Executive Summary

The global business strategy refers to various business strategies that different organizations, companies, and other firms use while operating in the global field to serve customers. This paper will discuss the appropriateness of various management styles that will help in dealing with the various complex business situations. It will also use the case study of Apple Company to try and elaborate the concept of business strategy and management style. Apple is one of the Global companies that are dominating the electronics market. A lot of electronic companies have developed different forms of strategies that play a role to gain advantage so that they can be able to compete on the global scene. A company with clear strategies will always become successful in business. Any form of careless decision making and silly mistakes can easily take a company down within days. Furthermore, the paper will also cover various decision-making strategies; The discussion will further go ahead and describe areas that the company needs to adjust so that it can remain competitive in this century where technology is changing continuously.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary......................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 4

Evaluation of the Apple Inc Company........................................................................................ 4

Management style in Apple Company..................................................................................... 4

Conclusion....................................................................................................................................... 6

Bibliography.................................................................................................................................... 6

Introduction

The Apple Company is a prestigious and one of the most valuable brands in the business world. It is a company that offers various electronic goods to various parts of the world. The company provides various goods that are designed for different purposes and people, including businesses, individuals, service providers, institutions and resellers. The Apple Company tends to produce various products including personal computers, mobile communications, portable digital music players, and media devices. It also produces other products like Apple TV, iOS, operating system, OS X, I Phone, Mac and a portfolio for the consumers. However, one of the major products that makes Apple Company stand out from the other electronics companies is the iCloud that stores music, photos and other applications (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2013).

Evaluation of the Apple Inc Company

In recent years, the Apple Company has been one of the best companies when it comes to the production of the electronic devices. It has been producing products that target the premium market, which in turn enabled the company realize high returns from goods sold. Nevertheless, in the recent years, competition has increased in this field of production. This competition is being brought by the Samsung Company, which besides selling the application processors to Apple Company; it also produces smart phones and sells them at a much cheaper price. This is because their production cost is always low compared to that of the Apple Company. The Samsung Company is the current largest market shareholder (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2013). The Apple Company is experiencing a lot of issues regarding management styles and the way people perceive the strategies they are employing in managing the company. The paper will be focusing on different issues regarding the management methods and how they affect the performance of the company on the global scene.

Management style in Apple Company

For the Apple Company to remain competitive in the world of business and capture the largest market share, it has to have proper management (Avolio et al., 2013). The company is paying close attention to the vertical development of leadership instead of concentrating on the horizontal development of leadership, something that has been happening in the recent years. The Apple Company majorly focuses on the horizontal type of leadership whereby, the individual working in a company expects the leadership roles to be transmitted from one leader to the other. The employees in this kind of management do not have to work hard so that they can earn the title of a leader in the company (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2013).

Many companies are now looking for better ways to ensure that their employees remain relevant in the workplace and keep improving on their skills (Avolio et al., 2013). Many people were not responsible enough when it came to the handling their development in the workplace, leaving that responsibility to someone else. However, research is now indicating that people who handle their progress will always develop faster than the people who are not keen on handling their progress (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2013). Handling your progress is the only way to realize your mistakes make and be able to make amendments. Any person who does not follow and monitor his progress is likely to commit mistakes when given a much more responsibility. However, it is not easy to monitor your progress and it call for a lot of dedication. It is because of this reason that we have the mentorship program in the Apple company so that it can be easy for the company to monitor and support the progress of the people. It is always easy to have the support of the company as it provides the necessary resources for the progress process.

We have the current leadership models that encourage people to be in a position where they can handle their development. The individuals in the Apple Company were not focusing on their development, instead they left others to oversee their development. The diagram below is showing the three important points that the management has to put into consideration. In an organization like Apple, it has the task of producing of high-quality goods and services. It has a team that is working around the clock to ensure that everything is working according to the plan. An individual also in the diagram below is very important; especially in helping the company move forward (Avolio et al., 2013).

 

Figure I. Usage data for the leadership model website (model and TBM 2015)

Apple Company uses the checklist as it considers it as one of the best ways of evaluating the performance of a company. It is simple and effective since it consists of a series of questions that were used in the past and they only need a Yes or No answer. When we have an abnormally negative response, it means that that employee still needs a lot of training to improve the management skills that they have. It is easy to use the checklist so that it can easily be able to determine the type of employees that have deficiencies in different fields of production. The usage of the critical incidence method can be applied where the manager keeps a record of both the good and the bad incidences certain employees so that they can talk about it during the performance review of that employee (Cummings and Worley, 2014).

“The Apple Company” is encouraging its employees to feel free to consult whenever they have an issue regarding production or any other activity. The company is using the collective method rather than the individualistic method of management so that each person can be able to share information and consult whenever they have a problem. In the past, many Companies were practicing what was an individualist and elitist style of management whereby, it was only one person who had to make the right decision (Robbins et al., 2013). It was only one person that could make the decision while the other people in the organization were acting as the implements. In the modern management style, we now realize a change in the paradigm and many people are embracing the collective method of management. Observing the management of the Apple Company, you will easily realize that the company is now focusing on the collective type of leadership. The collective type of leadership is dealing with a group of individuals with the people who also hold the decision right regarding the company’s operations. In this form of leadership, people view the process of leadership and management as a process that is spreading across the network of various people. It is going to be easy for the question to shift from “who are the leaders?” and people will start asking about “what are the favorable conditions that are important and are going to help in bringing success to the Company? (Robbins et al., 2013)

The apple company is working hard to ensure that it provides the relevant support to the people around the world. The company is focusing on diversification in the labor force to try and bring balance in the workplace. It is recruiting individuals from all over the world so that they can undergo training and help the company to carry out its activities. The management of the Apple Company is also targeting the production of the environmentally friendly products that will ensure the safety of all individuals in the world. It is through the production of environmentally friendly products that the company will be able to convince the other users that they care about the future. Many people are now becoming environmentally sensitive and any form of environmentally negligence can lead to serious consequences.

Bibliography

Avolio, B. J., Sosik, J. J., Jung, D. I., & Berson, Y. (2013). Leadership models, methods, and applications. Handbook of psychology.

Cummings, T., & Worley, C. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning. Rigby, D., & Bilodeau, B. (2013). Management tools & trends 2013. Bain & Company.

Robbins, S., Judge, T. A., Millett, B., & Boyle, M. (2013). Organisational behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.