Organization Design Models: Apple Inc. Assignment Sample

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Introduction

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The relationship that investigates the empirical strategic topology of a certain organization links their strategies and management reports together for applying a strategic classification which further can be validated by the organization's reviews and performance. Similar to that here we are going to discuss the summarizing measures that Apple takes as a company for their strategic performance linkage and methodological performance identification which would help to distinguish their validating strategies and frameworks and how they use key influences of business strategies and theoretical perspectives to implement organizational design models. These models not only help to understand the productivity of the workforce and work processes but also gives improved strategic alignment to the development strategies and people management that the organization shows. We are also going to discuss the recommendation for future business objectives for Apple (He, 2021).

Key influences on business strategy,

Organization type 

Apple can be described as an organization having the unitary organizational form or better known as a functional organization type. These organizations generally have to enforce coordination between their organization in a u-shape which designs one group of particular employees who are assigned to a particular task being under manager and all of those managers are represented and managed by the CEO (He, 2021).

Organization elements 

Apple's organizational elements consist of traditional hierarchy systems into a business functional Matrix. Also, apple's characteristics are divided according to the product that they institute bad business upon. Apple has completely different product-based decisions and business organizations for their iOS products and their Mac OS products which are separately collaborated and involved with three structural elements,

• Spoke and wheel hierarchy
• Product-based divisions
• Weak functional Matrix.

Also, the corporate structure in Apple has b control over its hierarchy support and management as a leader like Tim Cook being the CEO effectively controls all the decisions. Also, their limited organizational flexibility enables them to have a structure that responds to the current business needs and the market derivatives according to which the trends and consumes more products changes and shows improvements by increasing flexibility and process collaboration.

External influences

For external influences, we will be reviewing STEEPLE factors,

• Social factors such as mobile devices are the major significant opportunity as Apple's 65% of the revenue comes from the devices and necessary digital systems along with it. Despite the opportunities, certain social factors have disrupted their sales, especially coronavirus pandemic and opposing external services because even though Apple's luxury products have seen inflation prices added to it the sales and demand also increase creating new opportunities and possibilities for newer products.
• Technological, analyzing apple business opportunities this is very understandable that the technological factor is their extending growth opportunity as customers expect improved models and products after each and every release, yet many high-value technological products are innovated in a certain way that it is offered as a value for price product in comparison to any of their rival brand image products. The consequences of this propel as the framework and extended iOS cloud system presented by Apple gives more benefit of technological services but at the same time, they have to be much more aware of the technological factors affecting their customers.
• Economic, inflation and employment rates are the two economic factors that affect apples performance and condition in the market. Economic stability in Apple's expansion and growth brings about more economic opportunities determining their potential in this competitive market facing all the problems and challenges due to the pricing policies that Apple has for the iOS and macOS products. 
• Environmental, the aspects of environmental trends that Apple brings into energy efficiency projects like processors and batteries along with other equipment have provided a stranded corporate image for the organization. Apart from that also the responsibilities that Apple takes towards the carbon footprinting disposes the equipment and the electrical products and makes non-working electronic devices containing lithium more compelled so that they are not dumped in the landfills but are recycled in some way or the other (He, 2021).
• Politically, apples extend for achieving government stability is very important as they step into the 1 trillion US dollar Mark as an organization. This is one of the reasons that their dispute with the US federal bureau of investigation on the significant case of the controversial Saudi Arabia government has attracted some criticism. Also, Apple as an organization has a political factor that impacts international governments as we have seen happening with Dimitri Gorotsov, a member of the Russian parliament who interfered with the political business of Apple in Russia with the approach of the Russian law system against the organization.
• Legal, Apple also has an analysis that regulates its influence over the legal threats and the company. This means that Apple has faced many lawsuits which could have resulted in making their brand image bad or tainted in front of the public but it didn't because of their supervisory requirements and their private information. Back when Apple introduced Apple Pay it was a highly monitored overlooking application as people thought the intellectual properties and their money could go into any other people's account if Apple Pay could be hackable. Now the intellectual property faces some lawsuits but after that Apple safely demonstrated that their application is not penetrable by hackers.
• Ethically, Apple is known for being accountable for its independent assessments and internal effectiveness. Apple's chief components officer always provides committees and the board of directors with audits and financial analysis which reflects their upcoming trends and their past emerging training and policies giving a complete 360-degree analysis on a particular product. It is very safe to say that providing all of the analysis and factors of that company could be one of the reasons that they are over a trillion US dollars as an organization right now

Performance measures.

