A risk assessment report is aimed at measuring or determining the level of risks that an organization is exposed to. The operations of the company and the way a company is led are some of the common factors when it comes to assessing the risks of an organization. When the vulnerability of a company to a particular issue is high, the risk levels are high as well. The report will concentrate on Apple Inc. as the company whose risk levels will be assessed. The operations and strategies of the company will be used to determine if the company is exposed to high levels of risks or not. At the same time, the ways in which the company has responded to different issues will be utilized.
Pressure for performance
At Apple Inc. the pressure for performance is high, but the risk levels are low. Appraisals have been made a routine at Apple, and that means that all employees must perform in line with the desires and expectations of the company. The company uses 360 feedbacks as the tool for measuring the performance of the employees. Immediately after the company hires an employee, he or she is introduced to the goals of the company with the intention of making sure that the employee works hard towards meeting the goals (Khan, Alam, and Alam, 2015). Therefore, it is evident that an employee knows what he or she is supposed to do to reach the organizational goals. The pressure to perform is in most cases dictated by the methods of measuring the performance of the employees (Lockamy III, 2017). The techniques used to measure the performance of the employees can be harsh or tender on the employees. Performance appraisal is a method that gives an employee no other choice but to perform and that is why there is pressure to perform at Apple Inc.
The risk of pressure for performance increases when an organization cares more about the performance of the employees than their well-being. Apart from Apple Inc. having strict methods and tools for measuring the performance of the employees; the company also assists the employees to reach the organizational goals (Hofmann, Busse, Bode, and Henke, 2014). Training and coaching have been made part and parcel of the company’s activities. The employees are equipped with all the essential resources and skills to become good performers. When the employees are trained to be the best, it is likely that despite the type of performance measurement tools that are in place, their performance will always stand out. Therefore, the risk to pressure for performance is low because the employees are equipped to stand any pressure that might be present at the company.
Apple Inc. is one of the largest organizations in the world, and the company has reached many nations. Therefore, the risks levels as far as the rate of expansion is concerned are low. The risk for the rate of expansion is measured by looking at the trend of the company when it comes to expanding its business. Despite the fact that Apple Inc. is a company that was started in California, today the company has a manufacturing plant in China. Apple Inc. has expanded all over the world in two different ways. The first way is associated with its physical presence in the respective nations of operation. Today, Apple Inc. is operating in nineteen countries. In the nineteen countries, the company has Apple Stores where the customers access the stores physically and meet the workers and sellers of Apple products. The company has also expanded to different nations using the internet. In the modern day, the expansion of businesses is no longer looked from the perspective of being physically present in a location, but the number of customers that the company reaches using the technology is factored in (Etzioni, 2018). At Apple Inc., it is easier to order products of the company on the internet and later access them through the shipping companies. Apple Inc. is reaching millions of its customers using the technology, and that means that the company has also expanded in terms of sales and serving a wider range of customers.
The risks level of Apple Inc. as far as the aspect of inexperienced employees is concerned is low. Different reasons can be used to explain the risk levels in this case. Inexperienced employees are spotted from the first time they enter the company’s premises. The only way they can access the company’s workforce is by passing through the recruitment team without being detected. Apple Inc. is one of the organizations where getting a job is a hard task, and this is because the company looks at specific details of an employee before hiring him or her (Clarke and Boersma, 2017). Apple Inc. is also one of the companies that have maintained an upward trend when it comes to innovations. The company uses Lean management, and this is why it continuously makes changes to the products that it sells (Fujita and Hamaguchi, 2016). The second way to know if a company has inexperienced employees is by looking at the performance of the employees and the products that are released in the market. It is no doubt that Apple is one of the best organizations when it comes to manufacturing some of the best products as far as the quality aspect are concerned. If Apple Inc. was hiring employees who were inexperienced, it is evident that it would have faced the demise of Kodak. The continuous success and innovations at Apple Inc. are an indication that the company has no risk of having inexperienced employees working in its plants or stores.
Rewards for entrepreneurial risk-taking
One of the reasons why Apple Inc. does not advertise most of its posts is because the company chooses to promote the employees who understand its culture and operations. The risk level for entrepreneurial rewards at Apple is low. The risk levels when it comes to rewarding are dictated on how the company rewards its employees who burn the midnight oil to meet its goals and objectives (Etzioni, 2018). When the company fails to reward its employees, it raises the risks levels, but when it rewards its employees, it reduces the risks levels (Nwogugu, 2015). The company makes sure that employees who demonstrate that they are outstanding in their performance are rewarded handsomely. The company uses promotions and gifts as its methods of rewarding the outstanding employees.
In January, Apple Inc. faced a challenge that it was supposed to solve for it to save the reputation of the company (Taulli, 2018). The delay of some of the products led to many critics attacking Apple and specifically Tim Cook. The critics argued that Apple was losing its way and it was headed down the tunnel. The bad news had an effect on the company, and this is because they attracted a debate on the media as well as on the social media. However, the way the management handled the bad news stood out (Clarke and Boersma, 2017). Instead of answering to the critiques with anger, the CEO assured the customers that the problem was indeed present, but the company was handling it. All managers at the company handled the issue as an issue affecting the entire organization and not just an issue affecting the CEO. Therefore, it is evident that the risk levels at Apple Inc. as far as executive resistance to bad news is concerned are low. The main reason is that the company’s executive did not deny the bad news, but it accepted and promised to take appropriate actions.
