Strategic Management Assessment Project

Strategic Management Assessment Project: Apple Inc. Brief Overview
Apple Inc., formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc., has grown from its backyard beginnings when it released the Apple 1 on April 1, 1976 to the 6th biggest corporation today based on Fortune 500 magazine ratings. Apple later became incorporated on January 3rd, 1977 in Cupertino, California by its two founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.1
Most every company in the world has a vision, mission statement and goal published on their website, but this is not a case with Apple. The vision statement of Apple is communicated by it’s leaders, which is really unusual for the business world nowadays. However, it can be taken differently: as we are living in today’s ever changing technological world, the idea of the mission statement, vision and goal correlates to it which makes it extremely revolutionary.
The most recent and basic mission statement of Apple is that “Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.”2
Apple has several goals in different areas. Two that stand out to me are about finance and the environment. Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of industrial design, says that Apple’s goal is not to make money, but to make good products. From the environmental perspective, Apple’s goal is “to power every Apple facility entirely with energy from renewable sources — solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal.”3
Apple has a sense of discovery. For Apple, it’s about a competitively unique point of view about the future. Apple’s products are innovative, fresh and the industry standard. What makes Apple different from it’s competitors is that they are willing to change the norm. Steve Jobs led a technological revolution in computers and changed the look and design of PC’s. In 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, which was complete change from the way PC’s looked and operated. The company has since pushed expectations even farther and as of 2012 was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world with a value of over $626 Billion as of last September. Annual revenues totaled $65 Billion in 2010, $127.8 Billion in 2011, and $156 Billion in 2012.4