Apple Inc., 2008

Introduction

In today’s world, organizations have established their goals and objectives in sequence with emerging trends that controls the business environments and the corporate value structure. Strategic management as a concept has been in literature for a while now, and organizations around the world are becoming more aware of the impact it has on leading businesses to success. Strategic management “is the process by which organizations attempt to determine what needs to be done to achieve corporate objectives and, more important how these objectives are to be met” (Mello, 2011, p104). Apple Inc. as a company has it’s own strategic management processes, that are built and continuous to restructure in response to market demands in order to reach optimal production and profitability.

Background

Since the creation of Apple computers in 1976, the company has strived to become successful through wide practices of strategic management, although along the journey of this company it has faced some difficult times, were it lost market share and other factors that are reflected on the company’s financial wellbeing. Fortunately in recent years the company restructured its strategy under Steve Job’s leadership, and realized new markets by creating new products and innovation, those new strategic approaches drove most of Apple’s wealth.

Apple’s Leadership Time-Line

John Sculley was appointed as Apple’s CEO in 1985 and lasted until 1993, under his leadership, the company was the leader in desktop publishing and in education with an eye to move aggressively toward corporate world, 8% market share was achieved by 1990. During that time 9% of sales were allocated toward R&D, this figure was considered high compared with industry norms, in a strategic sense that was big investment toward human capital that led to new innovations. As competitors entered the market Apple’s profitability decreased and Sculley’s efforts to bring down costs were not enough....