Apple Inc. - A Growing Small Business

Company Selected for Assignment 

The company selected to help in Apple, Inc., which is one of the leading technology companies operating in the world today. The company has positioned itself as a leading brand attributed to its ability to maintain effectiveness in ensuring that it delivers products that match consumer demands. On the other hand, Apple, Inc. boasts of a niche market around the world, which can be seen from the overall value and pricing of its products thereby working towards ensuring that the company achieves its intended results. In this report, the main focus will be on evaluation of different aspects associated with business performance within Apple, Inc. and the technology industry in which it operates.

Company’s Business Strategy 

Business strategies play a critical role highlight the strengths associated with a product or service offered by a company or organization. The implementation of an effective business strategy seeks to build on the company's value in ensuring that it positions itself effectively to meet the consumer demands within the different markets (Buller & McEvoy, 2016). That means that a business strategy is one of the crucial elements of any business, as it seeks to analyze the ability for a company to deliver on its mission and vision. When selecting a business strategy for a company, one of the key areas of consideration is the company's mission and vision, as these two elements act as guides in ensuring that the strategy works towards the achievement of the same. On the other hand, a business strategy must also seek to build on the effectiveness of the products or services that a company or organization is offering as one of the key approaches in meeting set goals and objectives.

Apple, Inc., while operating within a very competitive business environment, has focused on two key business strategies, which have been of value in ensuring that the company maintains its position as one of the leading consumer brands in the world today. The first business strategy adopted by the company is cost leadership, which is a strategy that revolves around the issue of pricing of products when delivered to the consumer market. Cost leadership does not only focus on providing a company with a competitive edge in the area of pricing but also seeks to build confidence among consumers depending on the pricing of its products. Nair & Leng (2012) take note of the fact that Apple, Inc. has some of the most expensive technological devices with some of its products retailing and double the price of its key rivals. However, this has helped in positioning Apple, Inc. within a niche consumer market from which the company has been able to maintain its financial performance.

The second business strategy that Apple, Inc. has adopted as part of its business approach towards maintaining positive performance within the business environment is product differentiation. Product differentiation refers to the idea of building products or services differently when compared to the products or services offered by key competitors. One key example to note in Apple, Inc. is that its iPhone products operate with the iOS operating system with a majority of the other products operating with Android (Saha, Gregar, & Sáha, 2017). That has helped in building a better platform for product differentiation, which has been of value in ensuring that Apple, Inc. is well positioned to meet it's set consumer goals and expectations. Specifically, Apple, Inc. focuses on its ability to promote consumer satisfaction as one of the key aspects of consideration in building its brand.

The adoption of these two business strategies has worked in ensuring that the company not only achieves success in building its brand but also maintains high levels of performance with regard to the sale of its products within different consumer markets. It is important to note that the company uses these two business strategies in creating a high level of competition for some of its key competitors including Microsoft and Samsung, which operate within the same consumer markets. In the long-term, it is expected that these two strategies will be of value in ensuring that Apple, Inc. achieves a high level of penetration into all consumer markets for technological products around the world. That would mean that the company would be in a better performance platform when compared to some of its key competitors.

Human Resource Management Strategy 

Human resource management strategies seek to promote high-performance levels considering that they help in the management of employees depending on a wide array of factors that may build on performance outcomes. The selection of a human resource management strategy is important for companies and organizations in their bid to ensure that they maintain that effective platform for performance (Juul Andersen & Minbaeva, 2013). On the other hand, the strategy selected must also help in creating that competitive edge for a company as one of the key elements in ensuring that it achieves its set objectives. That means that the strategy selected would seek to create a connection between human resource management and strategic goals and objectives that seek to build on overall performance outcomes.

In the case of Apple, Inc., the company utilizes strategic training and development as the key human resource strategy that helps in building its avenue for enhanced performance. Wang & Verma (2012) point out that employees, working within Apple, Inc., are exposed to a wide array of training and development programs focusing on different aspects of business performance. The adoption of this strategic approach seeks to ensure that every employee working within the company understands the key expectations from the company’s top-level management. That means that employees would be in a better position to improve their performance levels depending on the overall structure of the training and development programs. For Apple, Inc., this has been an effective approach in ensuring that its employees seek to build a positive business environment. The long-term effect of this strategy is that it will help in ensuring that the company maintains that prospective structure of enhanced business performance depending on the training and development of employees.

Apple, Inc. does not only train its employees on matters associated with the business performance but also reflects on other areas that are important in the development of its employees. For examples, employees go through training programs customized to different topics including conflict and stress management, workplace relationships, and structured approach to improved productivity (Drnevich & Croson, 2013). That means that the company believes in the idea of ensuring that employees are provided with that holistic environment from which to ensure that they deliver positive results. The long-term effect of this strategy is that it will help in building employees’ confidence and motivation towards enhanced performance, thus, paving the way for the company to move towards its strategic goals and objectives.

Human Resource Scorecard Table 

The idea of developing a human resource scorecard table is to evaluate some of the strategic human resource objectives, as this would seek to evaluate the expected performance outcomes for a company or organization. In this case, the focus is on the creation of a human resource scorecard table focusing on the performance expectations and indicators at Apple, Inc., which is the business in focus. The analysis of the elements in the scorecard will help in defining expected performance for the company depending on the human resource management process adopted. Ultimately, this would be of value for the company in the development of new strategies that seek to build on positive outcomes on the performance indicators.

Table 1: Human Resource Scorecard for Apple, Inc. 

References

Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2016). A model for implementing a sustainability strategy through HRM practices. Business and Society Review, 121 (4), 465-495.

Drnevich, P. L., & Croson, D. C. (2013). Information technology and business-level strategy: Toward an integrated theoretical perspective. Mis Quarterly, 37 (2), 483-509.

Juul Andersen, T., & Minbaeva, D. (2013). The role of human resource management in strategy making. Human Resource Management, 52 (5), 809-827.

Nair, P. B., & Leng, Q. A. (2012). The Sweet and Sour Apple: The Case of CEO Strategies at Apple Inc. Vidwat, 5 (1), 21-24.

Saha, N., Gregar, A., & Sáha, P. (2017). Organizational agility and HRM strategy: Do they really enhance firms’ competitiveness?. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 6 (3), 323-334.

Wang, J., & Verma, A. (2012). Explaining organizational responsiveness to work ‐ life balance issues: The role of business strategy and high ‐ performance work systems. Human Resource Management, 51 (3), 407-432.