STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic Management

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Introduction

One cannot conceive the organization as an entity isolated from the environment in which it operates. The company must continuously monitor its environment because, firstly, it fits into this environment and, secondly, it acts on that environment. Its environment in a positive way (environmental opportunities) or a negative (environmental) can influence the company.

The company should monitor the constantly changing markets, changing competition and technology. It is also about identifying the risks of "breaks" technology (occurrence of major innovations) or structural (new lobbies, new regulations, growing influence of consumer organizations, etc). (Calderon 2007 Pp. 12)

Background of Apple

The company we have chosen for our report is “Apple”. Apple is in the business of designing, manufacturing, and marketing mobile communication devices, personal computers (PCs), and video players and portable digital music. Apple also offers a huge range of associated services, software, networking solutions and peripherals. Apple is also providing the service of online distribution music; for the third party, music videos, audio books, television shows, short films, etc. (Calderon 2007 Pp. 12)

Apple Computer came into existence in 1977. Steve Jobs and Steve Woznaik founded it. The first product of Apple was “Apple I”, the first ever product by Apple corporation. Apple I was a complete failure, however, Apple successfully launched another product in the year 1980, which was “Apple II”. Apple decided to go public in the 1980, and offered its IPO. During the early 1980's, the severe competition in the market and some internal problems led to some critical changes in the organization with the resignation of Steve Jobs. By the year 1983, Apple had to encounter another problem after the entrance of IBM in the market, and the failure of Apple III.

Then in the year 1984, Apple introduced its first ever computer, which was driven by a mouse, namely Macintosh. By the early 1990's, the PC market was swarming with cheap PC's and by that time, Microsoft had launched its first ever Windows, i.e. Windows 3.0. Apple still had problems though and in 1995, the company had a $1 billion order backlog. These problems were compounded by the launch of Windows 95. The company's performance nosedived in 1995-96 when it lost $68 million. In 1996, Apple acquired NeXT and NeXT's operating system, Rhapsody, became Apple's next-generation operating system. By 1997, Apple had lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Steven Jobs, the original co-founder returned as interim Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, Apple reorganized to concentrate on its more profitable competencies. Apple divested its unsuccessful spin offs, including Newton.

Then after a series of problems, the company was once again taken over by founder of the company i.e. Steve Jobs, towards the end of the decade of 1990's. Under the leadership of Steve jobs, Apple once managed to gain popularity and showed significant improvement in the sales.

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

The internal and the external environment of any firm are very crucial and have a lot of impact on the strategic policy making of the ...