1. McGee 1
The operational plan is the key to run an entire organization; this includes all areas such
as finance, human resources, manufacturing, marketing, etc. Apple is known for its lenient
business thinking. The corporate operations of Apple are managed on a geographic basis such as
America, Europe, Japan, retail and others. “The people are group together on the basis of their
area of expertise and resources, that way it enables each employee to learn from their respected
functions (Essay, UK., 2015).” The organization design is a formal, guided process for
integrating the people, information and technology of an organization. The organization designs
matches people, technology, vision and strategy to achieve the company’s goal and its focus to
accomplish desired outcomes. Apple collaborative structure is a key part of how the organization
is designed. The collaboration of members of the company helps determines what best design
and strategy needs to be elaborated to achieve the goals, reach more customers and increase
profits. Their collaboration structure allows apple to match people, information and the
technology that customers are seeking. It has had major success since founded in 1984 and every
day it expands more worldwide. Their collaborative structure allows different minds and ideas to
come together and create beautiful and latest technological gadgets. Even though they had a few
set back such as the sad passing of Steve Jobs, Tim Cook the new CEO has been able to keep the
company afloat and the primary choice of many customers when it comes to cell phones,
computers and tablets. “Apple’s marketing plan focuses on three main points: impute, empathy,
and focus (Suzanne, C., 2012).” Impute is the way the products are presented in order to make to
appeal to various customers. Apple wants its products and brands to be presented in a creative as
well as a professional manner in order to impute the desired qualities. Secondly, Apple
demonstrates a high degree of empathy by truly understanding their customers’ wants and needs
better than any other company. They want their consumers to know that their desires matter and

2. McGee 2
that everything is being taken care of. By understanding their wants and needs shows that Apple
is taking the time and energy to not only listen and analyze their markets but creating products
that are tailored to each unique consumer basis in their marketing plans. Finally, Apple
demonstrates the idea of focus by eliminating unimportant opportunities that may arise. The
workers and executives at Apple are driven to make the best products, make their customers
satisfied, and do whatever it takes to create a positive atmosphere for their co-workers,
customers, and the environment in order to maintain a professional company image that is
reflected and perceived by the public each and every day. Apple’s success can be associated also
to its Human Resources department. Not many people think of this but HR does a particularly
good job at organizational development. Some of these strategies include: knowing your roles,
freeing up your leadership, making your work meaningful, and retaining growth opportunities.
At Apple’s Inc. each employee knows their role. “They wear different t-shirt colors to identify
what they are supposed to do (Lombard, 2015)”Everyone one from the greeter to the genius crew
knows exactly what his or her role is. The workforce is deployed effectively which makes
managers and supervisors have more time to focus on what is really important such as leading,
inspiring and providing great customer service without the need to micro-manage every single
employee. When employees know what they are doing matters they will do their best. If the
employee is satisfied with his or her job they will deliver the same level of work ethic and do a
good job. Companies struggle to retain great talent, but Apple offers great opportunities such as
promoting from within and allowing employees to advance within the organization The finance
department’s function is to maximize shareholder value done either over a long- term or short
term and determine how to do it the best way possible. They need to know how to allocate assets
to achieve maximum goal and that all the risk is at the right place. Apple wants to show to their

3. McGee 3
stockholders and investors that whatever money is spent is going towards something that can
benefit the company as a whole.
Apple’s organization structure can be broken down into three characteristics that has
helped shape the company we view as Apple today. Apple’s organizational structure is mainly a
traditional hierarchy, with some key elements from other types of organizational structure. This
became possible through the works of Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Apple’s organizational
structure is effective in supporting business performance to ensure leadership in the industry.
However, further changes in this organizational structure can help improve Apple’s capabilities,
especially in the area of rapid and creative innovation and design. “The new design of the
organizational structure was influenced by three distinguishing characteristics: Spoke-and-wheel
hierarchy, Function-based grouping, and Product-based grouping (Suzanne, C., 2012).”
From the very beginning the company Apple had very simple organizational structure
which was created by Steven Jobs. In the past everything was done in Steve Jobs office. This
means that back in the early stages of Apple there was once central authority figure that made all
the decisions pertaining to the company. Looking at the current structure in place, the structure
can be divided into two portions. The first being function-based grouping, and the other being
product-based grouping. Each one of the founders were responsible for performing the
necessary tasks in maintaining and keeping the business running. As the years went on the
numerous job tasks were distributed to other employees that were hired to meet the ongoing
growth within the company. In the following year, John Sculley sought to simplify an
organizational structure. The main change was to reduce the number of Apple product division to
three: Macintosh, Apple II and an accessory and product group. In 1985, Sculley made another
big change when the three product divisions were consolidated into one called Product

