Decision Making Process: iPhone Battery Lawsuit - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

The decision-making process entails a sequence of steps followed by managers in a company to ascertain the intended path for the firm initiatives and to set particular actions in motion (DruryGrogan, 2017). Business choices are generally based on objective facts analysis, aided by the use of analytics tools and business intelligence. Leaders of organizations are charged with solving these problems every day. Therefore, Apple Inc. company managers were faced with the iPhone battery lawsuit problem. Since the decision-making process is crucial, the series of steps employed significantly affect the entire process (DruryGrogan, 2017). This paper seeks to provide a background to the iPhone battery problem, its solution based on the decision-making process provided, and assessing the skipped steps in the process and other approaches to decision-making.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Implementation of Performance

The iPhone battery problem, battery-gate, describes the implementation of performance throttling on older models of iPhones to preserve system stability on degraded batteries without informing users (Perzanowski, 2020). Through rigorous research in 2016, the Apple managers identified the problem of older iPhone models experiencing unexpected shutdowns was a battery issue. The company specifically did not inform users of the cause of those shutdowns. As a result, Apple's battery-gate problem became among the biggest disgraces in company history.

Apple Inc. managers identified various decision criteria for the iPhone battery problem as the iOS system upgrade and battery replacements (Thuy, 2018). Although these decision criteria were at Apple's managers' disposal, they did not allocate weights to them. The managers instead tried individual criteria to solve the problem. Since weight allocation is a critical step in the decision-making process, avoiding it led to the failure to prioritize the criteria for the decision, resulting in the iPhone battery lawsuit or the Apple class action.

In an attempt to solve the problem, Apple secretly updated iPhone iOS to iOS 10.2.1, which transformed power delivery on all iPhone devices newer than the iPhone 6 (Perzanowski, 2020). Numerous fixes obscured this feature for design bugs and security that were presented by iOS 10.2. Consequently, this controlling fixed most unexpected shutdowns, but at the concealed cost of reduced performance. The iPhone users were led to believe that the iOS update, and any subsequent performance problems, were the only solution for their ailing phones (Perzanowski, 2020). Apple remained silent about the full intent behind the update limiting battery excessive exertion that reduced phone-crashing power spikes.

Public Awareness

The increased public awareness led to Apple class action or the iPhone battery lawsuit. The class action alleged that Apple manipulated its software in ways that caused the battery of certain iPhones to suddenly drain or make the phone sluggish, prompting some users to desire a new purchase (Perzanowski, 2020). Following a wave of lawsuits, Apple agreed to settle the matter. The proposed settlement calls for Apple to compensate those who bought an iPhone 6 or 7 or similar devices from that era. Furthermore, the support for the right to repair legislation requires the company to allow independent repair shops and customers access to original equipment manufacturer batteries to ease the replacement when they get exhausted.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the decision-making process is an important process that must be stepwise followed. Therefore, skipping any step leads to both long-term and short-term negative repercussions. For instance, Apple Inc. would have prioritized the possible solution by assigning weights and implementing the best option for the problem, the battery replacement option. This solution would have saved the company's reputation, reliability, compensation fee, and access provision to OEM batteries.

References

DruryGrogan, M. L. (2017). Decision Making Processes in Organizations. The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication, 1-21. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118955567.wbieoc055

Perzanowski, A. (2020). Consumer Perceptions of the Right to Repair. Indiana Law Journal, Forthcoming. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3584377

Thuy, P. T. (2018). Discussing the Trend of Class Action in Consumer Dispute Settlement Based on the Lawsuit Against Apple over Slowing Down iPhones in Vietnam. VNU Journal of Science: Legal Studies, 34(2). https://js.vnu.edu.vn/LS/article/view/4148