Apple’s-Across the last three weeks, Tim Cook has read the weekly, in-depth reports you have supplied

Use Week One, Two and Three to write
the following:
Please prepare an executive summaryto
senior management summarizing your findings on the organization as a system,
its vision and mission, as well as the external, internal, and stakeholder
environments.
Keeping our systems view in mind, be
sure to identify and address the connections between each of these componentareas as well. Use
the following scenario as the foundation for your Executive Summary.
Across the last three weeks, Tim
Cook has read the weekly, in-depth reports you have supplied. He has been
working to integrate the informative but segregated analyses of key elements
that affect Apple’s current strategic position – and their future as well.
Cook has also shared these reports
with John Ivey, chief designer, who has not only played a significant role in
some of Apple’s prior product successes but as a result worked closely with
Steve Jobs when he was alive. Both men know that Apple is at a critical
crossroads and the decisions they make next will help shape the company’s
future – for better or worse – as they go forward. Both also know that they
really are too close to the situation to truly assess this information objectively
– and they have asked you to look across all of the details you have provided
them thus far and given them your insightful review.
Specifically, Tim has asked
you to prepare one document that he can use as he works to design Apple’s
strategy moving forward in this more competitive landscape – and without Steve
Jobs. Tim knows that, personally, he is not – nor will he ever be – Jobs. But,
he also knows that his ability to take Jobs place hinges on his ability to find
(make) some specific answers to the questions – Who is Apple now/today? Who are
they Not? and Where are they going? He knows additionally that he can’t begin
to take any specific – and strategically directed – action until he does have
the answers to these questions … but, since Steve used to answer all of these
questions on his own (and mostly in his head), Tim now feels a little out of
his depth.
In this document, Tim would
like you to provide the following:
YOUR assessment of
Apple’s current situation
The brief identification and
discussion of the historical elements that have led to this current
situationThe brief identification and
discussion of the key system variables impacting their current situationThe critical PESTIL
elements and the key stakeholders
Identify who/what these elements
are and why they are importantDiscuss the potential for
these elements to change over time and the projected impact of these
elements when/if they do changeYOUR answer to the
questions:Who Apple IS now?Who they are NOT?Where they should be going –
broadly?Based on your
answers to the questions above:
Propose a new vision and
mission for the companyIdentify 3 – 5 very high level
strategic activities Apple should consider to achieve the vision and
mission
As an operations man, Tim is
far less concerned about what the document looks like than he is about what is
IN the document. He has told you, the format is at your discretion … however as
a very busy executive, he has asked that this be succinct but comprehensive.
Cook has also specifically
asked for this to be YOUR assessment of the situation – not a restatement of
the items that have been published anywhere else on the company. He already
knows what is in the SEC filings and many of the articles published on the
company. You know he already has all of your detailed reports, so there is no
need to restate any of the information you have already given him. What you are
now tasked to do is look across all of these details,
integrate and synthesize that information, and provide Tim Cook with your
assessment.
As you do that, keep these points in
mind …
Use the ‘weekly reports’ you
have put together as the source your executive summary – but do not
repeat, copy, recycle the entire content of those individual writings into
the summaryUse – but don’t ‘quote dump’ –
the assigned weekly reading material’Use the insight you have gained
talking with your ‘consulting colleagues’ across the weeks that you have
been working as a team to assess Apple’s situationBased on the amount of external
research you have done thus far, you may need to perform more in order to
have – and use – the breadth of facts available to you to make this
assessment both comprehensive and accurate