APPLE’S ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE 1

Apple’s Organizational Structure

Juliana Hendrix

MGT/230

July 29th 2014

Michael Dillhyon, Jr.

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Apple’s Organizational Structure

For an organization to be successful it needs a strong organizational structure. How the

organization is set up will directly impact the success or failure of said company. They need to

be structured and organized in a way that will best meet their goals and needs. Even though the

organizational structure is focus on the company’s goal it also dictates how to report priorities

and strategies of upper management. By understanding a companies’ organizational structure it

can also reveal cross-functional relationships to coordinate work efforts and optimal results.

Apple Inc. is knows as the company that changed everything by creating the original

Macintosh computer in 1984. At the time most people did not even know how to use a computer

or what a computer was, but the design was simple and easy to understand. One click of the

mouse and you could do the unthinkable. Steve Jobs founder of Apple Inc said: “We are just in

the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people – as

remarkable as the telephone” (Apple.com, 1984). Apple has stand out because is an incredibly

collaborative company, there are no committees and employees share their opinion and ideas for

the progress and success of the company.

Apple functions under a collaborative structure. A collaborative business structure is

designed to bring parties together in a long-term relationship to achieve a common goal (George,

R. 2012). A collaborative work environment supports people in their individual and cooperative

work. In a collaborative work environment professionals’ work together to achieve goals

independent of their location, and such practices enables an efficient and effective collaboration

among different talents. Collaboration leads to more ideas and innovation, like the saying “two

heads think better than one”, by attaining to this new structure Apple has open the doors for

innovation and new ideas from their employees.

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Microsoft another leading computer company founder by Bill Gates in 1975

(Microsoft.com, 2013) originally had a functional organization structure, the company started

with only 11 positions and expanded throughout the years. Functional organizational structure

usually is better for small companies or those that focus on one product or service because it is

not designed to change quickly and it works well in a stable environment not inclined to constant

changes. Microsoft as of 2010 has a divisional organization, where each division or product

focuses on a specific line of goods and services. Their approach is very different from Apple,

where everyone collaborates to ideas to each division focusing in one thing and not being able to

collaborate in other products or goods.

Some of the advantages of a division structure can include easier cross-product

coordination, more customer focus and reduce functional duplication. Also some disadvantages

include cost, difficulty coordinating between corporate and division objectives and redundancy

among groups.

One example of a big corporation that still uses functional organizational structure is

Dell. Founded in 1984 by Michael Dell the company encourages different departments and

functional components to contribute ideas to strengthen the organization. This structure is very

similar to collaborative; it provides more learning availability to all members or the organization

as the decisions comes from various levels (Essays, UK. 2013).

Apple’s marketing organizational function focus on mainly three points

 Empathy - they will truly understand their customer needs better than any other company.

 Focus – In order to do a good job of the things we decide to do, we must eliminate the

unimportant opportunities.
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 Impute – The way the products are presented will make them attractive to the customers.

They will be presented in a creative, professional manner so they will impute the desired

qualities (Forbes.com, 2012).

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:

 Know your roles – At Apple’s Inc. each employee knows their role. They wear different

t-shirt colors to identify what they are supposed to do. Everyone one from the greeter to

the genius crew knows exactly what his or her role is.

 Free up your leadership – 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.

 Make work meaningful – 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.

 Retain with growth opportunities – Companies struggle to retain great talent, but Apple

offers great opportunities such as promoting from within and allowing employees to

advance within the organization (Suzanne, C., 2012)

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.
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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 knows for its lenient business

thinking (Essays, UK., 2013). The operation of Apple is managed in geographic basis such as

America, Europe, Japan, retail and others. The people are group together on the basis of their

expertise and resources, that way it enables to learn from its functions. Also managers have

greater power over decisions that way there are not so much bureaucracy when a problem needs

to be fix and this avoids the hierarchies.

Organization Design is a formal, guided process for integrating the people, information and

technology of an organization (Autry, R., 1996). 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.

Overall Apple is a very successful company globally. 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. Every

day Apple becomes stronger financially and the lead on cellular devices thanks to the IPhone.

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.

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Reference

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Griffin, D. (2014). Functional Organizational Structure Advantages. Chron. Retrieved from

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/functional-organizational-structure-advantages-3721.html

Windows. (2013). Retrieved from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-

us/windows/history#T1=era0

Wingfield, N. (2013, July 11). Microsoft Overhauls, the Apple Way. The New York Times.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/technology/microsoft-revamps-
structure-and-management.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Suzanne, C. (2012, March 28). HR’s Role in Apple’s Success. First Reference Talks. Retrieved
from http://blog.firstreference.com/2012/03/28/suzanne-c-s-post/

Essays, UK. (November 2013). Business Operational Plan Of Apple Inc Business Essay.
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