Question:
Describe about the Technology Strategy of Apple?
Dynamic capability is highly important to an organisation in the 21st century, as it is an important concept that allows the firm in integrating, building and reconfiguring internal and external competencies to adapt to rapidly changing environment. Businesses are faced with significantly dynamic and changing environment conditions, and it is essential that they must respond to such external environment conditions in order to efficiently performing their business processes. Dynamic capabilities are therefore essential as they allows for efficiently addressing the external environment conditions and this dynamic capability can be possessed by businesses in respect to different areas of business. Dynamic capability can be possessed by business in respect to technology whereby technological innovation could be applied by them in leading the organisation to higher success level. The capacity of an organisation to purposefully create, extend or modify its resource base is defined as dynamic capability (Teece, 2009).
This report is focused towards performing a critical assessment of the dynamic capability of an organisation, and the organisation selected is Apple Inc. The analysis therefore focuses towards the extent to which Apple possesses dynamic capability with respect to technology. This will be analysed by way of evaluating whether the key innovation activities are currently operating within organisation or not. The role of political and cultural influences in affecting the dynamic technological capability in the organisation will be assessed and finally, the ways in which external environment forces affect the application of technology within it.
This section of analysis is now focused towards analysing the extent to which Apple possess dynamic capability in respect to technology. An analysis of Apple Corporation indicates that it is a US based organisation that specialises in providing highly innovative electronic products and services to its customers worldwide. An analysis of dynamic capability indicates that such capability is utilised in modifying short term competitive positions for the purpose of achieving long term competitive advantage. This concept of dynamic capability emerges from the two major concepts such as resource based view and the concept of routines in evolutionary theory of the organisation. The main focus of this concept is that it is aimed at sustaining competitive advantage rather than achieving it. This has been an important focus area of this concept and it is extensively important for businesses because the case of Nokia indicates that despite having competitive advantage with the company, it failed to sustain such competitive position (Leoncini and Montresor, 2007).
As dynamic capability is focused towards sustaining the competitive advantage, an analysis of the given case of Apple indicates that the company poses dynamic capability with regard to technology. The core dynamic capability of Apple in respect to technology is that the company has highly innovative processes and man power that have the capability to provide innovative products and services to its customers. This dynamic capability of stronger and innovative leaders responsible for working across Apple has allowed the company in efficiently sustaining the core competitiveness of the organisation despite the death of its most innovative CEO Steve Jobs. It was mainly the leadership effectiveness of Steve Jobs that has revolutionised the performance of the entire organisation, and resulted into the attainment of leadership position to the firm in the industry. But the dynamic capability of Apple has developed at such a larger scale that it has allowed the company in sustaining its core competitive advantage of being the leader in providing highly innovative products and services to its customers despite the death of Steve Jobs.
The technological capability that is highly dynamic and it is with the company is mainly in the form of highly advanced technological equipments and processes as developed by its highly technological staff. An analysis indicates that Apple has its own operating system known as iOS which is utilised in its smart phones, and the company is continuously utilising such advanced technological systems by bringing more innovation to it in the form of upgrading it. The ability to innovate has been the core dynamic capability of Apple with regard to technology, as all the electronic equipments as offered by the company is highly dynamic and convincing. They are innovative and at the same time, they are unique. The iOS operating system is unique offering of Apple, and its ability to innovate and further introduce highly advanced operating system is regarded as its dynamic capability with respect to technology. This dynamic capability has allowed Apple in sustaining even complex and dynamic changes as prevalent in the external environment. Apple has not occupied the position of technological leader, but it has achieved mastery with respect to marketing technologically based products to its consumers and also in developing features that creates value to people (Helfat, 2013).
Thus, the dynamic capability as identified in respect to Apple indicates that it is its core human resource advantage that are highly skilled and knowledge intensive that they allows for producing technologically devised products that offers higher value to its customers.
An analysis of Apple Inc indicates about the key innovation activities that are being carried out within the company in sustaining its key competitiveness within the entire industry. An analysis of the history of Apple Corporation indicates that the company undertakes innovation activities on regular basis as a part of its business processes. The evidence of key innovation is identified in respect to Apple in the form of incremental improvements that are performed by the company on regular basis with regard to its technology offerings. As for instance, the incremental innovation with regard to technology as identified in respect to Apple is mainly in respect to its iOS operating systems which has been upgrading with each newer smart phone as introduced by the company. Apple has recently introduced iPhone 6 which possess the latest operating system i.e. iOS 8, and this technology sounds extremely faster and innovative (Helfat, 2013).
