal attributes which are needed in order to be a successful leader, for example he is smart, communicative and is a great co-ordinator. However, there are limitations to Jobs leadership at Apple with factors such as shareholders, corporate governance, corporate social
The three most important factors in Apple's past success before the death of Steve Jobs was the push for innovation, portable devices, and iTunes. Steve Jobs was a man who wanted to create the "future" of technology. He created a better home computer with the creation of Apple II PC and the Macintosh computer. The Macintosh computer was created for the students and working professionals. Steve Jobs was the forefront of Apple's new innovations. He had the creative mind and the ability to look to the future. When Apple removed him as the CEO of Apple, he didn't give up. He went and started a new company. With that company he came up with the foundation of the new operating software of Mac OS X. We can all tell that Apple needed Steve Jobs when all other CEOs failed. Since the removal of Steve Jobs as CEO, Apple took a big hit in the market. With this, Steve Jobs decided to move toward the mobile devices of iPhone, iPad, and iPod.
You’re absolutely correct, Apple has truly mastered the art of generating buzz and obtaining free advertising (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). Over the years they’ve masterfully leveraged secrecy and the art of strategically leaking information to drive customer and media anticipation for their products into the stratosphere (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). Even more impressive is Apple’s ability to consistently capitalize on that buzz by producing products that meet the amazingly high expectations of its customers. Apple’s ability to combine unmatched marketing sizzle with real innovative genius and manufacturing muscle, is what truly makes their products iconic and sets them apart as a company.
with the release of this product and Apple Inc.’s marketing strategy to sell and promote
Apple acknowledges and accepts that they have already used a large amount of capital in the planning and production of the new product. Some risk cannot be avoided, and the company must accept that.
In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as an advisory and with the purposes of reshaping the product line. The changes made by Jobs resulted in increased sales and $309 million in profits. Job changed the mindset of Apples management and development team. He encourage them to have the “think different” management style that promotes the development of products that are ahead of the technology and design curve, and a creative retail strategy. It is this strategy that would eventually make Apple the best-selling company in the PC industry.
Even though Apple has encountered many setbacks, it continues to bring new and improve products to the market. Apple’s competitive strategy has been innovation. They have made an extraordinary effort developing, implementing, and executing its very unique strategy through innovation which has resulted in new product, and the enrichment of the existing ones. More specifically, Apple attempts to meet and supply the needs of a global market, by offering eager and enthusiastic consumers with innovated and high-quality products and services. Apple has employed a differentiation strategy linked to innovation with its three core products (computers, personal media player, mobile phones, tablets and other accessories). A key piece of their strategy involves meeting the needs of the converging digital electronics and computer markets. Apple has elected to implement its strategy by designing and developing proprietary operating systems and software technologies, thus allowing for strict protection of its intellectual rights.
From its start-up until the present, Apple’s corporate structure hasn’t changed a lot. Before his death, Steve Jobs was the one to make the calls regarding all the decisions; everything had to be passed through him. The company’s decision making processes were and still are centralized, in which the CEO makes all the decisions but it is incorporating more of a collaborative approach. The company is doing so by encouraging its hardware and software teams to collaborate. This approach however, never existed when Jobs was the CEO. Apple is considered a centralized company because it makes high capital investments that encourage centralization. It is highly competitive, offers high technology products, has a homogeneous product line, low product diversification, and has a lot of experience doing international business. Furthermore, it is organized on different basis; functional, divisional and geographical. Its functional structure is that the innovations and visions essentially come from top management and flow down the organization. Top management includes the board of directors in which they oversee and ensure that shareholders’ interests are being served for a long-term. Also, its functional structure is departmentalized and includes marketing, engineering, manufacturing, financing, IT, research and development. Its divisional functions include the products the company is offering, the market it is operating in and geographical areas. Apple has four product categories; the