Key Functions Of Managers Within Organizations

Identify key functions of managers within organizations.

Identify control systems used in management.

Research environmental influences that managers encounter.

Analyze elements in the strategic planning process.

Analyze elements of organizational structure and design.

Examine motivational strategies used by managers within organizational settings.

Control Systems

• Strengths– Apple strengths lies in their number of patent protection, brand loyalty, design and innovation. Having many numbers of patents helps the company to be a first mover in the respective field of technology. This will also bring more profit to the company, as for using those technologies, other companies need to give them an amount of price. Moreover, Brand loyalty can also help significantly in the business, as it will automatically create a promotion in respective with word of mouth publicity. Innovation is also called as a fuel of competitive advantage (Teece, 2010) and this can help the company to increase their customer base.
• Weakness – Being a giant multinational corporation, the company is also facing some weakness in the form of proprietary software and high premium prices product. However, if company formulate plan strategies, they can overcome with these areas of weakness. For example, the company can use survey tool on the social media sites by rising questions  (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010) like – should their software need to be open-source like android or they can ask for their suggestions to improve in the respective field. This will also help them in connecting with the customers and with the help of feedbacks; they can also enhance their designs of the products. High premium price is a competitive advantage of Apple, which cannot be disturbed but selling additional and corresponding products with the core products can be fitted with their planning strategy.
• Opportunities – Apple has huge opportunities in the area of distribution network, strong market presence and differentiation strategy. Apple needs diversity into various other product lines too with their core products and use the competency of their already established distribution network. This will help them in saving lot amount of costs and also attract more number of customers in those new products due to their strong market presence.
• Threats – The company facing several threats in respect with their pricing strategy, device obsolesce and durability. However, these can be fixed if company make adequate plans for the same. For example, they can use the brainstorming session including many skilled managers and researchers to be discussed on pricing strategy. In respect with device obsolesce, the company need to push regular software updates as it can enhance the performance of the device.

• Political Factors– Major sales contribution to Apple company comes from outside US amounting to more than $113.8 whereas the revenue from the home country is $68.8 (Clarke & Boersma, 2017). Therefore, many political insurgences in these nations can have a positive or negative impact on the company.
• Economic Factors– Recession and economics crises such as increase rate of inflation can also have a significant impact on Apple. For example, in the global recession 2013, Apple had observed slow economic growth in 2013 and 2014 (Piketty & Saez, 2013).

• Social Factors– The globalization, lifestyle and changing customers preference are leaving significant impact on the Apple corporation. The demand of the digital services also rise with the social media and this can be proved to be an opportunity for various products of the Apple.
• Technological Factors– Apple is one of the pioneering innovative company who has used technology as their competitive advantages (Leavy, 2012). However, Apple proprietary OS have limited varieties of applications to the MacBook and iPhone users.
• Legal Factors– Apple produces many numbers of brands and thus it is all enclosed by intellectual property acts such as music rights and software.
• Environmental Factors – Before, The company had faced several issues in relating to discarding the electronic junk (like lithium batteries) that is used (Sehnkar, 2010). Other factors that can affect Apple production are – global warming, pollution concern in China, etc.

The biggest environmental issue facing Apple is the disposal of used or nonworking electronics devices. There is a high expense in the disposing of the devices, particularly lithium batteries. Apple is also vulnerable to increases in electricity costs as their operation highly depends on data centres and other internet infrastructures (Kurk & Eagan, 2008). However, Apple has stated in their global sustainable report that they are using clean energy in all their offices, retail stores and data centres. One of the most significant element is the social factors as due to the rise of the social media, the demand for their products is also increasing which in turn increase their profitability.

• Customers and Consumers– This group includes the original buyer of Apple products as well as individuals customer. The users accept premium pricing as thehy are getting high quality and features in these products.
• Apple Employees– These stakeholders are composed at Apple Facilities. The main motives of them are career development and adequate compensation. There are quite significant as they directly define human resource capabilities in achievement of goals and earning profit.
• Investors– There are interested in getting maximum returns on their investments. They also make the organization react towards corporate social responsibility.
• Employees of Suppliers and Distributors– These are indirect stakeholders in Apple business and their motive is also proper compensation and job security. Apple has also maintained suppliers code of conduct.

I feel that Customers/Consumers need to be considered as the top stakeholders of the company. All the company products and services are directed towards them only. They are also called to be king pin of an organization.