An organization has successfully performed performance measures as an indicator of alignment of its long-term plan. This long-term plan generally concludes a holistic approach towards customer loyalty and customer service. Customer satisfaction is one of the most competent commitments that the employees of Apple works towards as their alignment of employee surveys and comprehensive reviews have shown that market shares and shareholder value comes second to customer satisfaction which is a bold statement to be made for an organization this big (Romme, 2019).

Historical and theoretical perspectives of organization design

There are several theories on how an organization's structure is organized and managed by its core members, but one of the most widely accepted is that it may be broken down into a set of principles.

There is a fundamental comparison between the two organizational models to understand organizational design better.

• To begin with, the learner will utilize the McKinsey 7S model, which is widely recognized since it depicts the organizational aspects with recognition and interaction between the shared values in mind. Since no external environmental input is provided, no feedback loops are created, and the system's output is subject to change. As a result of the implementation of a seven-factor model that includes strategy, skills, personnel, style, systems, structure, and shared values, Apple is able to demonstrate the product's potential across all seven components (Podolny & Hansen, 2020). Apple aims to stand out from the competition by emphasizing product appearance as well as cutting-edge functionality. As with the release of the iPod, which was the first device of its sort to hold lots of songs with easy shuffling abilities, as well as the Macintosh, the first workstation to have a graphical interface, the business wants to maximize the first-mover advantage. In this approach, consumers face significant switching prices, which gives the organization the possibility to use existing customer connections to offer additional products as well as services. In addition, Apple has devised a plan to lessen the company's reliance on the sales of iPhones. This plan calls for a ber focus on the company's service divisions and much more funding for the development of new goods and services. Despite this, Apple's organizational architecture continues essentially pyramidal owing to the company's magnitude. In addition, project-based groups are a significant part of Apple's corporate structure. Among the most important aspects of Apple's organizational structure are product-based grouping as well as good cross-divisional cooperation. Another significant aspect of Apple's organizational structure is functionality. In spite of the fact that both product and project-based teams work efficiently, the reporting and supervision lines are functional. 

• The Galbraith star model was developed by Jay Galbraith in the 1960s and it has the benefit of describing important elements. Unlike McKinsey's 7s model it does not go deep into the descriptive manner but talks about the overall elements and structure of the organization and recognizes interactions and behavior. Also, it has only one limitation which calls out to the elements including the outputs and inputs of the culture similar to McKinsey's 7s model (He, 2021).

Relationship between organization design and work processes, productivity and the workforce

The relationship between the organizational design and work process along with productivity and workforce is very well-knit and works according to the productive advantage of the organization marketing their high level of productivity. Organizational design and word process work according to the workplace which is made interactive according to the effectiveness that it requires. For example, Apple has set up many factories all over the world but that microprocessor for iOS devices and Mac OS comes from their headquarters after being checked in their laboratories this made their productivity and organizational device design very well-knit to a point where Apple products cannot be duplicated because they don't hand over their mechanisms into any other partner company. Similarly, if an organization is having a well enough design and work process system it is very well known that their productivity would be higher because all the components needed for productivity are a company where customers are very loyal to the experiences that they share together with along with the workforce and have a growth in increasing personal effectiveness. All of these factors are presented with the profitability of Apple and their constant reach breaking their own records. And the last component that binds this entire relationship together in the workforce. Because the workforce may be employees or managers it is very important because productivity can only be achieved if the workplace has a workforce with the topmost training and management system understands and shares similar goals and concepts that the organization has (Podolny & Hansen, 2020).

HR strategy to improve strategic alignment

Some of the strategies that are used in Apple for their growth are emphasizing the investment in human resources and human capabilities. Apple is very well known for their employees' participation in training systems and innovative orientations which keeps them well updated according to the customers' needs and the market needs.

Along with those strategies such as cultural values and individual employee growth and employee, promotions are shared into the development system and improve strategic alignment in the organization. Other smaller activities such as selection and recruitment, innovation and individualism in unique thinking and rewarding systems for employees along with bonuses and compensations are some of the periodic strategies that the human resource team applies in apple.