4. McGee 4
Operations. Steve Jobs was no longer a member, he resigned from Apple and Jean-Louis Gassee,
head of Apple France, was promoted to replace him. Steve Jobs found company NeXT what will
be bought by Apple later. Sculley also added another position called COO (Chief Operations
Officer) to which Yocam was appointed. Apple has come a long way since the beginning in
which they had a flat organization structure and was able to expand due to the numerous position
additions to make Apple’s organization structure tall and more complex. But today’s Apple is
not like any other company, because it has a functional structure where the employees report
directly to Tim Cook along with the other company executives. At the start, Apple had the
following in its organization structure: CEO, SVP of Design, Worldwide Product Marketing,
General Counsel, Software Engineering, and Retail.
In order to establish their worldwide branding campaign, now Apple uses a
multidivisional structure composed of operating divisions where each division represents a
separate business or profit center and the top corporate officer that delegate the responsibility for
day-to-day operations and business-unit strategy to division managers. Apple operates
international and will continue to pursue a Multi-divisional structure but with an adaptive culture
to reach different consumers worldwide and expand their existing markets. I think this is an
excellent strategy to pursue because while keeping the structure strong you can add features to
organization to become more successful. The re-staffing of the executives does not redesign the
structure it crafts the focus in the company. Since offering more specialized responsibilities to
redirect the gaze on performing processes more efficiently and responsibility while focusing on
delegating responsibilities onto others it is also providing decentralizing to methods to generate
innovation, Tim Cook has announced to provide their employees with 20% of time for
employees to work on their choose of special projects to work on. It is evident that the CEO

5. McGee 5
realizes the importance of their innovative structure which he will continue to follow but add the
adopted innovating practices to adapt to its competitors. I think it striving for an adaptive culture
to its structure is promising for Apple to continue to be a leader in electronics. As being one of
the leading electronic companies, Apple is consistent with the creation of beautiful products that
all ages can enjoy and change the world.
Apple is a steady and well-rounded company. According to the PESTEL/PESTLE
analysis, “there are factors that present opportunities as well as threats to Apple that could make
their company better in the long run as well as help them explore new alternatives, product ideas,
and ways of doing business that never crossed their minds (Lombardo, 2015).” Some factors to
consider are the macro environment, industry environment, qualitative and quantitative results,
strategy implementation, formulation, control, and mission, goals as well as objectives of the
firm or company. For Apple’s macro environment, some of the factors are political, economic,
social, environmental, and technological. “Apples needs to improve their free trade policies as
well as maintain stable political extremes in developing countries (Lombardo, 2015)” Apple can
do this by having more free trade policies are created over time, especially with developing
countries. Additional free trade policies increase the opportunities for Apple to distribute more of
its products to various markets around the world. On the other hand, the stability of the political
landscape in many developed countries presents opportunities because Apple can expect minimal
political issues affecting its business. Another factor that directly affects politics is legislation
whether it be a new law or policy that determines how business is done in that particular country
or even the installment of quotas or regulations on certain goods or practices associated with a
certain product or company. The two things Apple needs to be careful about in respect to the
legal side of business is to increase both their privacy regulations as well as their

6. McGee 6
telecommunications regulations. They can achieve this by realizing this factor is a threat because
it creates new challenges for Apple in developing products that involve transmission of private
information. However, this factor is also an opportunity for the company to improve product
features that protect privacy. On the other hand, governments are also imposing stricter
telecommunications regulations, which are a threat because they could potentially limit the
usability of Apple products. “Apple must emphasize privacy protection and regulatory
compliance in all of its products to maintain the company’s leadership in various markets
worldwide (Lombardo, 2015).” Usually technology innovation is good a thing because it
presents a new way of doing something which leads to newer product ideas that customers might
enjoy and consider buying. For Apple, “cloud computing, technological integration, and the
apps market are possible avenues that Apple could look into down the road that may strengthen
their consumer markets and bring new ideas to the table (Lombardo, 2015).” For example, in
respect to cloud computing, Apple could offer their consumers cloud-friendly devices and apps
so that no matter where you are you can access, play, share, etc. This in return will not only
make owners of IPhone, IPods, etc., but will increase the size and capacity of your App store as
well as provide more options to choose from and promote diversity. Apple has created numerous
apps in order to make our lives easier and enjoyable. In fact, speaking of apps how about social
media? Facebook, Instagram, twitter, etc. are now able to be downloaded from the app store on
to your mobile device which means you can send a tweet, take a picture, message your friends,
and anything imaginable with an app.
In brief, Apple Company is very innovative, considered early adapters and it is typically
the foremost company who takes on new products as compared to other companies. These types
of things are considered to be more risky but it appears to be functioning as an advantage.

7. McGee 7
Apple’s Strong market position and consumer loyalty which increases due to closed ecosystem and
user friendly products makes different to Apple Company from its competitors. Apple is greatly
admired and recognized by a vast majority. They have a great influence because their brands are
meet the expectations of their customers as well as provides a high degree of satisfaction that
other companies cannot replicate not compete with. Whereas, it is also credited to first
sustainable music downloading business model in history but its iPod and iTunes online media
store. Apple is a profitable company and its future is bright. But Apple should be careful in legal
and political areas because as to reduce operating cost it has outsourced in different countries and
it has to find different alternate to reduce the risk as Apple buys application processor from
Samsung which can create a problem for it.
Bibliography:

8. McGee 8
Essays, UK. (2015, March 23) Business Operational Plan Of Apple Inc Business Essay.
Retrieved from http://www.ukessays.com/essays/business/business-operational-plan-of-apple-
inc-business-essay.php?cref=1
Lombardo, Jessica. (2015, September 6). "Apple Inc. PESTEL/PESTLE Analysis &
Recommendations – Panmore Institute. Retrieved from http://panmore.com/apple-inc-pestel-
pestle-analysis-recommendations
Suzanne, C. (2012, March 28). HR’s Role in Apple’s Success. Retrieved from
http://blog.firstreference.com/2012/03/28/suzanne-c-s-post/