Apple: Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies

Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies- Apple One of the more popular marketing strategies today that is still relatively new is the enhancing of societal influence for good. Corporations essentially address societal and environmental challenges in order to increase their performance. This strategy has a lot of names but is more commonly known as Corporate Responsibility (CR) or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (David & Sanchez-Hernandez, 2010). By taking responsibility for its actions, a company is showing their goodwill towards a community and the people that live in it.

Hopefully CSR provides an inspirational effect and boosts a positive effect around them. It is also a type of check for a company, a sort of self-regulation by which corporations make sure that they are in fact in compliance with the law, both moral and actual law (Michael, 2013). Apple Corporation is one of the largest and fastest growing businesses that have come under a lot of recent scrutiny due to its failure infulfilling its societal duty.

Apple the Organization As of recent years, Apple has become one of the largest manufactures and producers of personal computers and other technological products that have become immensely popular. Apple products such as the iPhone have become iconic pop culture symbols. Apple has a large scale influence that affects both domestic and international markets. They also offer an array of other services including developer tools, operating systems, languages, utilities, and database software (McAfee, 2002).

The two founders of Apple, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, came up with the idea in a garage back in 1976. They wanted to create PC's but remained highly innovative and used unique strategies that set them apart from companies like Microsoft. Steve Jobs was convinced that the market had a demand that they could fill with their small personal computers that were very user friendly (Elia, Anna, & Tycen, 2006). Apple's profits are booming and currently they are generating annual revenues of over $70 billion.

Through this enormous success, Apple has designed unique applications to their products as well as the digital music player (Ipods), and also the related iTunes software (Elia, Anna, & Tycen, 2006). As the company has grown, an increased demand for their product has surfaced; Apple has expanded into a worldwide distributer of goods. They have also implemented recent changes that allow them and their products to be much more flexible.

Boot camp that allows Windows OS to run on Apple machines is an excellent example of this new flexible policy (Elia, Anna, & Tycen, 2006). Today Apple competes with Microsoft and Dell who are the biggest PC manufacturers and distributers in the nation; and given the cutthroat competition, Apple seems to be doing very well. Throughout the rest of this article we will examine the social and ethical issues facing Apple as well as their response.

Apple's Ethical and Social Responsibility According to Apple, they are dedicated to safe working environments, values like dignity, respect, as well as, environmentally responsible manufacturing processes (Van.Dijk & Schipper, 2007). Also, those who supply Apple products are required to comply with that same ethics code of conduct (Apple Inc., 2013). However, it seems that this policy is being violated constantly by the corporation, and they have been unable to stop it from happening.

Even when reports have been filed against certain contractors or retail outlets, Apple disregards that information and continues on as they did before. Due to the large number of reports and incidents that have gone without an official response one can safely assume that Apple has failed to fulfill its societal duties. Here are two examples to provide support: Example #1 A research study was performed by Van.dijk & Schipper (2007) that involved over 30 different suppliers that supposedly had been reported responsible for serious violations of the right of association.

They were also guilty of violating the right to bargain collectively. Philippine International Manufacturing and Engineering Services (PIMES) reported that Apple was discouraging them from joining organized unions. PIMES works by creating hardware for Apple so this violated the corporation's own Freedom of Collective Bargaining and Association policy. Example #2 Violations of the health and Safety conduct that was set by Apple occurred at Delta Electronics as their employees complained about foul odors in the fan section. To this complain, there was no response by management.

Later there was also a terrible accident which took place in 2001 in which 6 workers died. The accident involved a building collapsing and was a tragic incident. Delta Electronics worked for the Apple Corporation by providing them necessary supplies in Thailand (Connor & Kalmanovitz). Apple has in spite of labor rights violations been dealing proactively with the working conditions inside their warehouses that produce their products (Connor & Kalmanovitz).

As the global market keeps growing and as international walls are torn down, CSR is becoming a bigger and bigger concern in regards to health and safety. Both governmental and Inter-governmental bodies have taken a stand condemning certain practices and have created policy and declarations in order to try and create reform for better working conditions. It might not seem as if Apple has direct control over their manufacturing employees since the international warehouses are owned by third parties.

