Internal Analysis Apple Essay Example Essay Example

Internal Analysis Apple Essay Example Paper Internal Analysis Apple Essay Introduction Internal Analysis Tangible resources Apple’s tangible resources are extensive and widely documented despite the company’s high level of security in matters of design. The value of analyzing the tangible assets of the organization lies in the determination of the potential for the creation of competitive advantage (Grant 2007). In terms of financial resources, the case quotes Apple’s market capitalization is approximately US $550 billion, with sales annually over $100 billion. This makes Apple the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. The share price currently stands at around $600, merely 12 ears after Steve Jobs’ return to the company, where the share price was $5. Apple’s physical resources include 362 retail stores world wide, which promote sales and effective advertising. Third party manufacturing relationships are also a key aspect of Apple’s success allowing for relatively inexpensive manufacturing while all design aspects stay in-house (Mass 2009). Internal Analysis Apple Essay Body Paragraphs The systems in development, design and software systems are all key aspects of Apple’s organizational and technological resources, and are closely linked to the organization’s intangible resources due to their close relation with knowledge and managerial capabilities. Intangible resources Apple’s overwhelming and unprecedented success in the technology industry undoubtedly stems from its intangible resources. The influence that co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs had on the company is undeniably accountable for its achievements. As an entrepreneur and human resource to Apple, Jobs’ managerial capabilities and innovative ideas were invaluable. The retail stores of Apple also provide intangible resources in the interaction with customers, aesthetically appealing design of the tortes and technological support provided on site in the ‘genius bar’ Arbor 2011). The reputation of Apple and the unique creation of customers ‘needing the newest design i n the latest release of products is an intangible resource vital to the organization’s success; they have captured exactly what the consumer wants. Apple develops and integrates its own hardware and software, and along with the creation of the App store, has created a self-sufficient technological process from start to finish. Consequently, the brand name Apple evokes a whole new facet of technology in today’s society. Capabilities The capabilities of Apple lie in the integration of tasks that combine all aspects of their company, from research and development to product development to marketing and advertising. The entrepreneurial skills and capabilities of Steve Jobs and the the company. Retail Apple stores act not only as a mechanism for sales, but also as a product themselves, as they are invaluable marketing for the brand. The Internet based sales also offers customers to create combinations of their own products, which could be built and shipped with efficiency a nd quality guarantee. Apple rates products that are simple in design, yet so focused on the specifics that customer’s inherently deem them as ‘cool’. Apple also maintains an air of suspense and mystery upon the unveiling of their products, which captures the consumer’s curiosity on a huge scale, an unusual tactic in a society concerned with collaboration and transparency. The use of a platform strategy to create a family of products that will all stream from each other and make use of design elements for derivative products, I. E. the phone, pod touch and pad. The creation of products that, despite ever changing and evolving in technological progress, maintain a clear look and use for consumers is a capability for Apple. Capability Rare Valuable Costly to imitate Non-substitutable Competitive Consequence Design team Yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive Advantage Retail stores Yes Yes Yes Anthropometry CA Internet sales Noses Yes Noncompetitive Parity Design of â₠¬Ëœcool’ products Yes Yes Anthropometry CA Unveiling of products Yes Yes Yes Anthropometry CA Platform strategy Yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive Advantage Clear Apple look and use Yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive Advantage Core Competencies Apple defies the norm in regard to core competencies, that is; the capabilities that serve the company with competitive advantage over rival firms, as it has three that are clearly distinguishable. While most companies can hope to have one or maybe two core competencies, the success that Apple has seen in the past few decades in the global commercial electronics industry has been unprecedented. This has been largely due to the innovation and entrepreneurial quality that has stemmed from the design team and Jobs’ influence in creating products that consumers desire on an ongoing basis. The use of a platform strategy has seen the success of a multitude of products which have offered countless benefits to both Apple itself, and their customers, who can use the same software, hardware, accessories and production between products. Finally, the simple, elegant look and usability of Apple products across the brand has proven to be the core capability that no other company can par. Value Chain Analysis Primary Activities Inbound Logistics superior products, while maintaining a level of quality control. The unique hardware system has also allowed for Apple to be produced entirely from scratch with a unique pirating system. Operations Apple capitalists on economies of scale in their production techniques by utilizing cheaper and more efficient partners to carry out production at a high quality. This leaves the company to focus on the design processing and engineering of innovative development for both current and future products. Outbound Logistics Apple stores have transformed from merchandising buildings designed to attract â€Å"foot traffic† and curious non-Apple customers, to retail destinations. In