The link between organization design and people management and development strategies

Organizational design and people management are very much linked as it helps the core organizational value to be maintained in a particular hierarchy as people management essentially makes it available and maintains the hierarchy. People's management and training along with human resource management help in the development strategy which gives a certain profitable factor to the company. All the three components constitute and aim towards the development of the organization so in a way organizational design gives a structural base whereas people management gives the effort which is needed for a plan to be successful and the development strategies along with those plans work out the efficient and profitable scenarios for the organization (Podolny & Hansen, 2020).

Apple culture and its relationship with success

Apple's innovations across hardware, software, as well as solutions, have rendered it a global brand. In 1997, Apple had 8,000 workers as well as $7 billion in sales; in 2019, it had 137,000 workers as well as $260 billion in total revenue. The corporation's innovative achievement is attributed in significant proportion to its organizational structure as well as leadership approach. Apple used to have a regular organizational structure whenever Steve Jobs returned. It was divided into business units, each with its own P&L. manager was responsible for the Mac product line, information equipment, as well as server products. Supervisors argued about transfer price, a frequent issue in decentralized company divisions. Jobs fired the general manager's overall business units in his first year as CEO, consolidated the functional areas of the commercial units within one functional organization, and reorganized the corporation under one P&L. A company of Apple's size would have anticipated a functional structure at the time. Given Apple's growth and sophistication since 1998, it is amazing that the company has not lost its signature simplicity. Senior vice presidents are in charge of functions, not products. Like Steve Jobs, Tim Cook is the only person in command of Apple's primary product lines, encompassing design, manufacturing, operations, advertising, and retail. Apart from the CEO, the company is operated without typical general managers who monitor the whole process from product development to sales and are assessed based on outcomes. Decentralized responsibility and control are required to prevent the bottleneck that emerges, when many choices travel up the organizational hierarchy to the highest levels. This is established in both corporate history and organizational philosophy. Business unit leaders should be given key roles so they may concentrate on providing excellent customer service while increasing profitability (Pathiranage, 2019).

The executives may then assess the business unit leaders' performance. American firms like DuPont, as well as General Motors, went from a functional corporate structure to one with multiple divisions in the early 1900s. By the turn of the century, several notable enterprises had followed. Apple exemplifies the benefits of a functional structure for firms facing fast technological and industrial change. That does not mean Apple's structure has not evolved. This firm's focus has moved to include AI as well as other cutting-edge topics. We examine Apple's unusual organizational structure to learn more about how individuals and organizations may thrive in rapidly evolving environments. Apple so relies on a functionally competent organizational structure. Those with the most expertise as well as expertise should determine the choices. Based on two viewpoints: As a consequence, Apple must rely on the judgment as well as the intuition of experts in disruptive technologies to compete. Initially, the corporation must forecast which technologies and designs will prosper in smartphones, laptops, as well as other gadgets. It is indeed wiser to bet on technological experts than on general administration. Putting it another way, short-term profit, as well as cost targets, would undercut Apple's commitment to creating the best products available. Leading research and development executives are typically compensated based on overall company performance rather than individual product expenditures or sales (Lordkipanidze, 2019). Finances do not impact product selection. Finance and engineers are not involved in product roadmap discussions or pricing decisions.

Conclusions and Recommendation for future business objectives

It can be concluded that, when workers feel that they are a part of the company, they are more likely to perform harder. Employee performance may also be affected by the presence of several cultures inside a single firm. It is possible for people to function in an organization with a restrained speak when required culture. If the company enables one section, like the sales department, to be vocal and socially engaged, the business may suffer competition among areas. Apple has a vice president for diversification, whose major goal is to guarantee that the firm's workforce remains diverse at all stages. The company believes that when those individuals come up with an innovative idea, the company will be well on its way to bringing about a revolution in the technological world. In order to establish whether or not an Apple's policies, as well as initiatives, are aligned with the Apple's stated values, management, as well as HR personnel, must first decide about what the Apple's culture is. In the event of a mismatch, procedures must be put in place to address the gaps and guarantee that leadership's description of the ethos is actually recognized by workers. Leaders of Apple seem to be accountable for establishing the Apple's long-term goals and guiding it toward those goals. It is their job to reinforce and demonstrate the vision's core values and behaviors. Having a well-defined culture that promotes corporate strategy helps workers better comprehend the Apple's purpose as well as see where they fit in. They are happier, more productive, and more devoted to their work if they fit in with the culture and are prepared to support the purpose. Having a well-oiled machine, Apple's, maybe the final result if it has culture-fit people that are motivated, happy, as well as enthused about their job.

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