Apple Inc Analysis

Introduction

The organization preferred for this assignment is Apple Inc. which is well-known as a multinational technology having its headquarters in California, specifically Cupertino. It develops, designs, and sells computer software, online services, and consumer electronics. Apple Inc. is well known for its innovative properties and is known to have produced products such as MacBook, iPhone, and iPad. Apple Inc. is known to be one of the most successful companies in the technology industry.

Climate and context of the problem

The highly innovative nature of Apple has brought about user-friendliness in terms of product delivery, making it visually appealing. Moreover, Apple has an outstanding reputation because of its competitiveness and secrecy regarding its product development process (Falkheimer & Heide, 2022). Putting aside the company’s success, challenges are inevitable and need to be monitored.

The main challenge faced by Apple is the urge for the diversification of streams of revenue. The company is known to have a heavy reliance on the product line of its iPhone because it is the product generating a more significant percentage of income, posing a risk to the company if it so happens that iPhone reduces in sales since this will automatically cause a fall in revenue.

Benefits of change

With no changes, Apple’s dependence on iPhone will expose the company to more risk, including competitors winning the market shares. (Enke & Bachers, 2019) The potential opportunities involve reducing risk due to over-reliance on the iPhone product line and generating revenue streams. Through diversification of the iPhone product line, competition in the technological industry is strengthened, and overreliance is reduced.

The rational decision-making process in decision making

A

As stated before, Apple is a multinational technological company, just like any other institution, whether financial or non-financial, governmental or non-governmental; Apple Inc. also has its mission, values, and vision which play a critical role in any organization. Parts of the task, deals, and vision statement include communicating the primary reason for the company’s existence to the various stakeholders, giving information regarding strategy development, and developing a set of rules and objectives for the organization.

Therefore, Apple’s mission is to bring the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software, and services. In 2019, a manifesto by Tim Cook created the vision to a specific statement that stated that people believed that they came into existence on the face of the earth to develop great and the best products without any changes, whether expected or unexpected.

Aside from the 2019 manifesto by Tim Cook, Apple’s vision state that a world should be created where each person can enjoy technology intuitively and seamlessly. Apple is a multinational technology company that treasures quality, design, and customer satisfaction; most importantly, it values innovation.

The main aim of Apple is to enrich people’s lives every day by creating products that meet consumer expectations. This is achieved through non-reliance on one single product line, particularly the iPhone, and instead making a more innovative product of good quality than previous products. (Souri A et al., 2022) Motivation is essential for every company to build the confidence of employees. Likewise, Apple has its slogan, ‘Think different.’ Its primary strategy for growth is market penetration and product development.

B

The rational decision-making process refers to a systematic approach to making choices involving evaluating alternatives and selecting the best course of action based on objective criteria. It consists of steps, including defining a problem, identifying measures, gathering information, identifying alternatives, evaluating other options, selecting the best choice, implementing the decision, and monitoring and evaluation.

Defining a problem involves clearly stating the decisions that need to be considered. It was identifying criteria deals with selecting the best criteria regarding decision making. Gathering information involves collecting the necessary information or data relating to a particular problem or decision. Identification of alternatives recognizes any alternative and solutions to a problem.

Evaluating alternatives is a selection based on the potentiality to devise a solution to the problem (Choi et al., 2023)—a section of the best option based on the chance of success and its potential. Implementing the decision involves taking action by trying out the chosen alternatives and monitoring and evaluating to make adjustments where necessary.

Considering Apple’s organization, the first two steps of rational decision-making concerning the identified problem will be considered. The steps used include;

1. Defining the problem: The main problem is that Apple relies heavily on the iPhone product line, generating a higher percentage of the company’s revenue. This has been said to lead to the exposure of the company to various risks, the major one being the competitors winning their market shares. It is well said that the product line that the company relies on too much is likely to experience a decline in sales, and when that happens, revenue will automatically fall. To solve this problem, the diversification of Apple’s product line must be considered. Once this has been considered, new revenue streams will be generated since product development would have increased to the innovation of new products or the organization’s slogan, which states that ‘Think different’. Considering this solution to the problem of over-reliance will improve the market strategy.
2.  Identifying the criteria: The various standards for the evaluation of capable solutions to the problem of diversification of revenue streams at Apple organization are:

• The potential of revenues: This is majorly the ability of the new product line to improve the generation of substantial income for the company.
• Brand and values of Apple’s Brand that fit: The level at which the particular new line of product goes hand in hand with Apple’s vision, ideals, and mission.
• Competitive positioning: The new product line should strengthen Apple’s competitive position in the technology industry worldwide.
• Costs of development: The cost of developing a new product line and the time interval for it to be brought into the market to generate new revenues for the organization without risk exposure.

Mitigating bias

Mitigating bias is the reduction or minimization of the impact of biases to make decisions, analyze data, and other processes in which preferences are available. Bias can exist from various sources, for example, a person’s beliefs, societal structures, and cultural norms, and their effects on individual perception, information interpretation, and interaction with others.

Mitigating bias involves identifying and acknowledging the biases that might exist and following guidelines to address them. This may include the use of objective criteria in making decisions, analyzing and collecting data in such a way that bias is minimized, therefore creating an inclusive and diverse environment to encourage the promotion of opportunities for every individual and the advancement of equitable treatment. By mitigating bias, individuals and organizations can improve the accuracy and fairness of their decisions and actions, reduce the negative impact of discrimination on marginalized groups, and promote greater equality and social justice.

An example of a bias that could impact a potential solution to diversifying revenue streams problem at Apple is the availability bias (Zhou et al., 2019). The availability bias takes place when decision-makers give higher consideration to information that is readily and easily accessible to them instead of considering any available information.

For the mitigation of the availability bias, Apple should consider gathering data from the many available sources and take into consideration any available information when evaluating potential solutions, for example, conducting market research for the identification of consumer preferences and trends, consultation with skilled industry experts, and collecting feedback and reviews from Apple employees and customers.

Other than the availability bias, other biases could have a more significant impact on the decision-making process, taking into account the representativeness bias and confirmation bias. The representativeness bias occurs when decision-makers base their judgments on stereotypes and past experiences instead of considering all available information.

REFERENCES

Enke, N., & Borchers, N. S. (2019). Social media influencers in strategic communication: A conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication. International journal of strategic communication, 13(4), 261-277.

Falkheimer, J., & Heide, M. (2022). Strategic communication: An introduction to theory and global practice. Taylor & Francis.

Souri, A., Hussien, A., Hoseyninezhad, M., & Norouzi, M. (2022). A systematic review of IoT communication strategies for an efficient, innovative environment. Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 33(3), e3736.

Wu, L., Dodoo, N. A., & Choi, C. W. (2023). Brand anthropomorphism on Twitter: communication strategies and consumer engagement. Journal of Product & Brand Management, (ahead-of-print).

Yan, S., Zhou, X., Hu, J., & Hanly, S. V. (2019). Low probability of detection communication: Opportunities and challenges. IEEE Wireless Communications, 26(5), 19-25.