Overview of Apple and Its Corporate Strategy

Apple has created some small changes in its organisational behaviour structure to complement the needs of the current global market and industry demands. The hierarchy of Apple’s organisational structure contributes to strong management control within the company. By practicing this type of corporate structure business functions and product-based groups are controlled through the decisions of the CEO and other top leaders like Tim Cook. The advantage of this organisational structure is that it facilitates fast and effective strategic management implantation which helps establish coherence throughout the entire company. But there is a disadvantage to this corporate structure. There is low flexibility that corresponds with the current business needs and marketing plans. However, Tim Cook is trying to improve this problem by increasing collaboration amongst different parts of the firm.

Even though short-term wins are imperative to prevent loss of momentum and keeps the organisation engaged, Apple doesn’t focus on them. A short-term win would mean adding one or two new features to an existing product. Jamen Graves said the “organizations that outperform over a sustained period of time bake innovation into their culture.” Tim Cook has incorporated the four traits found within innovative companies: creativity, collaboration, courage and execution. When Steve Jobs established Apple their most successful products started with only a few people with no formal structure and little corporate oversight. Yet, “to turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines,” suggested Jobs. Apple has now built one of the most innovative companies in the world which many people enjoy working for as it lets them be creative, prompt new ideas which will result in launching successful, commercial new innovations.

Tim Cook described working for Steve Jobs was “liberating.” When he would approach his former boss with a big idea, Jobs would simply say “Ok” and let him run with it, if he found the idea to be a good one. “It was like a total revelation for me that a company could run like this, because I was used to these layers and bureaucracies and studies — the sort of paralysis that companies could get into — and Apple was totally different,” Cook mentioned. Jobs had a reputation for being very precise on the way he managed Apple. After his death he chose Cook to takeover as CEO of the company. Cook along with many other of the employees found Jobs to be a very inspiring leader. In the last several years Cook has followed in Jobs footsteps, acknowledging work well done, but the difference now is that Cook is taking time to praise individuals that have performed over expectation.

There is intensive collaboration between different groups and divisions in Apple to ensure innovation. These effective collaborations produced products such as the iPad, iPhone and Apple TV. The new collaborative approach is causing Apple to be more deliberate than it ever was and is causing some delays. Apple used to be the company with one guy calling all the shots which allowed product decisions to be easier but also made it slower at times. Jobs would get intensely focused at one thing which would make him ignore the other product ideas going on in the company. But now Cook’s collaborative approach helps make decisions more quickly, but the downside is there may be big delays if everyone is trying to come to an agreement on a decision.

Over the years Apple has achieved the Quantum Strategy – which “can be thought of as a strategy conditioned on the value of some quantum mechanical observable.” This strategy is rare which makes it incredibly difficult for competitors to intimidate. A key aspect of Apple’s strategy is that they can balance their high efficiency levels with their marvellous innovation. Apple aims for strategic alignment, focus, simplicity, synergies, difference, and systemic, mutually reinforcing interconnections. This leads to the employees performing extraordinarily elevating the company’s strength.

The reason Apple is so successful is all due to the fact of their organisational culture. This culture consists of excellence, creativity and innovation. Apple is known to recognise and reward excellence among workers. The company is well known around the world for its use of innovation which empowers Apple and its human resources to be unique and be more successful than its competitors. Apple’s management advocates creativity amongst employee’s knowledge, skills and abilities. In this case, the organisational culture helps exceeds customers expectations and preferences which Apple has maintained throughout its existence. Apple has an emphasis on secrecy which can inhibit rapport amongst employees. This corporate cultural issue can reduce business effectiveness and cultural turnover. Its combativeness also affects the corporate culture to a certain extent. They can try and fix this situation by changing lessening its organisation culture but not actually removing the combativeness. This will focus on reducing the disadvantages of combativeness, without eliminating the benefits of combative approaches in the company.