Apple, Inc. Quality Management Assignment Sample

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Introduction

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The term “quality management” refers to the process using which a company maintains a consistent level of perfection of its products and services. A company can maintain such a level of excellence only when it can oversee all the necessary activities and tasks and perform them accordingly. The activities and tasks include determining a policy to maintain the quality, creating plans and implementing them for maximum quality control and improvement (Investopedia, 2020). A company needs to focus on quality management because it helps to improve the quality, durability, performance, sustainability and reliability of its products and services by eliminating defects. When consumers get access to high-quality products, they automatically develop trust in the organization (Bastas and Liyanage, 2018). This helps an organization to get a dedicated customer base, which eventually triggers a good company reputation and this results in increased revenue amount. According to Han and Oh (2020), the primary focus of a company should be thinking about improving or implementing quality management is to understand the customers’ requirements and make an effort to surpass the consumers’ expectations by delivering outstanding products. This report will focus on the quality management strategy followed by Apple Inc. Additionally, this report will also identify the b part of the quality management strategy that makes Apple Inc. such a popular and unique company. Moreover, it will also try to find out whether there is any weak point or flaws in the quality management strategy of the company which the company can improve. Apart from that, this report also aims to identify the current position of the company by assessing its environment. Lastly, after evaluating all the factors, this report will also have some recommendations for the company using which it can gain more competitive advantages.

Company Overview

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Inc. in 1976. Earlier, it was known as American Multinational Industry which was renowned for developing and selling the Wozniak Apple 1 Personal Computer. The company is headquartered in Cupertino, California. Based on revenue, the company is considered one of the top tech companies all over the world. According to Rajput (2021), Apple can be undoubtedly listed among the top four tech companies, and the other three companies are Google, Facebook and Amazon. As of Fiscal Year 2021, Apple has more than 154 thousand full-time employees (Statista, 2022). According to the latest reports of December 2021, the company’s revenue was $123.95 billion. Specifically, the research on Apple quality management demonstrates how Apple Computer Inc. has evolved into a global corporation that modifies, develops, and distributes consumer software and gadgets, as well as online services to clients all over the world. The industry places a high value on quality and social responsibility as a result of the standards of an intelligent management system. The company's mission is always evolving. "Apple designs Macs," which are widely acknowledged as the best personal computers; iPhones, in addition to iWork, the professional applications, iTunes, and iPods are the major products and services the company offers (Verma and Sambhav, 2020). 

The reason for choosing Apple. Inc because it is one of the popular brands all over the world when the consumer electronics are a concern. The company follows a unique quality management procedure that is based on several factors such as vision, mission, objectives, strategic implementation, control and formulation. 

Source: (Statista, 2022)

Quality Management Strategy of Apple, Inc.

Apple's story has been the model of success for quite a few years now, and there are uncountable beginner companies with little success that tries to emulate the strategies adopted by Apple and walk in its footsteps to achieve success. The success story of Apple lies in its ability to provide not only unique machines and devices but also very genuine and quality customer services. Apple's iStore is a chain of outlets across the globe that is highly accessible to the consumer base of the company and provides quality services (Ng et al., 2018). As aforementioned, Apple's success came with its durable devices, but it must also be noted how Apple made its products not only durable and long-lasting but also very catchy in terms of their looks, ever since the days of the iPod to the times of multiple iPhone series. The accessibility of iStore all over the world makes the customer be at ease and associate themselves with the company at all times. Apple's success is truly a result of the quality culture which they maintain within their organization. Apple is a global enterprise, and its organizational skills are very vast, and that makes the beginner companies trying to follow in their footsteps find it hard to cope with that high-end theme (Zhou and Li, 2020). Therefore, this paper analyzes and is an effort to uncover Apple's quality management strategies. 