Apple organization structure contributes to effective and rapid innovation, which is an essential aspect of any organization. It is composed of workforce groups, resources, departments and interconnection between them (Teece, 2010). Apple has a hierarchical organization structure but a week functional matrix.

In respect with departmentalization, the business of Apple is manage by practising territorial departmentalization geographically. Their operating segments are departmentalized globally in the US, Japan, Europe and 606 retail stores all over the globe (Crain & Abraham, 2008). A line of command is extending from the upper organizations level to the lower organizations levels. It states that lower level needs to report to the upper level, whereas the upper level will supervise and direct the lower level employees. In addition, the company is having a wide span of control having 13 departments and each has its own group of employee.

In addition, Apple has adopted mechanistic structure. This structure gives them a stable environment, centralization control, low differentiation of tasks with effective standardization. This structure is applied with the help of mass production and top management leadership style.

Apple can motivate their employees in various ways. As per the Maslow’s theory, the needs placed on lower level need to be fulfil on a prior basis. In their company, they fulfil their employees’ psychological needs by setting up an average salary of $108,483 (Crain & Abraham, 2008), which basically certify their survival. Safety needs of the employees are also supported by the company as they have design and develop severals safety standards including the training of employees for using equipment safely. In addition, As per Apple 2013 annual report, the company is also providing their employees a better workplace by enhancing worker and supervisor relationships.

Other than basic needs, the company is also focusing on higher order needs. For example, the employee's esteem needs are fullfiled when company reward their executives by increment in their bonus salary from 3 to 5 percent. At the top level of Maslow theory, the company also introducing various education and development programme so that an employee overall personality can be developed.

With help of both the parts of research, four-pronged approach is being ascertained –

• Leverage on Innovation and Consumer Feedback– Due to the rapid advancement in the technology and with the nature of the industry, it is significant for the organization to invest in R and D department so that to keep up in the fast-paced industry. This will lead to innovation and also gives them a competitive advantage. They also need to improve their products design by taking feedback from the customers and users
• Leadership – The Company need to make transition of leadership. The increased visibility of its leader will gain more confidence among the shareholders and this will be best considering their future prospects.
• Targeting emerging market – The market potential in the emerging countries is huge and Apple can tap this easily.
• Launching new product line – As the company already have strong presence in the market and a long and strong distribution system, launching a new product line will help them a lot.

Benchmarking will be the process that I will use in monitoring the process, as it will give me best insights by comparing to the business practices best of industries. Moreover, Control can focus on events before, during or after a process. To monitor the activities, concurrent and feedback controls will be the best practices as it will give me the direct supervision of the activities as well as it can also be ascertained that whether performance meets established standards or not.

In concurrent control, tracking of employee performance with the help of information system will also be established so that every employee gets motivated with the comparison of his or her peer's performance. Moreover, in feedback control, the performance of the employees can be analysed on a monthly basis by analysing the difference between output and input.

In addition, to check whether the goal has been accomplished or not, survey can be raised or polled on the social media sites in relation with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Moreover, it can also be ascertained by analysing region wise growth in sales and revenue.

References

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Clarke, T., & Boersma, M. (2017). The governance of global value chains: Unresolved human rights, environmental and ethical dilemmas in the apple supply chain. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(1), 111-131.

Crain, D. W., & Abraham, S. (2008). Using value-chain analysis to discover customers' strategic needs. Strategy & Leadership, 36(4), 29-39.

Frost, S., & Burnett, M. (2007). Case study: the Apple iPod in China. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 14(2), 103-113.

Hoffman, D. L., & Fodor, M. (2010). Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), 41.

Kurk, F., & Eagan, P. (2008). The value of adding design-for-the-environment to pollution prevention assistance options. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(6), 722-726.

Leavy, B. (2012). Collaborative innovation as the new imperative–design thinking, value co-creation and the power of “pull”. Strategy & Leadership, 40(2), 25-34.

Piketty, T., & Saez, E. (2013). Top incomes and the great recession: Recent evolutions and policy implications. IMF economic review, 61(3), 456-478.

Shenkar, O. (2010). Copycats: How smart companies use imitation to gain a strategic edge. Strategic Direction, 26(10), 3-5.

Teece, D. J. (2010). Business models, business strategy and innovation. Long range planning, 43(2-3), 172-194.