Although, since they are producing Apple products this is not the case (Hatch and Jones, 2014). Apple Suppliers Currently Apple products are being assembled all over the world. The corporation has gone from manufacturing their own products to outsourcing that job. Almost everything that comes out of Apple today was created by a third party (Van.Dijk & Schipper, 2007). Management and transportation logistics have also been outsourced heavily. Most of Apple's final assembly takes place in Cork, Ireland, where it holds a large manufacturing facility.

There are also external vendors in Taiwan, China, Korea, the Czech Republic, and California. The manufacturing of the smaller components of Apple products are usually taken care of by third parties, which are located in South East Asia. Finally, the very last compilation of product before shipping takes place almost exclusively in China (Van.Dijk & Schipper, 2007). Suppliers are vital for Apple to run their business smoothly, or at least that is what they revealed in their annual report (Van.Dijk & Schipper, 2007).

Thus whatever the supplier carries out, it affects Apple directly. Most of the allegations against Apple have been aimed towards violations done by suppliers. Child labor, low pay, terrible working and living conditions, as well as, excessive overtime are all part of these violations. Here are two examples yet again: Example #1 In violation to Chinese labor law, the Volex Cable supplier has reportedly refused to pay out the first month worth of wages in order to retain employees and keep them from quitting.

Wages are also incredibly low and do not meet the Chinese minimum wage requirement. Overtime is required and the employees still do not reach what they should be making as required by law. Finally, Volex Cable employees are required to pay for their food and housing which make up over 25% of their wages (Van.Dijk & Schipper, 2007). Example #2 CKL is another supplier with serious allegations against it. Employees are forced to work 6-to-7 12-hour shifts in a row, sometimes back to back making for a 24-hour shift.

Overtime is compulsory, especially during peak production between January and June. If a worker refuses they are excluded from voluntary overtime in the future (Van.Dijk & Schipper, 2007). Wage and Benefits Standards Wage standards set forth by law have been instated in order to protect the employees and provide a living wage. It is necessary for corporations such as Apple to oblige these standards not only to maintain a good image in the public eye, but also to ensure employee health.

The following two suggestions could aid Apple in ensuring that wage standards are met (Hatch and Jones, 2014). Method 1 Observation and inspections could go a long way in ensuring that suppliers stay on the right side of the line. Both announced and unannounced inspections should be performed as well as the thorough examination of reports and verification measures. By approaching the business like this the suppliers are forced to always maintain good behavior or face penalties (Hatch and Jones, 2014).

Method 2 The more stern approach to ensuring that wage standards are met includes the immediate termination of those suppliers who fail to uphold the standards. The contracts can be terminated and new ones can be created elsewhere with more trustworthy suppliers. This approach is more risky since if Apple does not have secondary suppliers providing the same materials they could lose important business revenue (Hatch and Jones, 2014). Maintaining Customer Loyalty As previously stated, Apple products have become iconic and the fan base is incredibly loyal.

The running joke across online forums and gaming communities is that it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it has the apple symbol on it, it will sell. Apple products have been more expensive than its competitors in recent years but they still sell like wildfire. Customers have been and are still ready to pay more for Apple products. Many of these loyal consumers believe that no other phone or cable can measure up to the quality that Apple puts out (Knerl, 2012 as cited in Hatch & Jones, 2014).

However, this should not be used as an excuse by Apple to raise prices in order to fix the wage standard allegations against their suppliers. It is Apple's responsibility to fix it, and they need to because the offenses are serious. Apple is worth over $500 billion and has been reported to having over $130 billion on hand as cash (Connor & Kalmanovitz). That money is more than enough to settle the allegations and to pay a living wage. Apple is a corporation with a profit margin of over 70% (Connor & Kalmanovitz).

Thus they should not pawn off their own responsibility to pay living wages to their customers. Apple's Marketing Strategy Apple's greatest marketing strategy is the placement of a retail center close to the consumers. Everyone knows where their closest Apple store is. This brings customers together and allows them to hear the strong product descriptions. Apple is additionally planning to use this marketing strategy in communicating CRS to customers that relate to their products and how they differ from their competitors (MacBook Pro, 2014; Hatch and Jones, 2014).

Recommendation #1 Apple's stance is weakened by the market through the many competitors present. The firm is required to take a firm lead in both innovation technology and CSR in order to maintain a strong reputation and global presence (Hatch and Jones, 2014). Recommendation #2 Interoperability is an area in which Apple struggles and an area in which they need to improve before.