SWOT Analysis And Leadership Evaluation

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SWOT Analysis and Leadership Evaluation

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SWOT ANALYSIS AND LEADERSHIP EVALUATION 2

SWOT Analysis and Leadership Evaluation.

Business organizations have assumed the tremendous role of maintaining their core

competencies by maintaining the existing brands while establishing new ones with a view to

broadening their market segment. In addition, this has been made possible by organization’s

effort to invest heavily in technology, creativity, and innovation. By doing so, businesses curve

their niche by fostering competitiveness and cost-efficiency despite the fact that the initial costs

are basically high and therefore creating a source of competitive advantage. Besides,

organizations acquire the capacity to gain access and penetrate into new markets while forming

partnerships to improve their value supply chain while acquiring the advantage of bulk buying

and assisting in the easier divestiture of assets. On the other hand, organizations have been able

to manage their Consumers needs more efficiently by coming up with more robust Customer

Relationship Management systems (CRM) therefore forging more formidable relationships. To

facilitate this, organizations should consider their financial capacity aspect to enable the smooth

transition. Businesses should consistently focus on their strengths, work harder to improve their

current weaknesses, neutralizing potential and existing threats while exploring new

environmental opportunities. Therefore, this research paper focuses to conduct a SWOT analysis

of a selected tech company while evaluating its leadership aspects a case study of Apple Inc.

SWOT analysis basically connotes the assessment of the organizational Strengths,

Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. According to Duncan et al., (2014), organizations that

focus on competencies becomes empowered, multi-faceted and create a multi-dynamic business

process that maintains its relevance in the industry. The analysis provides the scope in which a

tech company understands better and focus in its major investments in order to achieve the

prospected result. The virtue of conducting an organizational SWOT analysis paves way for any

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technology company to bridge the loopholes that could serve as potential avenues of threat or

weakness and in turn concentrate in major investments of exploring new opportunities. Basically,

the SWOT methodology addresses basic and variety of business aspects thus making it a better

and desirable tool to offer support to some brainstorming sessions. It is part and parcel of an

organizational strategic process due to the fact that it gives a good overview of any technology

company that is visionary. The organizational core competencies dictate the cutting edge of the

tech company in the marketplace. Meanwhile, the benefits are typical and a focal point of the

company's strategic planning and its operation. For example, a tech Company may have high

haggling power with creditors and an efficient distribution network as strengths can often be

leveraged to provide buyers with low-cost items.

The Apple Inc. as a well-established multinational tech company works closely with

United States governmental agencies to assist in measuring and regulating new technological

inventions. Being headquartered in Cupertino, California, it is basically a major player in

technology-intensive industries, science, and medicine. It sells high premium consumer

electronics products, designs and develops computer software’s as well as online services. It also

conducts research, assists in setting guidelines as well as sharing their results with the public in

conferences across the world. Apple’s Inc. has created technology development and innovation

regulation policies globally as one of its principal strength. Creativity and innovation for quality

have been the source of tremendous power by Apple Inc. towards achieving extreme targets and

capturing large profits. Through this endeavor, the company has been able to maintain its top

ranking product brand while penetrating new markets segment commanding a large market share

comparable to his tech rivals. Apple’s outlets across the globe dispose of high premium products

and services as a result of entrenchment of created technology development and innovation

SWOT ANALYSIS AND LEADERSHIP EVALUATION 4

regulation formulated by the secretariat. Technology and innovation provide the basis of cost-

effectiveness, quality and customer satisfaction that goes a long way in maintaining

organizational viability (Hurwitz. & Hurwitz, 2015).

Equally, Apple Inc. has adopted a diverse employee demographics that have always

welcomed influences across the world. Employee demography is the composition study of the

social entity in terms of member’s attribution. Besides, employee Demographics entail such

factors as age, gender, marital and family status, ethnicity, occupation, seniority and salary

levels. The influences that Apple Inc. has developed across the board has always been positive in

sending a message to other national and multinational corporations for inclusivity. Apple as an

incorporation now sees extension and inclusivity as an overall strategy woven into every aspect

of the life cycle to talents enhancing employee involvement, improving product brand, and

driving performance to guarantee equality and equitability. Incorporating diversity in employee

demography is a source of power to the company in the sense that people feel appreciated and

honored when they work in an environment where their culture and environment is highly

considered (Stahl et al., 2013). Furthermore, Apple has been able to maintain gender balance rule

as part of affirmative action either in the promotion or top-level management appointment slots,

therefore, giving women a high gear something that has been acclaimed globally by states and

international humanitarian organizations. By so doing, the company attracts more investment and

popularity taking the market by storm with its high-end products and services. Alternatively, the

ability of the company to maintain comprehensive sustainability policies has put it in the

limelight attracting more loyal customers due to adherence to the law. Nevertheless, Apple’s few

weaknesses include high selling prices of products and services.

