Apple Inc Organizational Leadership

and its impacts 5 B) SWOT analysis of Apple Inc. 7 1) Strengths 7 The financial position of Apple 7 Product Differentiation 8 2) Weaknesses 8 Executive changing 8 Protective strategy 9 3) Opportunities 9 Uncovered markets 9 Loyal customers 10 4) Threats 10 Rise of Google and other OS 10 Technology innovation 11 1) Strengths and Weaknesses of situational leadership style 12 Strengths 12 2) Weaknesses 12 Theory based practices that maximize the future success of a leader and organization 12 References 13 TASK 1 APPLE, Inc. A) 1) Company description Apple started just as an idea of Steve Jobs a man who had dropped out of school with his friend Steve Wozniak. They had extremely intelligent and innovative minds, and they were living in Silicon Valley. The two were employees of Hewlett Packard and later teamed up to come up with what is currently known as Apple Inc.

In the year 1980 and 1990, the company was doing very well due to the introduction of Macintosh which was a new version as well the new market of office computers. In 1984, Apple introduced Macintosh computer whose initial sale was 70,000 immediately it was launched. This brought about a serious struggle for power among the executives and hence causing Steve Jobs and some executives to depart from Apple. This was followed by a monetary loss in the middle of 1990’s which was associated with failed orders for the Macintosh computers (Pryor, 1989) Steve Jobs went back to apple in 1997 as the advisor after he had sold his new company NeXT, Inc. to Apple and later became the CEO of the company. Additionally, Apple is aimed at innovating and dictating the movement for the future expansion.

Another objective for the Apple was to expand and establish worldwide apple stores. Another objective of Apple Inc. is to make the products readily available in almost all retail channels all over the world. Lastly, one of the major objectives of Apple is to increase the sales volume and consequently increase the profit margins. The death left Apple staggering and hence had to look for the new direction and leadership. Later on, the company appointed a new CEO of the company by the name Tim Cook. The appointment of Tim as the CEO was a logical and strategic decision since he was the COO for the company where he was in charge of operations and sales globally. This involved managing the supply chain of the company, the sales activities and support and service in every market.

Therefore, due to all this accumulated experience, Cook was well placed in working in his new position in the company. His responsibility is to oversee various breakthroughs as far as the Mac products are concerned. He has been with the company since 1999. Another senior vice president and also the overall financial officer is Peter Oppenheimer. He has a good experience from finance and his good education level to the company since the year 1996. In the Hardware Engineering department is Dan Riccio as the senior vice president who has also been working with the company since 1998. 2 Billion in his first quarter. Therefore the combination of his work experience, education and the supporting cast keeps him moving the company towards realisation of his duties (Pryor, 1989) B) SWOT analysis of Apple Inc.

Any company is surrounded by strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Therefore, apple-like other company have them. The analysis of the Apple’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as it point of view through its evaluation of its opportunities and threats, is going to assist us to understand the whole company. The products of Apple are of high quality and made of comfortable designs as well. These features in their products have made their customers feel and take the product more valuable whenever they are using them. 2) Weaknesses Executive changing Steve Jobs whowas the genius behind the success of the company passed away in the year 2011 and had to be replaced by another person Tim Cooks. Though Tim Cook used to a senior vice president responsible for the worldwide operations, his experience could not match the intelligent that Steve Jobs possessed as the founder of the company.

Although the change from Steve Jobs was necessary, Tim is more experienced in operational practices which include the supply chain and it's cost reduction while the organisation is known for its innovative products. This was achieved through maintaining all the products the same without embracing innovations despite being a technology company. 3) Opportunities Uncovered markets Apple has not been able to exploit all its potential exhaustively. This implies that it has more room for increased sales volume and hence more profit margins. The company has targeted educational markets while neglecting the larger business segment. Larger enterprises, government organisations and the businessmen are the major customers within the market segment. By 2010, androids were the leading and attractive platforms for the smartphones all over the world.

Lower prices, different designs as well as easy modifications makes the customers more attracted to the android as compared to the IOS devices. On the other side of technology, Microsoft which is the giant in the industry of technology has well-shown ambition through the introduction of new OS which includes Windows RT, windows 8and other windows phone. This is accompanied by spending a substantive of money in marketing to capture a large market share within the industry. The father of Android Andy Rubin has said that there exist around 900, 000 devices which are android and are getting activated on a daily basis. He started and developed a new hardware and software company the NeXT, Inc. where he invested in the animation company namely Pixar Studios.