Corporate Governance Case on Apple

The purpose of this report is to give an analysis of the major issues that Apple Inc is facing or may face in the future. It includes an overview of the company in terms of external and internal issues and later gives recommendations on how certain issues can be resolved or prevented. The report first gives a brief explanation on the methodology that has been used and is followed by the main findings from the research. The findings include a description of the issue as well as each issue being analyzed through one of the six perspectives. It later follows conclusions about Apple and leads to recommendations that can be followed up to fix certain issues.

This report was done within Strategic Management course it consists on choosing a well known company that the public in general is familiar with and using the Hambrick/Fredrickson five element model describes how the strategy of a company can be seen. For this analysis I chose Apple Inc. because I think that it meets the requirements. Concluding the report, there is a summary where the soundness and successfulness of the company are evaluated.

Apple Inc. commonly known as Apple has effectively managed to be a successful company in a very competitive consumer electronics industry by been innovative and differentiating the company’s products with similar products in the markets by offering high quality products and good customer service while the actual manufacturing of the products is outsourced to trusted third party suppliers. On a wider perspective, the company has set high standards that even the company itself has to be on its level best to maintain the standards that it has set. Over the last few years, the consumer electronics market has

One of the most important parts of a business is the financial management. Each and every other company always strives to have the best management when it comes to its finances. Most organizations have come up with plans and marketing strategies. This is due to the fact tat when companies finances are poorly managed then definitely the whole company is likely to be in trouble or even come down. The financial techniques and principles in most cases comprise of quite a number of aspect for instance those that we intend to look at in this paper-the financial reporting. This will basically comprise of the quality of data and information that the company produced to some of the various stakeholders. Other than that, the paper will also analyze the financial position and performance of the organization using accounting ratios. Another important aspect of financial principles is costing. This basically entails the cost of producing goods and services in the company and how it generally affects the overall performance of the company. The paper will also delve into how important costs in the pricing strategy of the business are. It will further come up with a costing and pricing system that can help the company improve. Last but not least, we focus on the company's budgets and budgetary control. Here there are very important areas that have to be looked into, for

Throughout the past year, Apple stock has had an astounding growth of 45% over the past twelve months, as well as a 10% growth of dividends by 10%. This increase in dividend is expected to increase by 7.43% over the next 12 months. Along with stock price and dividends, earnings per share is also expected to rise. Earnings per share is expected to rise from the current amount of $1.88 to as high as $10.74 per share. Apple’s marketing strategy is designed to keep stock prices high and shareholders happy. This growth in Apple stock is expected to continue to rise with a median change of 8.7% in the next twelve months. The current state of Apple stock is very impressive and market predictions show that it should become even more impressive in the next twelve months. (Financial Times

General perceptions of Apple as a cashed up, financially dominant company are not without basis. With $194bn in cash and marketable securities, Apple executives would need to consider if they really need the money and what use would an extra 1.25bn in Swiss Francs be to them. However, they need not look further than Apple’s “Capital Return Plan”, where Apple have “executed (their) capital return program aggressively, and (they’ve) now taken action on over $112 billion of our $130 billion program.”(Luca Maestri, Apple SVC & CFO, Transcripts,

Apple Inc. started off as a small computer company and rose to prominence over the following years. They faced great challenges and obstacles to evolve and become one of the top notch corporations today. Having a great CEO, Steve Jobs, is credited for the success of Apple. Under the leadership of Steve Jobs, Apple was able to innovate industry changing technology.

Our group decided to analyse the company Apple Inc., listed on Nasdaq Market as AAPL. The analysis was mainly based on the annual financial report of the company for the fiscal year ended on September 29th 2007. Apple Inc. is today one of the most

Our analysis of Apple Inc. will incorporate the general overview of the company and how it records it revenues. We will observe how they make an honest effort to be within compliance of all accounting standards according to the Financial Accounting Standards Board for recording and disclosure of its income. Apple’s leading competitor, Google Inc., will also be examined to see whether they are comparable to Apple and still within compliance of the Securities and Exchange Commission and FASB for revenue recognition. Apple takes on design, development and marketing of personal computers, portable digital music players, and media devices that exceed the reach of everyday needs. The company also

Apple had nearly $137 billion of cash at the end of Dec 2012. Over the past few years, the Company had been highly successful with the launch of the iPhone 3G in 2008, and which was followed by the launch of iPad in 2010. The Company enjoyed high profitability, and was able to keep its costs at a minimum. The gross margin on the iPhone was between 49% and 58% from October 2010 to March 2012, and the gross margin on the iPad was between 23% and 32% in the same time period. Apple’s capital structure included no debt; hence, there was no outflow of cash for making interest payments.

Companies pay dividends to shareholders, which is a distribution of the company’s earnings. They can be issued as cash payments, shares of stock, and other property. A company’s board of directors pay on dividends at their discretion (Ross 248). In 2013 Apple paid a total of $10.5 billion in dividends, and $11 billion in dividends in 2013. As of October 2014, Apple Inc. reported having 26,112 recorded shareholders. In 2014 the company acquired Beats Music, LLC and in turn issued 5.1 million shares of its common stock. The company plans on increasing dividends on an annual basis. In 2014 the company utilized $45 billion to repurchase common stock and in result paid $11.1 billion in dividends, the company also repurchased stock in 2013 and paid dividends on that common stock. Payment on dividends in 2012 was far less than the payments in 2013 and 2014, only totaling $2.49 billion. The drastic increase it payments in 2013 and 2014 was due to the repurchase of common stock and the issuance of stock after the Beats Music, LLC acquisition (Apple Inc. Form 10-K. 2014.).

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

Apple Inc. is a globally recognised pioneer in the tech industry. It is a corporation that designs, develops and sells electronic products such as tablets, computers and phones. Founded by Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, it is a multinational corporation with headquarters in Cupertino, California. Tim Cook has been CEO since Jobs’ passing in 2011.

Design a process to identify and analyze the nature, source and scale of any significant risks or uncertainties faced by Apple Inc.

This paper presents a case study of Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is a technology based corporation with emphasis on computer software and hardware (MAC and Apps), tablets (IPad), smart phones (IPhone), and mp3 plays, (ITouch). Apple Inc. has grown tremendously over the years and ever since 2001 has expanded its brand and retail stores to over 375 stores/outlets globally. The business has seventy two thousand eight hundred employees in thirty eight countries. Apple Inc. has truly become one of the most efficacious corporations within its field behind or competing with Microsoft and Google Inc.