conjunction with t he stores (which are products in themselves), Apple products are also sold wrought select authorized retailers, which provide a point of contact between staff and consumers as well as an outlet for advertisement for the Apple brand. Customized Internet orders are also directly shipped from storage facilities in China arbor 2009). Marketing and Sales Retail stores are life size advertisements, as the sleek interior design and advanced technological displays of Apple products are a credit to the company as the ultimate marketing display. The secretive product unveiling create hype and curiosity about new Apple products, effective in capturing consumer interest. The real secret to Apple’s marketing, however, lies in its ability to create functional, instinctive products that the consumer finds natural to use. Apple’s marketing campaign highlights this not by specifying the complex features of the product, but rather showing the way that consumers will use them in day to d ay life and look good doing it (Hollies 2011). Service The â€Å"genius bar† feature of the retail Apple store provides a direct consultation service that allows customers to consult an expert technician on problems they may have encountered with their product. The platform strategy that Apple uses also meaner that consumers are already aware of how a product works from previous products of the same family, requiring less training and also less maintenance and repair due to a better developed product. Supporting Activities Firm Infrastructure The structure of the company once Jobs returned to Apple saw the rapid onset of success, due to the focus on innovation rather than process. The lack of specific processes disclosed to the public also raises questions as to the efficiency of creates opportunities for growth, extensive research and development and product expansion. Human Resource Management The employee benefits of working at Apple are numerous, from the testing of produ cts to receiving gifts of the newest designs to superior working environments. Consequently, for such an innovative and rapidly paced industry, the hiring process is selective in order to attract the best entrepreneurial talent. Technological Development The level of secrecy within Apple is extremely high, even between departments within the organization. This is vital to keep the company relevant and competitive. The level of research and development at Apple is extensive, with many employees particularly senior level management) taking a hands on approach in order to utilize â€Å"knowledge work† to achieve the most â€Å"beautiful, elegant solution†. Procurement The relationship between Apple and its suppliers is of utmost importance to the company in order to meet the needs of a competitive, fast-paced business environment. This is supported by Apple’s Supplier Diversity Program, established to uphold social and environmental responsibilities by utilizing a range of suppliers with diverse cultural components (Apple and Procurement 2012). Strengths and Weaknesses table Strengths Weaknesses Large market capitalization Lack of concrete processes Annual sales making Apple the largest publicly traded company worldwide Level of secrecy between departments could lead to overlap of ideas/double-up 362 retail stores worldwide providing advertisement for the company Continuing to release relevant and improved products is rapidly paced industry Strong relationships with third party manufacturers and suppliers Design team with extensive entrepreneurial and innovative skills Retail stores offering a point of contact for consumers as well as customer support for product difficulties We will write a custom essay sample on Internal Analysis Apple Essay Example specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Internal Analysis Apple Essay Example specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Internal Analysis Apple Essay Example specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

About the Usonian Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright

About the Usonian Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright The Usonian house - the brainchild of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) - is the embodiment of an idea for a simple, stylish small house of moderate cost designed especially for the American middle class. It is not so much a style as a type of residential architecture. Style is important, wrote Wright. A style is not. When looking at a portfolio of Wrights architecture, the casual observer might not even pause at the Jacobs I house in Madison, Wisconsin - the first Usonian house from 1937 looks so familiar and ordinary compared with Wrights famous 1935 Fallingwater residence. The Kaufmanns’ Fallingwater in the Pennsylvania woods is not a Usonian, yet, Usonian architecture was another obsession of the famous Frank Lloyd Wright in the last decades of his long life. Wright was 70-years-old when the Jacobs house was finished. By the 1950s, he had designed hundreds of what he was then calling his Usonian Automatics. Wright didnt want to be known solely as an architect of the rich and famous, although his early residential experimentation in Prairie house design had been subsidized by families of means. The competitive Wright quickly became interested in affordable housing for the masses  - and doing a better job than the catalog companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward were doing with their prefabricated house kits. Between 1911 and 1917, the architect teamed up with Milwaukee businessman Arthur L. Richards to design what became known as American System-Built houses, a type of prefabricated small, affordable home easily and quickly assembled from ready-cut materials. Wright was experimenting with grid design and a less labor-intensive construction process to create beautifully designed, affordable dwellings. In 1936, when the United States was in the depths of the Great Depression, Wright realized that the nations housing needs would forever be changed. Most of his clients would lead more simple lives, without household