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Its products are among the priciest in the market today even if the incorporation failed to

try to expand into large value segmentation alongside launching iPhone 5C smartphone in 2013.

However, the product did not meet great commercial success as a result due to its high premium

nature. For that reason, the form of luxury positioning has made hard for Apple products to

garner tremendous inroads overseas and especially in states where pressures and hurdles of an

ordinary consumer are considerable. Surprisingly, it renders the incorporation susceptible due to

price competition from other technological market players such as Samsung from South Korea,

Xiaomi from China’s that has registered drastic and substantive growth at a blistering pace over

the recent years. Equally, the tablet PC franchise has lately come into something of

disillusionment relative to Apple’s own high standards after it had registered tremendous initial

success. The fall can be attributed to softness in the space of broader tablet and inherent

competition from (GOOG) (Google’s Android-powered devices) that basically sold at low points

(Backer, 2013)). The recent slackness may as well continue unless the incorporation commences

moving towards vast enterprise market.

On a similar note, Apple’s weaknesses are basically internally instigated strategic factors.

In this respect, its limited distribution network across the board has actually minimized the

selling opportunities which could be availed were their proper distribution network. This can

actually be an obstacle to any business success. Due to the company’s policy of exclusivity, it is

therefore explained why the incorporation has the limited access to its distribution network. The

fascinating bit of the SWOT analysis indicates that such an exclusion of strategy exercises

regulate products distribution while limiting market access to the company. Additionally, Apple

faces the inadequacies of making the majority of its sales revenues from the high-end market due

to the fact that it adopted premium pricing strategy. The target market basically constitutes

SWOT ANALYSIS AND LEADERSHIP EVALUATION 6

customers from the middle and upper echelons. Therefore, customers of lesser class that is

represented by the majority of buyers across the global market are denied the chance to buy and

try Apple products and services due to the fact that the prices are always exorbitant. In as much

as high-quality end products are the main product of the incorporation, the market nature must

always be equalized (Backer, 2013). Therefore, based on such a dimension, the company’s

distribution and pricing strategies impose greatly on the limitations of weaknesses within the

Apple Inc.

On the other hand, the opportunities that may be identified and exploited by Apple Inc.

are basically from external instigated strategic factors. Major opportunity to be exploited is the

exposition by leading technologies giving a greater impetus towards establishing extra brands

(Hurwitz. & Hurwitz, 2015). In this case, the opportunity is the most noteworthy opportunities in

the organizational technological environment. With respect to that, the SWOT analysis discovers

the most expressive opportunities that a firm can explore. In that regard, the opportunities

basically create an influence in the strategic direction of the incorporation. Alongside other

leading technologies not limited to Accenture, Acer, Adobe, Advantest and Akamai technologies

from Japan offer a wide range of technological exposition. Consequently, Apple establishes new

products lines in a bid to venture into the new market. Further innovation enables Apple Inc. to

introduce new product brands from Apple Watch which is one of what the firm has already

introduced. Consequentially, the development of the new lines of products basically supports the

company overall growth. Therefore, the dimension of SWOT analysis indicates that the

incorporations command greater and attractive opportunities for further development in spite of

aggressive technological competition.

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Moreover, Apple would have an opportunity of an increased global exposure through

public affairs methods of journals, website content, and conferences held across the world. Since

inception, Apple has organized more than 29 annual Worldwide Developers Conferences with

the last convention having taken place between June 4 and June 8 in San Jose. The McEnery

Convention Center homed the topmost world’s titans and creative tech developer community

who basically convene yearly for the purposes of sharing unique experiences and perspectives to

learn more about the future of Apple’s products/services breakthrough. Apple takes the

opportunity to showcase its product and service development and offers an opportunity for critics

to query and enhance improvement. By so doing, Apple captures the opportunity to showcase to

the world through the technological mechanism and innovation aspects to popularize its

branding. Equally, Apple has had an opportunity of securing slots in various websites slots

therefore tremendously improving its blood damage. That notwithstanding, Apple branding has

improved over the years due to opportunities granted to publish in various international journals

to an extent of helping even to reduce advertising cost deals. According to Duncan et al., (2014),

opportunities means growth and realization of the organization prime agendas with a view of

making profit gains.

