Apple's Formal Quality Process: Essential for Deliverables - Report Example

Introduction

In most cases implementing the formal quality process in a company tends to be essential since it ensures that the deliverables that are produced by the company’s team can meet the intended purpose. Apple Company is one of the companies that has taken the initiative of adopting and implementing the formal quality process in its normal operations. Apple is an American based technology company that focuses on developing, designing, and selling computer software, online services, and consumer electronics (Browning et al., 2012). The formal quality process has significantly helped the company to gain a huge competitive advantage against other technology companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google that offerìng similar services and products (Johnson et al., 2012). Apple has managed to lead these companies due to its ability to ensure that the quality strategies and processes are implemented in several key areas such as in the production of software and hardware, and the provision of online services and products. In most cases, the formal quality process success is based or dependent on several factors that include the company’s ability to set specific and quality targets that need to be achieved by the c workforce and working as a team towards achieving the set goals.

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The Quality Strategies Used By the Company

Google utilizes several quality strategies to improve its success and minimize the chances of failure. Some of these strategies include, first, the great product strategy; this strategy usually creates the basis of implementing a product roadmap and release. The product strategy enables Apple to focus its effort on the specific feature set, and target market instead of focusing on the entire technology and market. Apple has managed to get a great product strategy due to its complete understanding of the competitive technological landscape and the provision of effective strategies that enable the company to differentiate itself (Ou et al., 2010). The strategy enables the company to achieve maximum results by producing quality products that meet the consumers’ needs and target a particular portion of the population, for instance, the youth and the young adults. To maintain high-quality standards, Apple avoids choosing their products with features that make it the product unfriendly to the user.

Secondly, the quality over quantity strategy. This strategy requires companies to develop a few products of high quality instead of developing numerous and less valuable products. In most cases, Apple does not focus on creating a new product with new features; instead, it focuses on improving the recent products by incorporating new features that will make the product more efficient. To implement this strategy effectively, Apple tries to listen and evaluate the concern and recommendations of the customers who bought the recent products. The raised concerns and recommendations help the company to identify the specific areas that need to be improved. Accurate and effective implementation of this strategy has helped Apple to remain competitive compared to other brands and companies that introduce more products and services over time without working on the recommendations.

Quality Process

Apple Company decided to implement the quality process due to various reasons. First, to enable the company to remain competitive and successful. The quality process plays an essential role in ensuring that the services and products produced by the company meet the set objective. Therefore implementing the quality process enabled Apple to set clear measures and strategies that will help the company to remain competitive and successful within the global market. For instance, Apple saw the need to focus on quality instead of quantity when creating products and services, thus ensuring that the needs of the consumers are met effectively. This approach helped Apple to attract more customers and to gain a larger market share than other competing companies.

Secondly, to lift the company from the initial stages or phase. In the initial or early stages of a company, the quality of services tends to be reduced, and the company does not effectively achieve the set objective. However, implementing the quality process helps to align all the activities within the company; for instance, the quality process helps to set clear goals that need to be achieved and outlines the strategies needed to fulfill them. Apple, therefore, saw the need to adopt the quality process to create a well-organized form of operation that will result in the creation of quality products and also enable the company to remain competitive within the global market (Johnson et al., 2012). Thirdly, to create a sense of direction within the company. Without the quality process, the entire Apple operations would be disorganized and less effective. However, after implementing the quality process, Apple’s management was able to coordinate all the company's workforce, create a sense of commitment and direction among the workers and ensure that all the workers are aware of the existing organizational goals. This helped to increase the production of quality products and also improve the company’s competitiveness.

Strategies Used to Implement the Quality Process

To effectively implement the quality process, Apple used several strategies, which include, first, targeting. To gain the needed success and competitiveness, the company had to target a particular portion of the population. In these cases, the targeted population was the urban population who are perceived to have a higher purchasing power. Targeting helped the company to also identify the needs of this population and how well the needs can be achieved. Secondly, segmentation of products and services into three main categories, first, the main target that is particularly composed of people who love certain products. Secondly, the company target that involves professionals and teenagers. Thirdly, consumers who use normal Apple products. Thirdly, positioning the brand at a level that is acceptable to the population. For instance, Apple positioned its brand at number one, thus capturing the attention of most people and increasing the number of consumers (Park et al., 2015). Apple management chose to use these strategies due to various reasons. For instance, they helped to ensure that the needs of each population are met, and they increased the company's competitiveness in the global market.

Implementation of the Quality Process

Apple implemented the quality process in various ways, first engaging the employees, for instance, by encouraging collaboration, teamwork, and ensuring that that all the employees are aware of the company's objectives and goals. Considering that Apple management could not achieve the full potential of the quality process on their own, they had to depend on the junior staff and laborers to assist them. Some of the ways in which Apple engaged the junior workers include; training them on what they are expected to achieve or do during the production process, encourage them to consult each other when working to avoid making errors, and maintaining a close link between the management and the junior staffs. Incorporation of workers in the process helped the company to set clear goals that enabled the employees to work in one direction

Secondly, interacting with the consumer. In order to realize the customer's need, the company had to increase interactions and collaborations with the consumers. For instance, the company used social media to interact with consumers on what they expected or needed. This helped Apple identify some of the key gaps that are yet to be met and the mistakes made by other companies in the technological field. Apple also took the consumer's complaints and recommendations seriously since they used them to improve on their next products.

Obstacles That the Company Overcame

When implementing the quality process, Apple encountered several obstacles or challenges. Some of these obstacles include, first, increased market competition. When introducing the Apple brand in the market, other companies had already gained a huge market share and acceptance among the population. Apple managed to overcome the tough competition through its focus on quality rather than the quantity of the products. Secondly, when implementing the quality process, the company also encountered resistance from the workers. To achieve the needed success using the quality process, the management and the workers had to work together as a team. Apple managed to overcome this obstacle through training workers on the need the implement the quality process and increasing communication between the management and the workers.

Conclusion

In most cases, implementing the quality process in a company is essential in maintaining and attaining the needed success. Adoption and implementation of the quality process by Apple had several essential impacts, which include; first, it enabled the company to gain a huge market share compared to other competing companies. Secondly, it helped to improve the quality of products since the company was able to focus on the small and sensitive details that are needed by the consumer. Some of the quality strategies used by the company include the great product strategy and the quality over quantity strategy. The adoption of these two strategies had a significant impact since they helped to enhance the company’s success and competitiveness.

References

Browning, E. S., Russolillo, S., & Vascellaro, J. (2012). Apple Now Biggest-Ever US Company. Wall Street Journal, 21. http://www.vis-am.ch/uploads/allegati/Files/Apple%20Now%20Biggest-Ever%20U_S_%20Company%20-%20WSJ_com.pdf

Johnson, K., Li, Y., Phan, H., Singer, J., & Trinh, H. (2012). The Innovative Success that is Apple, Inc. https://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1420&context=etd

Ou, C. S., Liu, F. C., Hung, Y. C. & Yen, D. C. (2010). A structural model of supply chain management on firm performance. International Journal of Operations & Production Management. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443571011039614/full/html

Park, N. M., Williams, T. A., Walker, J. T. S., Butcher, M. R., Turner, J. A., Botha, N., ... & Taylor, N. M. (2015). Enhancing innovation and technology transfer in the New Zealand Apple industry learnings from Apple Futures. New Zealand Plant Protection, 68, 291-298.
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