Unveiling Apple Inc.: A Comprehensive Analysis of Leadership, Strategy, Ethics, Economics, Demand, and Finance

Introduction

Organizational assessment is a critical element in understanding a company's performance and the factors that affect the performance of that particular company. This paper will primarily focus on Apple Inc., which is a publicly traded company. Over the years, Apple Inc. has risen through the ranks among the publicly traded companies to become the most valuable publicly traded company as of 2020. As of August 2020, Apple Inc. recorded a market cap of 2 trillion dollars, making it the first publicly traded company in the US to attain such a market cap and the world's most valuable publicly traded company. This position was previously held by Saudi Aramco (Madura, 2020). Specifically, this paper will seek to perform a leadership analysis, strategic analysis, economic analysis, and demand analysis of Apple Inc. Additionally, this paper will look into the ethical and financial factors faced by the company.

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Week 1: Choose an Organization

Apple Inc.

Week 2: Leadership Analysis

Steve Jobs, the founder and former CEO of Apple Inc., adopted an autocratic style of leadership during his tenure in the organization. In most instances, Jobs controlled all the company's decisions and had little to no consideration of other people's input towards to decision-making processes of the company (Heracleous and Papachroni, 2016).

Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple Inc., has adopted a democratic leadership style, unlike his predecessor. Tim acknowledges his employees' input in the company's decision-making processes, which has then enhanced the goodwill of the employees towards him (Heracleous and Papachroni, 2016).

Week 3: Ethical Factors

It has been shown that Apple Inc. has violated several ethical factors such as human rights and workers' rights through employing children in the factories such as in the DRC, overworking and underpayment of employees, and poor working conditions. Additionally, Apple Inc. has faced ethical issues relating to the environment, with activists claiming that it is not environmentally conscious (Khan et al., 2015).

Week 4: Strategic Analysis

The strategic analysis tool that will be used in this study is the SWOT analysis. One of the strengths of Apple Inc. includes its brand image and equity, which is known for its high quality and excellent customer satisfaction, and its high-profit margins. Another power is its global presence in various countries and continents, customer loyalty, and superior financial strength, among others (Payne, 2017).

Some of the company's weaknesses include a limited product portfolio, incompatibility with devices from other brands, and high-end prices, which only target upper and middle-class consumers (Khan et al., 2015).

The opportunities available for Apple Inc. include increasing sales volume, launching new products, and expanding their distribution networks (Khan et al., 2015).

The threats faced by Apple Inc. include high competition, economic fluctuations, and rising labor costs in different countries where the company's factories are situated (Khan et al., 2015).

Week 5: Economic Analysis

Market structure- Apple Inc. operates in an oligopolistic market because the market is mainly dominated by a relatively small number of large firms, considerably high entry barriers, and the firms sell almost identical items (Tasnim, 2018).

Market Power - Apple Inc. has a relatively high market power due to its customer loyalty, brand positioning, and product differentiation (Tasnim, 2018).

Competition - Apple Inc. faces competition from four major companies, i.e., Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi (Tasnim, 2018).

Consumer Target - Apple Inc.'s primary target customers are in the upper and middle classes aged between 14 to 55 years (Tasnim, 2018).

Week 6: Demand Analysis

Apple Inc. products have always had a high demand even though they are highly priced. Although the company has previously attempted to increase its products' supply, the demand has consistently surpassed the supply (Tasnim, 2018).

Week 7: Financial Factors

Cash flow- Apple Inc.’s cash generated by operating activities and cash generated by investing activities have been fluctuating from 2017 to 2019 while the cash used in financing activities has been steadily decreasing from 2017 to 2019 (Apple Inc., 2019).

Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) - Apple Inc.'s ROIC is at 24.02%, implying that it is earning excessive returns from its investments (Apple Inc., 2019).

References

Apple Inc. Annual Reports, (2019). https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/a/NASDAQ_AAPL_2019.pdf

Heracleous, L., & Papachroni, A. (2016). Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Apple Inc. SAGE Publications Ltd. http://www.garyvollbracht.com/wp-content/uploads/14.06.15 NYT-Tim-Cook-Making-Apple-His-Own.pdf

Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N., & Alam, S. (2015). A critical analysis of the internal and external environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management, 3(6), 955-961. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Md_Alam136/publication/282274921_A_CRITICAL_ANALYSIS_OF_INTERNAL_AND_EXTERNAL_ENVIRONMENT_OF_APPLE_INC/links/56ff003908aea6b77468d502/A-CRITICAL-ANALYSIS-OF-INTERNAL-AND-EXTERNAL-ENVIRONMENT-OF-APPLE-INC.pdf

Madura, J. (2020). Financial markets & institutions. Cengage learning. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=a3TLDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=most+valuable+publicly+traded+company+as+of+2020&ots=nKfv33I91m&sig=l4K2YIQsgt6ouHbgC4nIoLxh_Lc

Payne, B. (2017). Brand Positioning and its Usefulness for Brand Management: the Case of Apple Inc. Newcastle Business School Student Journal, 1(1), 51-57. http://novaojs.newcastle.edu.au/uonsbj/index.php/uonsbj/article/view/10

Tasnim, M. (2018). An Organizational Analysis on Apple. European Journal of Business and Management, 10(11). https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234628347.pdf