GLOBALIZATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Choose one (1) public corporation in an industry with which you are familiar. Research the company on its own Website, the public filings on the Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR database (http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml), in the University’s online databases, and any other sources you can find. The annual report will often provide insights that can help address some of these questions.

Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:

1. Assess how globalization and technology changes have impacted the corporation you researched.
2. Apply the industrial organization model and the resource-based model to determine how your corporation could earn above-average returns.
3. Assess how the vision statement and mission statement of the corporation influence its overall success. 
4. Evaluate how each category of stakeholder impacts the overall success of this corporation. 
5. Use at least two (2) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not quality as academic resources.

Globalization can be understood as a process of interaction and subsequent integration of the people, businesses/companies, and governments across the globe driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.It has a great influence on the way the ideas were conceived, created and finally delivered in the form of new technology thereby impacting the operational model of multinational corporations.Interestingly, the conception of business idea happens at one place while execution happens at some other part of globe for the delivery of final product in the third place. Apple Incis one of Fortune 500 companies which hascapitalized innovatively on the offerings of globalization along with its smart thinking. All the products of Apple be it iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV etc. cite exciting examples in the impact of globalization on product/technologyconception, design, and execution. In iPod, one of the expensive and important components are supplied by companies like Samsung Electronics in Korea for flash memory, Toshiba in Japan for hard drive and Broadcom Corporation in US supplies multimedia processor. In turns, these components are manufactured in various parts of the world like China, Taiwan/Singapore and Korea. The final product is bring together and put in shape by a Taiwan firm named Inventec Corporation located at Mainland China. Thus, it presents the true example of globalization and technology as an enabler in manufacturing of world fame device. It has been cited and analyzed by various researchers like Kraemer,Dedrick,Lindenthat out of the selling price of say USD 300at retailers, the cost of production including the components cost is not more than USD 145. Out of the rest USD 155 priced amount is, more than 50 percent is taken by Apple and rest is given to the retailers/distributors etc. Apple is adequately rewarded for the novelty that the company has introduced in the product. The slice in the revenue captured by company’s design, delivery, and sales surpasses the worth of its manufactured components. Even though to a great extent the iPod is not factory-made in the United States, it is designed and retailed in US, and U.S. firms do fairly well in the bargain.

The company has always been leader in smart thinking. iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs as a device which is an integration of 3individual and separate existing devices of Apple- a wide screen iPod with, a revolutionary and touch controlled mobile phone device, and an Internet connected communication device. All of the three integrated in one device, and what makes the device outstanding is a big screen, with touch control. Apple stood out from the traditional mobile phone manufacturers by giving no main button or the menu button or even the keyboard as was done by other players like, Nokia, Samsung, Blackberry, Motorola and the others. Stylus was replaced by the most commonly used and handy pointer : finger.

During March 2013, Apple had patented the technology called Augmented Reality (AR) which can identify the objects in the live videos streaming. The company introduced 7thiOS operating system along with OS X Mavericks,the 10th version of Mac OS X, and also a new Internet radio service called iTunes Radio during the Worldwide Developer’s Conference held in June 2013.         

During August 2013, Apple acquired a small Silicon Valley-based mapping company named Embark Inc. which develops free apps for smartphone users for navigation system in public transportation in cities in United Sates such as Chicago, New York etc. In November 2013, Apple Inc. completed the acquisition of an Israeli 3D sensing company, Prime Sense, based out in Tel Aviv.In December 2013, the company acquired another social analytics firm named Topsy which is one of a few firms that have real-time access to the messages that appear on Twitter which messages backup since 2006.

Company has extensive expansion plans in Japan in 2014. Also, Apple India executives revealed the plan to expand further into the Indian market where the company witnessed 400% growth in i-phone sale in second Quarter of 2013.

In December 2013, the company introduced a technology called iBeacon across 254 stores in US. The technology senses the user location and sends the customized products information. On February 4, 2014, Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO) met Turkish President, Abdullah Gül in Ankara to discuss the company’s involvement in Faith project- Turkish government aimed to integrate state-of-the-art information technology into Country’s public education system. Tim announced that the country’s first Apple Retail Store will be opened in Istanbul in around April 2014.

Apple is addressing issues with all stakeholders quite well. In 2013, it joined the Fair Labor Association after intense public attention over allegations of widespread working environment problems at Foxconn, largest Chinese private employer. Apple made a policy that employees cannot work more than 60 hours a week.Foxconn – which makes Apple devices have taken steps to bring down on workers overtime, improve upon the safety arrangements and upgrade worker housing and other amenities. Apple sent auditors to3 Chinese manufacturing units that are being accused of having extremely poor working and living conditions.

Apple actions and steps have been appreciated in industry. It became the first technology company to join the Fair Labor Association. Apple has also worked with Chinese environmental groups, advocates of labor rights, and has approvedfor outside monitoringof components suppliers’ manufacturing facility.