Employee empowerment

To run any organization, and especially the one as globally vast as Apple, employees play the most crucial role, and it is on the back of the employees that the company actually functions (Trivedi, 2019). Apple is an elaborate organization, the efficiency of which is demonstrated by the quality of its employees and how they show up every day to do their jobs. It is undeniable that the jobs are bound to be hectic, but the employees still work in an efficient manner. Their efficiency comes from the belief that whatever they are doing influences the world in a significant manner. Customers and clients who visit the Apple store are usually enthusiastic and satisfied with the services because they find the employees to be highly engaging and of a helping manner. The peaceful nature of the staff gives the customers a memorable experience. Although the employees must get the credit for their quality, a large part of the success also goes to Apple, for they choose their employees in their manner. They hire employees based on their outlook towards life, the kind of people who have a knack for interaction. The company focuses on practical skills but also through training the inborne capability within a person to be easygoing, soft, amicable and humble while dealing with people (Anisdahl and Lerberg, 2020). This is a significant part of Apple's success story, which attracts many quality employees towards it. The employees would not seem robotic or like they are repeating from a script, but they are ingrained with the values of the company and are trained using a manual in such a way that they naturally deal with the clients and customers in the best way possible. The training manual empowers the employees to float beyond the usual 'dos and don'ts to satisfy the customer if the need be. All of this is a cycle; the best employees attract clients and consequently increase the profitability of the company. 

Source: (Anisdahl and Lerberg, 2020)

Benchmarking

Apple is a company that is an expert in the art of benchmarking, which is an integral part of the strategy to maintain and manage the overall quality standards. Instead of advertising about the quality of nuances such as the processors within a machine, Apple focuses on the practical needs of the clients, which cater to the best of their needs. Apple emphasizes the improved quality of the newer versions of their devices in comparison to the older ones in order to make themselves transparently reliable in front of their clientele, and their concrete improvements justify their upgrades. Apple is not a company that functions in an autocratic manner ignoring the views and wishes of its employees (Kaponda, 2020). The feedback and inputs from the employees are taken seriously, and the products are improved in accordance with those inputs. This relationship between the company, the employees and the customers contributes to the creation of a positive cycle of development.

Critical analysis of Apple’s quality management strategy

The quality management strategy of Apple holds a great significance in case of its operational management and decision-making factors. This is because both factors are responsible for emphasizing the standards and quality of the products and services of Apple, Inc. The activities and tasks the company performs in order to maintain the excellence of its products and services help to eliminate the flaws in the system and ensure the company delivers the best to its consumers. The primary aim of any company is to encourage everyone in the organization to improve their performance in order to achieve the common goal of maintaining organizational quality and reputation, excelling in internal and external operations and delivering the best outputs. Following the strategy helps the company to complete its end-to-end operations and getting success in delivering outstanding products in the market (Zhou and Li, 2020). 

A hallmark of Apple Inc.'s many divisions, including product design, retail, development, and market control, is the company's high-quality management standards. In order to ensure and show a comprehensive strategy for boosting its quality standards, it even pays attention to resource management, inventory quality, and industrial designs. In order to keep its workers engaged and happy, Apple's quality management uses public discussion or effective meetings as a major source of incentive.

Apple Inc. management uses histograms, cause-and-effect diagrams, control charts, and Pareto diagrams for quality control. Apple has been able to reduce supply chain waste while preserving efficiency and responsiveness of goods and services by taking on this role. Quality management at Apple may help Apple achieve its commercial goals. TQM helps them accomplish their core aim of optimizing shareholder profitability and providing excellent customer service (Park, 2021). It helps management evaluate innovative quality improvement initiatives that benefit both society and the environment. Quality management ensures employees receive the training they need to increase product quality. 

Apple has been criticized for anti-competitive behavior, misleading warranties and not providing enough security to protect the consumers’ data (Moore and Tambini, 2018). These are all the things the company needs to improve with proper quality management strategies. As cyberattacks are a major threat to almost everyone today, Apple has to come up with strategies that can assure customers that their shared information is completely safe. That's the reason why the company has to use other quality management approaches such as “continual improvement” and “factual approach to decision making”. No matter how successful a company is, it has to push its limits for more improvement, and that’s why Apple should focus on implementing advanced technology to enhance its products, features, services and data security. On the other hand, the company needs to make its decision by evaluating more factual data to provide consumers with the best.