Apple Inc. is a company that promotes competition, but it focuses more on competing with the competitors and not employees competing with their fellow employees. Teamwork at Apple is essential, and that is a lesson that is taught as soon as the employees are welcomed to the workforce (Dudovskiy, 2018). Therefore, the risk level of Apple Inc. as far as the aspect of internal competition is concerned is low. Apple Inc. discourages high levels of internal competition in different ways. First, it has a culture that emphasizes the need for all employees to work together to attain the organizational goals (Cohen, 2015). When the employees get an opportunity to work at Apple, they are taken through training. The training sessions help the employees to know the best ways to deal with job issues, utilize their skills, and how to make sure that they work with their colleagues to attain the organizational goals (Petersen and Lemke, 2015). When an organization takes the initiative of making sure that employees work together, it is an indication that the company is trying to show the employees that their contribution to the organizational goals matters more than competition among themselves.
Second, Apple assigns teams to different responsibilities. A good example can be seen in the development and designing of products. The designing teams discuss the designs and deliberate on their usefulness before a final decision can be reached (Clarke and Boersma, 2017). When participation of all employees is promoted in a company, it is no doubt that the employees are discouraged from competing among themselves (Nahum, 2016). As a result, the risk levels decrease, and this is because the organization is more interested in seeing the employees helping each other out to reach the organizational goals than the employees competing to reach their personal targets.
Transaction complexity and velocity
The risk level to transaction complexity and velocity is high at the company, and that is because of the process involved with the transactions (Kodama, Yasuda, and Hirasawa, 2017). At Apple, transactions must go through different stages for them to be approved. Therefore, it means that a transaction may take longer than it needs to. When a transaction takes longer to be completed, there is the issue of delayed goals and operations. The success of a company depends on its operations (Bettini, Watkins, Guerra, and Price, APPTHORITY Inc., 2014). Therefore, it means that if the operations are delayed, the organization’s success is delayed as well. With this in mind, it is evident that complex transactions and velocity exposes an organization to risks that might come at a cost.
The company has a mechanism in place that helps to measure a condition when it is present and when it is absent. Therefore, the risk levels to diagnostic performance are low. A company ought to have mechanisms in place that helps it to understand the situation at hand (Etzioni, 2018). It is for this reason that organizations that do not have such mechanisms and tools are exposed to risks of not knowing about the presence or absence of conditions at the organization.
The CEO of Apple Inc. is the senior employee of the company, and he is the person entrusted with the decision making process at the company. Before any report or statement leaves the company, it must be approved by the CEO. During times when the company has faced issues that needed a response, Apple never depicted that it is divided. The degree of decentralized information is high when the company shows that the decisions are made by more than one person (Al Ayubi et al. 2016). In an organization where the CEO is the senior decision maker, the degree of decentralized information is low. Apple has faced the issue of supply chain a few times, and there is no point that the statements about the issue came from two different persons. Whenever a manager speaks, he speaks the same language as the CEO (Meyer, 2018). Before the decision can be communicated to the public, the company makes sure that it is the decision that has been agreed on by every person. Therefore, the risk levels as far as the degree of decentralized information is concerned are low at Apple Inc.
References
Al Ayubi, S.U., Pelletier, A., Sunthara, G., Gujral, N., Mittal, V. and Bourgeois, F.C., 2016. A Mobile App Development Guideline for Hospital Settings: Maximizing the Use of and Minimizing the Security Risks of” Bring Your Own Devices” Policies. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 4(2).
Bettini, A.J., Watkins, K., Guerra, D.J. and Price, M., APPTHORITY Inc, 2014. Quantifying the risks of applications for mobile devices. U.S. Patent 8,713,684.
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Cohen, N., 2015. Management Structure Success in Apple, Inc. TOURO ACCOUNTING & BUSINESS JOURNAL, p.18.
Dudovskiy, J. 2008. Apple Organizational Culture – Secrecy and Maximum Benefit from Human Resources. Available at https://research-methodology.net/apple-organizational-culture/
Etzioni, A., 2018. Apple: Good business, poor citizen? Journal of Business Ethics, 151(1), pp.1-11.
Fujita, M. and Hamaguchi, N., 2016. Supply chain internationalization in East Asia: Inclusiveness and risks. Papers in Regional Science, 95(1), pp.81-100.
Hofmann, H., Busse, C., Bode, C., and Henke, M., 2014. Sustainability?related supply chain risks: conceptualization and management. Business Strategy and the Environment, 23(3), pp.160-172.
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Kodama, M., Yasuda, T. and Hirasawa, K., 2017. Ma Thinking and Innovation in Global High Tech Companies: The Lessons of Business Model Innovation in Apple and Cisco Systems. In Ma Theory and the Creative Management of Innovation (pp. 43-80). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Lockamy III, A., 2017, July. An examination of external risk factors in Apple Inc.’s supply chain. In Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal (Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 177-188). Taylor & Francis.
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Nahum, B., 2016. Measuring the impact on consumer loyalty of extending the product lifecycle through the offering of technological upgrades, a case study of Apple.
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Taulli, T. 2018. Bad News May Show That Apple Inc. Has Lost Its Way. Available at https://investorplace.com/2018/01/bad-news-may-show-that-apple-inc-aapl-stock-has-lost-its-way/
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