ESSAY: Strategic Analysis

This week’s paper is required to be approximately 4 -6 pages in length, not including the title page and the reference page. No paper should be fewer than 1400 words. Double space your work, cite your work, limit quotes, and edit your work well for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. If you have quotes included in your paper, you should have more than 1400 words to compensate. Your work will be automatically reviewed by Turnitin upon submission. Please make sure you have cited your work properly. Utilize the APA resource material provided in the lessons section of the classroom under course materials.

After our readings over the past five weeks, you should have an understanding of the types of strategy, organizational culture, the pros and cons of different organizational structures, the elements of internal and external environments, and the types of risk a company may take. After reading the attached articles below, you then can incorporate how the strategy decisions affect the company.

Read the two articles attached about managerial economics.

Your essay will address these items:

A. Select a company from the 35 listed at the end of our text (Case Studies – pages 540-541). Do not use any company that you previously wrote about in previous classes. This must be original research. In addition to the information in your text, research this company using at least (2) outside scholarly articles. Do not use a website as a reference. Your reference source must have an author. Discuss six selected topics from our studies throughout weeks one through five. Discuss these six topics in relation to your company and discuss how the economic situation of today influences the strategic decisions your company is making. Each of the six topics discussed should be in bold print. For example, one topic you may choose may be how your company handles competition (Five Forces Framework). Another topic may be your company’s organizational structure and why they have the structure they have. You may choose to discuss your company’s strategic grouping or value chain. Choose your topics and explore them in detail throughout your paper.

Give examples using the terms and concepts in your textbook readings and your research articles.

B. What is the importance of each of the six topics within your company?

C. What is the usefulness of understanding this topic in today’s corporate structure?

D. Through what strategies does your selected company choose to excel over other strategically grouped companies. For example, what strategies does Apple choose that keeps it on top?

ANSWER

Introduction

Strategic management is a critical element to the success of any enterprise as it helps such an organization to meet its goals and objectives. Apple is one such company that has had to rely on its strategic management strategies to remain competitive in the market. The company started as a small computer firm but rose to great prominence some years into the market albeit with great challenges and obstacles that the company had to contend with. Under the leadership of Steve Jobs, the CEO, Apple has been able to revamp itself in the changing technology industry. By coming up with new innovative products, the company has been able to live up to the expectations of the market as will be discussed in this strategic analysis.

How Apple Handles Competition

Like in any telecommunication industry, Apple has faced a lot of competition but yet managed to live up to the very competitors in the market. There are numerous strategies that the company has used to have an advantage over other companies such as Samsung. The first competitive advantage is that the company has a business strategy that is highly differentiated. The products being offered to the market are highly differentiated to meet the needs of its various customers. The range of products that the company offers include personal computers, portable media player, mobiles and even tablets. The company also provides products through great innovation especially using its own hardware, software as well as designs as a way of solving customer challenges (Doval, 2016). This is unlike other industry players.

Apple’s strong financial position, which can be attributed to it being the leading company in terms of market base, gives it a competitive edge when compared to other industry players.  With a huge income every year, the enterprise is able to invest in new products and innovative approaches with ease. Another competitive advantage is the company’s operating system and data access manager that can be said to be superior to other competitors hence it attracts more customers than what other players can. Its brand name is also a strength on its own as it attracts more partner investors.

Organizational Structure

Since the 1970’s when Apple was established, the company changed from the traditional corporate structure being undertaken in many organizations and embraced a unique form of organizational structure. From the traditional vertical structure of governance, the company embraced a rather flat form of structure which had for a long time helped it realize its innovativeness. The use of adhocracy has been used as the best structure meant to solve the complexity of trying to be innovative. As opposed to the traditional vertical form of governance, a flat/ horizontal form of organizational structure has relatively less number of layers of management and hence the chain of command is shortened to a great extent. Every employee is thus given space to showcase their innovative abilities as policies can be implemented in a faster way as opposed to when the structure is vertical. There is also increased coordination and engagement with the perceived top management team. It is for this reason that Apple has been known for its competency in designing new products through a clear innovative platform….