Research Paper
Undergraduate
Apple Inc.'s business strategy and historical development
Apple Inc. was established in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. The company started by selling the Apple I personal computer kit, computers that were hand-built by Wozniak at the time (Wikipedia, 2009).
Sears' strategies for web technology, community engagement, and customer service
Sears, officially names Sears, Roebuck and Company, is an American chain of department stores which began its journey to success in the field of mail-order product distribution and has grown to one of the largest and most successful department store chains in the United States. Sears business model has long been attributed to a focus on customer service and satisfaction, and in recent years, Sears has begun work to change how its customers interact with the company in stores and online. In utilizing strategies to upgrade web technology, become a facet of goodwill and community giving, and in structuring itself under the business model of customer service and continued improvements to customer affordability and financing, Sears remains a top contender in the U.S. department store field.
Transformational leadership and change management at Cincom Systems
New developments in an industry are as disruptive as the fundamental re-ordering of their economics with a corresponding shift in the balance of political power that defines boundaries of influence. Organizational change and its many dynamics take on added significance in the study of how disruptive technologies re-order organizational cultures with significant cultural, economic, social and political implications (Bordum, 2010). The role of transformational leaders in successful change management initiatives is that of stabilizing force for employees on the one hand, and visionary defining the future direction of the enterprise on the other (Boga, Ensari, 2009). One of the most volatile industries today is enterprise software, and the transformational change that is happening at a strategic level in this industry today. This transformational change at a technological level is revolutionary, as is evidenced by the rapid $1B+ market valuations of companies including Salesforce.com and others on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. SaaS-based software is bringing rapid transformational change to the business models of enterprise software companies with increasing intensity, shifting long-standing evolutionary business models based on recurring software revenue streams in the process. Within these dynamics of revolutionary change are ample examples of how organizations are structuring and executing their change management initiatives. Implementing key parts of their Organizational Change Models, and averting resistance to change through effective transformation through change management participative leadership and planning (Herold, Fedor, Caldwell, Liu, 2008). While there are many enterprise software companies struggling with this aspect of their core business models, the subject of this analysis is privately-held Cincom Systems, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio with operations throughout seventeen nations and employing over 700 associates globally. What makes the study of Cincom Systems relevant to organizational change management is the high level of dependency the company has today on its core enterprise software companies, who in most cases for decades paid maintenance fees, contract amounts, and despite the value of SaaS-based economics and the potential to gain even greater leverage and value for their investments, continue to hold onto their on-premise licensing models. Cincom Systems is facing the urgent challenge of change management with its customer base, and secondarily, with its engineering, services and support teams as well. The resistance to change that emanates from the customer base permeates parts of the organization, making the disruptive nature of SaaS applications and platform economics even more abrupt, and if unanswered, severe in the coming years. This analysis will concentrate on how change management can be implemented within Cincom Systems to bring both customers and employees into a more transformative role. Second, how the leaders at Cincom can overcome resistance to change, and hwo the lessons learned from using the Force Field Analysis Model can be applied to Cincom specifically and enterprise software vendors strategically. The Culture Web is used as a means to analyze the current climate within Cincom and provide prescriptive guidance for the future. Finally the role of transformational leaders is also assessed. The enterprise software industry is going through a massive level of change today as the collection fo SaaS- and Cloud-based application technologies and the economic advantages they offer customers continues to increase. The economics of Cloud computing and SaaS applications are having a reverberating effect throughout Cincom Systems and the entire software industry. The impacts of this disruptive, transformational change are the primary catalysts of this analysis.
Research Paper
Undergraduate
Apple's international foreign exchange and economic risk exposure
The paper is about Apple. There is a lot of talk about foreign exchange rate risk and other risks that the company faces. There's a company analysis, industry analysis and economic analysis. The company's risk management strategy are subject of significant consideration in this paper, including operational and market risk.
Mobile technology's transformative impact on healthcare, commerce, and politics
The ever-increasing number of smart devices and the mobilization of technology in general has precipitated a number of importance changes in the way people conduct their private and public lives. By examining some importance developments in the area of healthcare, commerce, and politics, this essay argues that mobile devices have already fundamentally altered the human experience of the world, and will continue to do so at an exponential rate. Examining these three areas reveals how mobile technologies serve to remove physical and monetary barriers while increasing the individual's ability to access and organize important information, both in regards to their personal lives and their public lives in both the economic and political spheres.