help, but still deserving of sensible, classic design. It is not only necessary to get rid of all unnecessary complications in construction... wrote Wright, it is necessary to consolidate and simplify the three appurtenance systems - heating, lighting, and sanitation. Designed to control costs, Wrights Usonian houses had no attics, no basements, simple roofs, radiant heating (what Wright called gravity heat), natural ornamentation, and efficient use of space, inside and out. Some have said that the word Usonia is an abbreviation for United States of North America. This meaning explains Wrights aspiration to create a democratic, distinctly national style that was affordable for the common people of the United States. Nationality is a craze with us, Wright said in 1927. Samuel Butler fitted us with a good name. He called us Usonians, and our Nation of combined States, Usonia. Why not use the name? So, Wright used the name, although scholars have noted that he got the author wrong. Usonian Characteristics Usonian architecture grew out of Frank Lloyd Wrights earlier Prairie style home designs. But most importantly, perhaps writes architect and writer Peter Blake, Wright began to make the Prairie house look more modern. Both styles featured low roofs, open living areas, and built-in furnishings. Both styles make abundant use of brick, wood, and other natural materials without paint or plaster. Natural light is abundant. Both are horizontally inclined - a companion to the horizon, wrote Wright. However, Wrights Usonian homes were small, one-story structures set on concrete slabs with piping for radiant heat beneath. The kitchens were incorporated into the living areas. Open carports took the place of garages. Blake suggests that the modest dignity of the Usonian homes laid the foundation for much modern, domestic architecture in America yet to come. The horizontal, indoor-outdoor nature of the popular Ranch Style home of the 1950s is anticipated by the realization of the Usonian. Blake writes: If one thinks of space as a sort of invisible but ever present vapor that fills the entire architectural volume, then Wrights notion of space-in-motion becomes more clearly understandable: the contained space is allowed to move about, from room to room, from indoors to outdoors rather than remain stagnant, boxed up in a series of interior cubicles. This movement of space is the true art of modern architecture, for the movement must be rigidly controlled so that the space cannot leak out in all directions indiscriminately. - Peter Blake, 1960 The Usonian Automatic In the 1950s, when he was in his 80s, Frank Lloyd Wright first used the term Usonian Automatic to describe a Usonian style house made of inexpensive concrete blocks. The three-inch-thick modular blocks could be assembled in a variety of ways and secured with steel rods and grout. To build a low-cost house you must eliminate, so far as possible, the use of skilled labor, wrote Wright, now so expensive. Frank Lloyd Wright hoped that home buyers would save money by building their own Usonian Automatic houses. But assembling the modular parts proved complicated - most buyers ended up hiring pros to construct their Usonian houses. Wrights Usonian architecture played an important role in the evolution of Americas midcentury modern homes. But, despite Wrights aspirations toward simplicity and economy, Usonian houses often exceeded budgeted costs. Like all of Wrights designs, Usonians became unique, custom homes for families of comfortable means. Wright admitted that by the 1950s buyers were the upper middle third of the democratic strata in our country. Usonian Legacy Beginning with a house for a young journalist, Herbert Jacobs, and his family in Madison, Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright built more than a hundred Usonian houses. Each house has taken on the name of the original owner - the Zimmerman House (1950) and Toufic H. Kalil House (1955), both in Manchester, New Hampshire; the Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum House (1939) in Florence, Alabama; the  Curtis Meyer House (1948) in Galesburn, Michigan; and the Hagan House, also known as Kentuck Knob, (1954) in Chalk Hill, Pennsylvania near Fallingwater. Wright developed relationships with each of his clients, which was a process that often began with a letter to the master architect. Such was the case with a young copy editor named Loren Pope, who wrote to Wright in 1939 and described a plot of land he had just purchased outside of Washington, D.C. Loren and Charlotte Pope never tired of their new home in northern Virginia, but they did tire of the rat race surrounding the nations capital. By 1947, the Popes had sold their home to Robert and Marjorie Leighey, and now the home is called the Pope-Leighey House - open to the public courtesy of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Sources The Usonian House I and The Usonan Automatic, The Natural House by Frank Lloyd Wright, Horizon, 1954, pp. 69, 70-71, 81, 198-199Frank Lloyd Wright On Architecture: Selected Writings (1894-1940), Frederick Gutheim, ed., Grossets Universal Library, 1941, p. 100Blake, Peter. The Master Builders. Knopf, 1960, pp. 304-305, 366Chavez, Mark. Prefabricated Homes, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/prefabricated-homes.htm [accessed July 17, 2018]American System-Built Homes, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, https://franklloydwright.org/site/american-system-built-homes/ [accessed July 17, 2018] SUMMARY: Characteristics of a Usonian Home one story, horizontal orientationgenerally small, around 1500 square feetno attic; no basementlow, simple roofradiant heating in concrete slab floornatural ornamentationefficient use of spaceblueprinted using a simple grid patternopen floor plan, with few interior wallsorganic, using local materials of wood, stone, and glasscarportbuilt-in furnishingsskylights and clerestory windowsoften in rural, wooded settingsUsonian Automatics experimented with concrete and patterned concrete blockdesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright