Course Project - Internal and External Analysis

Running head: APPLE COMPANY 1

APPLE COMPANY 5

APPLE COMPANY

Name

Institution Affiliation

History of the Apple company, and the contributions of various executives

The Apple company was founded in the year 1977 from very humble beginnings in a garage. It was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The company is known for designing, manufacturing, and marketing mobile phones, media gadgets, computers, and digital music devices. In 2018, the company had achieved an incredible milestone by reaching trillion-dollar capitalization. The 10th, 9th, and 8th generations of the iPhone product were the definite golden geese of the company due to their worldwide recognition and generation of billions.

In 2003, the company launched the iTunes music store where customers could purchase music for about ninety-nine cents. According to Steve Jobs, this provided a legal means for the customers to download music, and also protected the rights of the musicians (Galloway, 2017) In 2004, the company launched the Apple iMac and the revolutionary iPod mini gadget. The iPod received an upgrade the following year, which enabled it to have video capabilities.

The first iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs in 2007, which really helped in globalizing the company and increasing revenue generation. As the company kept growing, they introduced the first iPad in 2010, and smart watches in 2015. That 2015, the company experienced its highest revenue generation of about 235 million dollars. Although this revenue had a sudden decline in 2016, it had a six percent recovery in 2017.

The company has enjoyed such innovativeness and growth due to its various of executives over its history. Currently, the CEO is Tim Cook, who launched the iPhone X in 2017. Other important figures include the likes of Phil Schiller, who is vice president of the global marketing. In 2018, the COO of the company, Mr. Jeff Williams, introduced the latest Apple watch which has a wide range of cutting edge features, like the detection of falls, and the heart rate (Daniel, 2016) 2018 also saw the introduction of the most expensive iPhone gadget, by Tim Cook, at a price of about one thousand dollars.

The current mission statement and code of ethics

According to Steve Jobs, a human being is creates change within the environment, hence he/she shouldn’t be a subordinate to systems. The mission statement of the company is somehow unorthodox and states that the company aims at designing the highest quality computers in the world, as well as the best operating systems, and software. Additionally, it aims at leading the digital music market through its innovative products like the iTunes and iPods (Cheng, 2016). The statement also speaks about revolutionizing mobile communication through various devices like the iPhone.

The company’s code of ethics states that Apple has a commitment to abide to the best communal and environmental requirements. The company stores should provide the safest working conditions, in addition to treating the employees respectfully and with dignity, and also utilize practices that are environmentally friendly in the production of products and services. The code also emphasizes on the compliance to the rule of the land, and the importance of integrity (Chen & Ann, 2016)

Areas of concern

The company’s mission statement is unorthodox and could not be clear to some. The code of conduct should also be expanded to cover other areas of concern like the important labor rights and managerial practices. Incorporating the labor rights would ensure that their employees are fully covered. Subsequently, covering the managerial practices would ensure that everyone knows their roles and responsibilities clearly, and also ensuring that the right channels are followed (Paulins, Hillery & Sturgill, 2016).

New mission statement

“commitment to making the best computers, phones and other digital media in the world, via the provision of state-of-the-art hardware, software, and online services.”

This statement is shorter and goes straight to the point, highlighting the general purpose of the company, in simpler terms.

References

Chen, C. M., & Ann, B. Y. (2016). Efficiencies vs. importance-performance analysis for the leading smartphone brands of Apple, Samsung and HTC. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(3-4), 227-249.

Cheng, C. (2016). Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd., et al. v. Apple Inc. Intell. Prop. & Tech. LJ, 21, 157.

Daniel, S. F. (2016). Apple Watch App Development. Packt Publishing Ltd.

Galloway, S. (2017). The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Penguin.

Paulins, A., Hillery, J., & Sturgill, A. (2016). Developing Value-Driven Mission Statements. In Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference (Vol. 43, No. 1).