Meanwhile, threats have created uncertainty within the Apple systems as external

strategic factors hindering several operational aspects that basically necessitate budget

appropriations. In respect to the SWOT analysis, the focus is basically on the threats from

distinct sources not limited to the competitors. Threats limit the access to finance by companies,

therefore, hindering the performance and the organizational viability (Duncan et al., 2014). The

threat of aggressive competition is partly due to the fact that other firms such as Samsung and

Google have sharpened their aggression tools too by using swift innovation. However, this

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section of SWOT analysis basically creates a highlight of the limiting effect of aggressive

competition. The agile phenomena by the majority of contesting firms are necessary for their

robust fundamentals of maintaining an incredible competitive edge. Additionally, Apple

experiences the threat of being imitated in the sense that a large number of firms easily imitate

Apples’ products and service proving it significant. Moreover, cases of rising labor costs in

Apple plants in regions such as China has gone a long way in the reducing profit margins and

even escalating costs greatly. In regard to Apple’s SWOT analysis dimension, its performance

could greatly be affected due to the fact that aggressive competition and imitation of product

design realistically frustrate the company’s effort to remain competitive. Therefore, Apple

should take decisive action in a bid to overcome the threats.

Moreover, the political threat effect fundamentally influenced by the political agenda of

the States may change Apple’s business mission. For example, when president Trump entered an

office, he said that companies that fleeted money overseas would be taxed heavily in order to

bring back money home to create employment targeting Apple as a major hoarder. Trump many

times called for Apple to assemble its iPhones in the US instead of China. This could actually

affect Apple’s decisional business model in the sense that there are logistical challenges due to

that majority of the Apple's parts manufacturers are located in Asia. He later issued boycott

threats of all Apple products over encryption of the so-called backdoors in 2016 when the FBI

asked the company to destroy the iPhone deployed by an attacker in the San Bernardino,

California, gun shooting. Therefore, such threats from the political class would actually deter the

Apple Company in achieving its core objectives.

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In evaluating a transformational leadership of Apple Inc., one needs to understand that

tech leaders inspire, encourage and motivate employees to create and innovate to effect change

for the success and betterment of the company. Tech leaders accomplish this by setting the best

example at the executive level through employee ownership, the strong sense of corporate

culture and independence in the workplace (Backer, 2014). Transformational tech leaders

possess the strong business acumen to ensure that every decision realized does not affect the

operations of the organization. They motivate and inspire their workforce without actual

micromanaging by giving authority to the trained employees over decisions in their designated

jobs. The management style offers employees more room for creativity and seeks the solution to

old problems. Employees are also encouraged to work collaboratively and uphold the spirit of

teamwork to prepare them for transformative leadership in future.

However, evaluating leadership weaknesses have numerous components that are

apparently too broad and treat leadership more as a personality trait rather than collected

behavior and possess the possibility of power abuse. First, transformational leadership is a

collection of different leadership aspects proving unreasonable to teach people. Second, there is a

high potential for abuse of powers to be abused due to high effectiveness in leader’s vision

making it undemocratic. Equally, the leadership purpose is largely unchallenged, therefore,

becoming susceptible to be misused. For example, Adolf Hitler of Germany rose to become one

of the worst despots in the world. Third, transformational leadership lacks conceptual clarity in

the sense that decisions are structured and executed by top-level management by use of decision

tools like Management Information Systems (MIS). In transforming leadership changes to

maximize organizational management success, I would incorporate servant leadership approach

with an aim of empowering subordinates with greater responsibilities and ownership while acting

SWOT ANALYSIS AND LEADERSHIP EVALUATION 10

as a self-sacrificing facilitator. I would also exercise more charisma leader to influence followers

and become most distinguished by the subordinates. Naturally, charismatic leaders possess the

capacity to transform the organizational environment.

In summary, SWOT analysis vividly shows that the company has major strengths that can

be relied upon in addressing organizational inadequacies. Besides, the company can utilize its

core competencies to exploit opportunities and enhance expansion of its distribution channels.

Additionally, Apple can leverage on its strong product brand and high innovation mechanism to

successfully establish and come up with new lines of product. However, the firm faces

significant threats and that hamper aggressive competition for success which are the complexities

that affect players across the industry. Alternatively, transformational leadership motivates and

inspire workforce without necessarily micromanaging the employees. Instead, they are

empowered by being accountable for decisions in their designated jobs.

SWOT ANALYSIS AND LEADERSHIP EVALUATION 11

References

Backer, L. (2013). Transnational Corporations' Outward Expression of Inward Self-Constitution:

The Enforcement of Human Rights by Apple, Inc. Indiana Journal of Global Legal

Studies, 20(2), 805-879.

Duncan, W., Ginter, P., & Linda E. Swayne. (2014). Competitive Advantage and Internal

Organizational Assessment. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), 12(3),

6-16.

Hurwitz. M. & Hurwitz. S. (2015). A New Kind of Leadership. In Leadership is Half the Story:

A Fresh Look at Followership, Leadership, and Collaboration (pp. 27-38). University of

Toronto Press.

Stahl, F., & Cutcher- Gershenfeld, J. (2013). Worker Leadership. In Worker Leadership:

America's Secret Weapon in the Battle for Industrial Competitiveness (pp. 127-160). MIT

Press.

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