Apple Inc. Company Analysis Current Situation Currently,

Apple Inc. Company Analysis

Current situation

Currently, Apple Inc. focuses on designing, manufacturing, and marketing media and mobile devices, digital portable music players and personal computers. The company sells varied related services, software, networking solutions, digital application, content and peripherals. Products manufactured by the company include Mac, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, different varieties of professional and consumer software, OSX and iOS operating systems, support and service offerings, as well as various iCloud accessories. The company manufactures and markets digital applications and content through Mac App Store, App Stores, and iTunes Software. These products and services are sold globally on the company's online stores, retail stores, and direct selling through sales representatives. They also sell through third party networks such as value added sellers, retailers and wholesalers. Recently, Apple Inc. acquired a new Chomp search engine (Linzmayer, 2008).

Current changes

After the death of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. has maintained and expanded the leadership as made record-breaking innovations of iPhones, which helped in lifting the company's shares to great levels. At the same time, the company has introduced small versions of iPads leading on the market; this segment had become a huge success. However, industry analysts have it that this should not indicate the long-term future of the company. They expect the company to continue flying on the fumes set by former CEO, Steve Jobs, for some time. Before the death of Job, he had a line up of things to achieve. His ideas have been fueling the company even after his death. The new management can envision the ideas of Jobs and turn the idea into a leading product. Very few people can do this. Apple Inc. was not successful because of the work of a single individual. As much as other employees made significant contributions, Steve Jobs was the center of it all (O'Grady, 2009).

One year after his departure, Apple Inc. has maintained the trajectory that Jobs left in place and retained their highly coveted consumer segment products, which are increasingly getting into the hands of global populations. This is in the midst of occasional misstep and subtle shifts being done by the company. Immediately one year after the departure of Jobs, Apple's stock hit 82% amounting to $684 after the introduction of iPhone 5. While the company sold over 6 million just three days after the launch, analysts were fast at arguing that the sales volumes of this new product were disappointing (Ehrhardt & Brigham, 2011).

Industry experts have cited that Apple has changed its philosophy because the company is currently issuing dividend to its shareholders. This is contrary to Steve Job's philosophy of hoarding cash. Jobs has been accused of being reluctant in dipping into cash hence his permanent long-term held memory. During his tenure, the firm was struggling with money issues than its profits. Looking at capital deployment, the new CEO, Tim Cook has demonstrated his ability to be friendlier to shareholders. Just recently Cook announced that Apple was geared towards issuing quarterly dividends of $3.21 per share, this amounts to $121 billion. However, the company has let out relatively minimal amount in the form of dividends than what they are holding. The company intends to use the money in making other small acquisitions, even though this has been put up for debate (Linzmayer, 2008).

Along the lines of execution and innovations, Apple has been keen on enhancing its existing lines of distribution of their product lines rather than introducing the next big thing. Cook has persistently focused on operations facilitating the global marketing of the company's products. Apple has attained 360 stores across the world, including Sweden, which one of the new market. While it is evident that it has been difficult to follow the footsteps of Steve Jobs, Cook has earned the overwhelming confidence for his successful navigation of the company after the sudden death of Jobs. Experts have noted the high profile management and operational expertise in his control of supply chain, which has been critical for the progress of the company (O'Grady, 2009).

Macroeconomic issues have been major issues of concern among service providers and manufactures across the globe. While China has taken a slow path, Europe has been weakening. Pressure on employee salaries and working conditions has pushed companies such as Apple to monitor the plans of expanding closely. Particularly, Apple has undergone massive scrutiny over its China contractors producing their products, including the working conditions of employees (Ehrhardt & Brigham, 2011).

How Apple is managing these changes

As much as Apple has been experiencing problems, the company has not been fighting. The company has been experiencing well established and big operations. Moreover, the leaders of Apple have been well focused on what they want to achieve. Because of the unrelenting pressures of positive performance, they have been innovative enough to battle through distractions, hazards, and risks. This is because the leaders already knew that the biggest obstacles were in their company. In order to manage the changes, Cook forged importable collaborations with ongoing innovations and operations. In all initiatives, he ensured close collaborations between the performance engine and his dedicated team. Evidently, the success of Apple can be attributed to existing assets (Linzmayer, 2008).

Options for Apple

Apple has options that might enable the company enhance collaborations with world class software, service teams and hardware providers. This includes adding more responsibilities to the board members and top management. For this reason, Apple should move Scott Forstall from his current position to become the company's key advisor to the new CEO. The company is undergoing the most prolific period of new products and innovation than ever. No other company would have produced amazing products such as iPod nano, MacBook Pro, iPad and iMac. This can only continue to be achieved by the company if they focus on integrating leading software and hardware services into their operations. Jony Ive should maintain his position and roles at the company; providing direction and leadership for human interface. Ive's outstanding aesthetic skills should be the driving force behind the feel and look of the brands produced by Apple (Linzmayer, 2008).

Eddy Cue should be given more roles and responsibilities of monitoring the company's online presence and performance. This strategy is likely to generate major success including the App Store and iTunes. Further, this would build and strengthen the company's online services meeting and exceeding high customer expectations. Culture change is fundamental in the pursuit of improving employee turnover and behavior. This emphasizes that Apple should focus the organizational objectives, enhance customer services and achieve specified results and goals. Culture change is associated with various external forces including industry competitors, the management and history of the organization, as well as technology changes (Linzmayer, 2008).