Apple's Product and Service Innovations

Introduction

Jain, (2010), says a team as necessarily a group of people organized to work together interdependently and are in one way or another and driven by a common purpose towards a common goal. He claims that teams are normally made up of members who have matching skills and those which lead to co-operation through a coordinated effort. This thus enables each member to minimize their weaknesses and maximize their strengths. The Apple company is an American multinational technology company that was initially founded by three people namely Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, in April 1976 with a goal of manufacturing and selling of personal computers and other technological devices, (Lashinsky, 2013). Later in January 1977, the company was registered as Apple Computer, Inc. and renamed as Apple Inc. in 2007. Its headquarters are located in Cupertino, California, on the outskirts of San Jose, that sells, designs and develops consumer related electronics, online service, and computer software. Apple Inc. company’s hardware products are said to mainly include the iPhone smartphone, smart watches, iPad tablet computer, iPod media player, personal computers, and digital TV media player, (Kunkel, 2011). The company’s software products comprise of Mac and iOS operating systems, iTunes media player, Safari web browser, iWork and iLife productivity and creativity suites. Their internet services include Apple music, iTunes Store, and iCloud, the Mac App Store, the iOS App Store, (Kunkel, 2011). Currently, the Apple Inc. company is recognized to be actually the biggest IT company in assets, the largest company by total revenue collected, and also the second-largest cell phone manufacturer. As of November 2014, the company was recognized , to have become the first U.S. company to be valued above US$700 billion , with an international yearly revenue said to total approximately $233 billion in the 2015 September financial year that amounted to roughly 1.25% revenue generation of the total GDP in the US, (Lashinsky, 2013). Looking for further insights on A Comparative Analysis of Transformational and Transactional Leadership? Click here.

Theories of team development

Based on a report by (Lashinsky, 2013), Apple Company enjoys a high level of brand loyalty amongst its consumer. According to the Best Global Brands report by Inter-brand annual, Apple Company has been rated as the global valuable brand for four consecutive years, with an estimate of 178.1 billion USD. Nevertheless, all this success as is stated by (Meyer, 2014) is highly attributed to teamwork as it is not the work of one person. The Apple Company is said to employ approximately 115,000 full time and permanent employees as of 2015 July and retains 478 retail stores in 17 countries as of 2016 March. (Damanpour, 2012) , believes the organizational structure of this company is one of the attributing factors that has for decades geared to the success of the company. (Jain, 2010), says that the organizational structure of a company has the ability to create opportunities that can enable a business to grow and also it can impose challenges on how the organization grows.

Tuckman’s theory of teamwork

Based on Tuckman’s theory of teamwork, an organizational structure that mitigates people to work together as a team mainly leads to success. Tuckman’s Teamwork Theory that is based on a review of approximately 50 articles on team development he explains that teamwork is an essential aspect of an organization that evolves in four stages. The first is an orientation and testing phase that is mainly characterized by a certain degree of conflict, (Tuckman, 2011). This is usually the first stage of teamwork and team development when team members are usually not yet bonded together. At this point in time, each person is essentially busy struggling to get their place in the team, trying to understand each other, and asking themselves why they are there in the first place. This stage of teamwork enables the employees to understand each others strengths, flaws, and weaknesses for if they are to work together, they need to understand each others strong sides and weaknesses. It enables them to come up with their separate objective of what they want to achieve and how they are to achieve it, (Tuckman, 2011). However, this phase of teamwork often erupts to a lot of conflicts for some time but as soon as the employees are able to understand each-other well, the conflicts are easily resolved, thus enhancing a phase that is more cohesive. It is at this point that the employees make friends and start socializing with others at work, a phase regarded as storming, (Tuckman, 2011). At this point, the team members start to recognize themselves as members of the team. Nevertheless, at this stage, things are not entirely smooth as they at times tend to contest themselves, and the leader of the team, regarding matters such as the main business of the team and how activities should be carried out. Every employee has their own views and objectives and their specific way they would love to see things done and set goals met which may differ from one employee to another. This in some occasions tends to lead to some loss of performance and productivity on the task that is currently being carried out. However, as time goes by, the confrontations, challenges, and conflict reduce and brings rise to a new phase that Tuckman regards as the norming phase. In this phase, team members start to join together, develop processes and establish ground rules that aid in resolving the roles of each individual and stating how things should be carried out to enhance the goals of the team. (Tuckman, 2011). Tuckman says that the main character of this phase is mainly a growing the feeling of “togetherness”. The employees now table their different views and together they come up with a solution which makes problem-solving easy and tasks can now flow simultaneously with a like-minded attitude which hence improves performance and hence the output as well.