Apart from upgrading the existing technological environment and products as offered by the company, the innovation activity as noted with regard to Apple is mainly in the form of line extensions which have been performed by it. As for instance the line extensions in respect to its technological products such as iPhone has been extended from iPhone 3 to iPhone 6. Similarly, there has been the extension of other major technological offerings by the company, and this particular innovation activity has proved to be highly successful and contributing factor towards enhanced level of performance of the company. Apart from this, the evidence of innovation activities as identified in respect to Apple include the identification of newly and most advanced technological system. The company has considered diversification strategy with respect to technological products it delivers, as the recent rumours indicate that the company is working on its most significant technological concept such as Apple car. All such technological strategies of the company give an indication of the evidence of key innovation activities that have been carried out by Apple (Innovation Lessons from Apple – Competing with Yourself, 2014).
In terms of the need to undertake such innovation activities, it is highly essential that company should continue to undertake such innovative activities with regard to enhancing its technological capabilities. This is mainly because the external environment is highly dynamic and demanding, and requires the companies to innovate with respect to their technological offerings so that they can cater to the needs and requirements of their customers. With respect to technological products as offered by Apple, it is highly crucial that the company should undertake innovative actions in enhancing its performance by way of introducing newer and advanced technologies. They are therefore highly needed to Apple in sustaining its competitive advantage in the industry (Male, 2010).
The role and importance of political and cultural factor is pivotal in affecting the performance of technological capabilities in an efficient way. The technological capability needs to be maintained but this is largely affected by the factors such as political and cultural factor. As a result, these factors should be given higher level of importance in ensuring that the technological capability can be maintained in a way that ensures the attainment of competitive advantage. An analysis of the case of Apple Inc indicates that the role of political factor has been crucial in impacting the technological capability of the company. An analysis indicates that politics is prevalent across the organisation in terms of the selection of leader or CEO of the company after the demise of successful leader Steve Jobs. The introduction of leadership of Tim Cook has affected the ways in which technological innovation is carried out. As for instance, there has been the role of politics in the management of Apple, as the entire way of performing technological innovation has changed under the leadership of Tim Cook. The technological innovation is highly significant under the leadership of Tim Cook because of major decisions that are undertaken by the leader (Ren and Shou, 2013).
Apart from role of political factor affecting the technological capability of the company, the role of cultural factor is also significant. In a highly globalised nation, the role of cultural factor affecting the performance of the organisation is significantly higher. This is mainly because businesses often perform the management of their operations across cross national boundaries, and this leads to their interaction with the cross cultural factor. Such existence of cross cultural factor majorly affects the performance of businesses especially in respect to the processes and measures that are being undertaken. In this relation, the case analysis of Apple Inc indicates that the role of cultural factor is significant over the company’s ability in performing innovation with respect to the technological measures that it has undertaken (Kara, 2014). As for instance, the cultural factor affects the technological capability of Apple Inc in a positive way because it has been analysed that Apple Inc supports the inclusion strategy with regard to its employees. This inclusion strategy allows for combining the people from diverse background and the interaction of diverse culture contributes in a positive manner towards attaining technological breakthrough in terms of development of newer products and services that are technologically sound enough (Langley, 2014).
Thus, the analysis as carried out in respect to the impact of political and cultural factor over the technological capacity of Apple has indicated that the impact has been positive and these factors account for sound enough contribution in achieving technological developments across the organisation in the form of technologically sound products and services.
The external environment condition of an organisation directly affects its performance, and the case analysis of Apple Inc indicates that the external environmental forces have direct level of impact over the technological innovation that has been carried out at Apple. Apple is faced with extremely competitive environment condition, as there are various major players that e rare directly competing with it. The major competitors are mainly the Samsung, Google, Microsoft, HTC, Motorola and many more. The case analysis of Apple Inc implies that the company has engaged in patent war with Samsung mainly because it has blamed Samsung for stealing its technology (Perton, 2013).
Apart from the competitive conditions, the technological condition also impacts the performance of Apple in a direct way. This is evident from the fact that the external environment as faced by Apple is highly dynamic and challenging because of increasing level of expectations of customers from the company for highly advanced and technological products. As Apple has gained the reputation of being the most innovative company, the expectations of its customers has also enhanced significantly. They expect highly innovative features in the iPhones launched by the company from time to time. This higher expectation of the customers affects Apple in the form of making significant innovation in the products and services that it offers to its customers. Thus, competitive environment along with higher customer expectations require Apple to make significant level of technological revolution in its operations so that these expectations of customers can be efficiently met (Martin, 2014).
