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Apple

(April 2010) the organizational structure of Apple i s described in following figure. The figure describes also functions of members.

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As we can see this organizational chart is very large and shows all the important

functions. But it is not much descriptive. More descriptive will be choosing only the

main functions of the company which affect the organizational structure of the all

product lines.

The main areas of Apple´s management

Marketing

Marketing makes up the basic part. The goal of this part of the firm is to identify

the customer´s needs and the products that satisfy them.

iPhone Software

It seems that the iPhone is such important product for Apple that needs its own

department for managing the software what iPhone comes with. Furthermore very

similar software is used in iPad the new Apple´s device.

General Counsel

General Counsel helps to coordinate all Apple´s organizational departments in

order to work perfectly and effectively.

Industrial Design

Industrial Design is responsible for crafting the appearance of all Apple products,

including the Apple Macintosh computer line.

Device Engineering

Device Engineering solves all the problems that relates to all Apple production

lines except the design of the products. Production tasks, hardware and software skills.

Apple´s design is managed by another department.

Retail

The main task of this unit is to maintain all the business channels that Apple uses

including Apple Store or iTunes.

Software Engineering

Is responsible mainly for developing of the operational system OS X and then also

about others Apple´s software products like iWork, etc.

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Next few pages briefly show the evolution of organizational structure of Apple since

its foundation in 1976.

From the very beginning (year 1977) the company Apple had very simple

organizational structure which was created only by Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak.

But the same year was hired first professional manager A.C. Markkula.

As the enterprise was growing there came more complicated structure and in

1983 was as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1.: 1983 Apple organizational chart 

There came a slowdown in sales in early 1980s, the new Apple´s products were

not competitive enough. This was the reason to retire of Markkula as the CEO (but still

remained as a consultant) and hire on his post John Sculley from PepsiCo.

Later in 1984 new President John Sculley decided to simplify an organizational

structure. The main change was to reduce the number of Apple product division to

three: Macintosh, Apple II and an accessory and product group. Figure 2 shows the

structure. Job maintained the position of the chairman of the board of directors.

Figure 2.: 1984 Apple organizational structure

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In 1985 Sculley made another big reorganization when The three product

divisions as described above were consolidated into one called Product Operations. Also

this reorganization should lower operating cost. Steve Jobs was no longer a member, he

resigned from Apple and Jean-Louis Gassee, head of Apple France, was promoted to

replace him. Steve Jobs found company NeXT what will be bought by Apple later.

Figure 3.: 1988 Apple organizational structure

In an effort to centralize operations and involve Apple’s senior management in

day-to-day decisions, Sculley created a new position of Chief Operation Officer to whichYocam was appointed.

Figure 4.: 1988 Apple organizational structure

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In 1990 Robert Puette, former head of Hewlett-Packard's personal computer

business, became head of the Apple USA division. This was other time when was the

organizational structure changed again as follows.

Figure 5.: 1990 Apple organizational structure

Scully was forced out of his leadership position by Apple's board of directors in

1993 due to bad results of the firm. His replacement, Michael Spindler, broke tradition

by licensing Apple technology to outside firms.

But, Spindler made a horrible mistake in 1995, when Apple had unfilled order in

worth of $1 billion (underestimated demand). This was his last mistake, after that was

replaced by Gil Amelio. But Amelio was not the chairman for much time. In 1997 wasreplaced again by Steve Jobs. This was because lately in 1996 Apple bought NeXT, Steve

Jobs’ enterprise.

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Sources:

[1] http://www.cogmap.com/chart/apple-inc 

[2] http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Apple-Computer-Inc-

Company-History.html 

[3] http://www.stern.nyu.edu/mgt/private_file/mo/rfreedma_ca/apple.pdf  

[4] http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/tiuatech-209428-apple-

presentation-education-ppt-powerpoint/