The last phase based on Tuckman’s theory of teamwork is performing. Nevertheless, as Tuckman’s theory indicates, it takes some time to arrive at the “performing” stage, and it’s definitely normal for the team to face various challenges as they strengthen relationships. In the performing phase which is the last stage of the Tuckman’s theory of teamwork, more focus on both on the team relationships and the task, come together to necessarily provide synergy, (Tuckman, 2011). The employees are now one thing working towards a common goal and hence due to this working effectively together, performance is delivered effectively. The importance of Tuckman's model of teamwork is that it helps provide an understanding of the evolution of teamwork and how this evolution affects performances and the benefits it brings along. It also helps an organization consider the various different problems likely to be encountered in team development and teamwork at different stages and hence learn how to cope with the situation. Nevertheless, one limitation that faces Tuckman’s model of teamwork is the fact that it creates team building to be viewed as being too sequential and linear. Despite the fact that it’s a useful analytical tool, some teams may “loop” around in their development which may cause problems. For instance, in some cases, not all teams evolve smoothly through Tuckman’s stages but may waiver between norming and storming until a point where they either begin to function or fall out completely. Tuckman’s teamwork model can be described on a graph elaborating the relationship between the relationship of the group (horizontal axis) and the focus on the task (vertical axis) as shown below;

Lillian and Frank Gilbreth management theory

Another theory of team development that is essential in portraying the benefits of teams in an organization is the Lillian and Frank Gilbreth theory of management, (Brown, 2017). Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were a team of husband-and-wife who were seen to work together as engineers in the early part of the 20th century. After the death of frank in the year 1924, Lillian carried on this work. Their theory of management is said to be one of the historic theories that highly contribute to the formation of various philosophies regarding scientific management. These industrialization philosophies mainly characterize management within a model of efficiency and have hence over the time attempted to find the best and the most efficient way of completing a task. Their main focus was on the fields of motion study and time study, combined with an interest in the psychology of efficiency and work. Based on this Gilbreth theory, it held that there exist a “one best way” through which any task can be accomplished, (Graybeal, 2015). According to this Gilbreth theory of management, it suggests that efficiency in the completion of a task can be improved by finding this “one best way” and hence replicating it throughout the process. In their time, the Gilbreths were seen to mainly make use of new technologies of the time such as film as a means to break down motions into incremental parts, which they referred to as “therbligs.” The "therblig," is said to be a fundamental component of Gilbreth theory as it is a unit invented by the Gilbreths as a means to describe a discrete unit of activity, (Brown, 2017). Some of the examples of actions that the Gilbreths could come up with included some such as planning, assembling and disassembling as well as positioning. This is a unit the help to analyze how many activities make up a certainly given task, which makes it easy to determine how many people are to work on that task and who works on what exactly which hence helps eliminate unnecessary steps. Thereby, by reducing the number of “therbligs” for any given task, it is hence likely to increase the efficiency of the worker greatly. In this case, the management theory of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth can hence be summed up as follows: Reduce the number of motions in a given task to increase efficiency; mainly put focus on the incremental study of motions as well as time so as to understand an entire task; and finally; the main goal of increased efficiency is necessarily both increased profit and greater worker satisfaction.

In simple terms and based on today workplace situations and the aspect of team development, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth theory of management necessarily teach men and women at work the need to work together as frank and Lillian Gilbreth did as a means to increase the efficiency of a given task. This theory portrays the need for a team to work together to make work easier. Management is an essential aspect of team development and hence, as the Gilbreath broke down motions, in team development, work should be broken down to the different people based on their area of specification. This hence ensures efficiency and makes work easy for everyone, (Belbin, 2014). This is necessary because a single task is not burdened on a single person. This hence enables each person to be able to concentrate on their given role of the task which hence increases the chances of perfection in undertaking a task.

Conclusion

Thereby, in conclusion, teamwork can be termed as an essential aspect in an organization such as the Apple Inc. Company. It brings people together to work towards a common goal and enhances respects for each other which is an important factor in an organization, (Meyer, 2014). Thereby this is essentially the reason as to why the organizational structure and model of the Apple Inc. company supports a lot of team work all over their different branches across the world as teamwork enhances their level of innovation which is essential especially in this ever growing technological world (Belbin, 2014). It enables their different employs from different parts of the world to come together and share their knowledge which over the years has hence enabled the Apple Inc. company to develop gradually with their branches increasing over time to reach as many consumers as possible, (Damanpour, 2012).

References

Brown, L., 2017. Lillian and Frank Gilbreth management theory. human resources, 22 february.

Damanpour, F. &. A. D., 2012. Organizational structure and innovation. Handbook of Organizational Creativity, Volume Vol (2), pp. p. 502-503..

Graybeal, L., 2015. Making the Most of the Management Theory of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. London, UK: Business.com.

Lashinsky, A., 2013. Inside Apple. How America's Most Admired and Secretive Company Really Works, Volume Vol. 1.

Mennecke, B. E. H. J. A. &. W. B. E., 2012. benefits of team work in an organisation. 6th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall..

Tubbs, S. L., 2010. Tubb’s Theory- Small Group Communication. Kansas: University of Kansas press.