Identification of Opportunities & Strength

Over the several years, Apple Inc. has developed its brand value enormously within the market place. It has a couple of other brands as its competitors, but the product range and extremely advanced features have made the company visibly distinctive amongst them. Apple Inc. focuses on its ultimate growth and gives importance to its valuable customer demands. An unmatched level of security is the reason why most of the people prefer iOS gadgets over other brands. But the over expensiveness has spared a range of customers from Apple Inc. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, each and every business sector has faced a huge amount of loss including Apple. But the company has not lost hope and continuously working in the overall development of their brand. In this segment, the strength of the company and the upcoming opportunities of the company will be discussed.

Strengths:

Topmost valuable brand:

As per the annual report ‘Global 500, 2020’ published by Brand Finance, Apple has snatched the place of the most valuable and best brand in the world for the 9th successive year. 

Global popularity

According to Cheng et al. (2020), when it concerns highly developed computer systems and smart gadgets, Apple is among the most trustworthy companies. It has a constant increase in the number of loyal clients.

Effective research and frameworks:

Apple gives extreme care in designing and developing their gadgets. They conduct a thorough research about features along with the demands of their customers.

A brand of people’s choice:

As per Li et al. (2021), it is no surprise that Apple is one of the most famous brands in business settings, particularly among creative individuals who are related to animation, graphic arts, video content, and other creative activities. Apple provides high-quality technology solutions to meet the demands of each and every business. Hence, professionals prefer a brand like iMacs and Mac Pro considering the advanced technology.

Opportunities:

Efficient professionals

Workers in Apple make a b team of professionals who possess experience of several years. Apple can expand and increase its number of professionals so that they can match the level of objectives.

Consistency in customer growth

As per Greg et al. (2020) due to apples tightest security system and advanced technology every year, it attracts a wide range of customers. Apple should be more focused on the advanced development of its products in order to gain large profitability.

Expansion of network

Despite the opportunity for expansion of their company, the recent distribution market of Apple is comparatively restricted to its population among people. Apple should execute strategies considering the growth of the brand while making higher levels of profitability. 

Advanced autonomous technology

People are getting more attracted to automobiles day by day. According to Li et al. (2021), Apple has the facility of self-driven technology in their automobiles but they should focus on developing fully advanced electric cars.

Recommendations

• A more detailed description of the company's corporate philosophy, people, and images might help Apple Inc. entice new clients in the commercial sector. Product specifications, new innovations, and new product launches can be communicated to customers as well as potential business markets by following the customer focus approach in mind.
• Apple is known as a company that promotes its values and beliefs in a large manner. However, instead of doing this, it can become transparent to its employees. This way, the employees can understand their goals and perform accordingly.
• Lastly, there are companies like Samsung, LG, Nokia, and Xiaomi that are developing new products at more affordable rates. In order to compete with them, Apple should follow the factual approach of quality management and set their pricing at a competitive and affordable rate to attract more customers.
• Apple Inc. focuses more on product development rather than its market popularity. Market growth strategies do not get much consideration from the company itself. But this strategy does not affect their market popularity as they continuously work on different ideas in which they can serve their customers. It is a matter of consideration that in order to secure a safe place in the marketplace, Apple needs to give some attention to market penetration and development.

Conclusion

Through the above discussed Apple’s quality management, it can be said without any doubt in mind that the company has to embrace certain crucial steps considering the improvement of its product ranges while controlling the obstacles and controversies it is confronting. Each and every product of Apple is considered most important therefore the brand should upgrade its ways to improve its product quality along with administration and frameworks. This would ultimately contribute in attracting more customers. Moreover, effective mission and vision statements can clarify the primary goals and objectives of the company.