The analysis above has indicated that there are direct forces that are affecting the performance of Apple in a direct way. The role of dynamic capability in technology as possessed by Apple Inc in this context is significantly important and this is evident from the fact that such accessibility to dynamic capability allows the company in efficiently addressing the external environment forces in a direct way. As for instance, the higher customer expectations for technologically innovative products from the company is addressed by way of the technologically dynamic capability in the form of ability of the company to innovate its processes and provide newer and sound technologically devices to its customers. The technological capability in the form of highly experienced and knowledgeable employees allow the company in accelerating within its processes in offering sound support to its customers and this in turn allows it in responding to external environment conditions in a positive way. Apart from the customer expectations, this dynamic capability of Apple is also sound enough in addressing the external environment requirement of highly competitive environment. Because of this dynamic capability of Apple in technology, it has been possible in innovating within the existing business processes by the company, and this in turn has allowed it in offering highly advanced and technologically sound products and services. The resulting impact is better overall ability of the company in addressing the needs and requirements of external environment and ultimately in meeting out customer’s expectation in a positive way (Lahinsky, 2012).
Overall, the analysis above has indicated that the external environment directly affects the performance of Apple, and dynamic capability in technology as possessed by the company has been extremely efficient and important that it allows it in addressing such needs of external environment efficiently.
Conclusion
In this report, a critical assessment has been carried out with regard to the dynamic capability of Apple in respect to technology and the performance of analysis indicated that Apple possess significant level of capabilities with respect to technology. This is evident from the fact that it is known as the technologically oriented company as it accounts for providing highly innovative and technologically sound devices and gadgets to its customers. The analysis has provided evidence with regard to key innovation activities that are currently operating at Apple, and it has also been assessed that the political as well as cultural factors have a direct level of impact over the dynamic technological capability of the organisation. It has been assessed that these factors are responsible for positively supporting the growth of technological innovation across the entire organisation. The analysis has also indicated that the external environment forces directly affects the performance of Apple, and in this respect, dynamic capability in technology allows the company in efficiently responding to such external environment forces in an efficient manner.
References
Helfat, C. (2013). How Apple and IBM Learned to Change With the Times [Online]. Available at: https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&edata-src=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usnews.com%2Fopinion%2Fblogs%2Feconomic-intelligence%2F2013%2F07%2F02%2Fapple-and-ibm-show-the-power-of-dynamic-capabilities&ei=ueThVKnBKtidugSSjYL4Cw&usg=AFQjCNFxklV2gGbJaUcKaoqs4yx6Nmfn7Q&sig2=HBtoMj5DrdVx1IcYRNOokw&bvm=bv.85970519,d.c2E [Accessed: 16 February 2015].
Innovation Lessons from Apple – Competing with Yourself, (2014) [Online]. Available at: https://www.product-arts.com/resourcemain/articlemenu/387-innovation-lessons-from-apple-part-3 [Accessed: 16 February 2015].
Kara, D. (2014). Brand strength, cultural influence of consumer-facing giants like Google, Apple and Amazon help legitimize robotics for businesses and investors [Online]. Available at: https://robohub.org/brand-strength-cultural-influence-of-consumer-facing-giants-like-google-apple-and-amazon-help-legitimize-robotics-for-businesses-and-investors/ [Accessed: 17 February 2015].
Leoncini, R. and Montresor, S. (2007), ‘Dynamic Capabilities Between Firm Organisation and Local Systems of Production’, Routledge.
Lahinsky, A. (2012). How Tim Cook is changing Apple [Online]. Available at: https://fortune.com/2012/05/24/how-tim-cook-is-changing-apple/ [Accessed: 17 February 2015].
Langley, H. (2014). Apple’s cultural impact is the real challenge for Chinese smartphone heroes [Online]. Available at: https://www.in.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/Apples-cultural-impact-is-the-real-challenge-for-Chinese-smartphone-heroes/articleshow/38488771.cms [Accessed: 17 February 2014].
Male, B. (2010). 3 Innovation Lessons From Apple’s Continued Success [Online]. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/3-keys-to-apples-innovation-success-2010-5?IR=T [Accessed: 16 February 2015].
Martin, J. (2014). Apple v. Samsung patent trial recap: How it all turned out (FAQ) [Online]. Available at: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-v-samsung-patent-trial-recap-how-it-all-turned-out-faq/ [Accessed: 17 February 2015].
Perton, M. (2013). Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones this summer, but faces tough competition [Online]. Available at: https://www.engadget.com/2013/10/28/apple-just-sold-33-million-iphones/ [Accessed: 17 February 2015].
Ren, B. and Shou, H. (2013), ‘Chinese Environmental Governance: Dynamics, Challenges, and Prospects in a Changing Society’, Palgrave Macmillan.
Teece, D.J. (2009), ‘Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management: Organizing for Innovation and Growth’, Oxford University Press.
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