Action Plan and Contingency Plan
Action Plan
The action plan for Apple, Incorporated is to diversity its product mix as well as increase customer loyalty and expand its share in the mobile market. in the mobile market. The objective for the action plan will focus on 2 items: a) To expand sales to persons who do not own Apple's products and b) To develop and produce a new product or products which can help it to diversify its product mix. The strategy for this plan will include expansion of the company's marketing and distribution network to reach more consumers in unsaturated markets. Second, the plan will focus on investment in Research and Development
The R&D department will focus the majority of its efforts on the development of a novel product to introduce for consumer electronics. Research and Development teams will also work closely with the Marketing department in order to determine the best ways to harness consumer demand, both for existing and future product lines. The Marketing department will engage in extensive market and user research which will enable them to launch new and innovative campaigns to strike the fancy of the consumer pool. The focus of these efforts will be to engage new customers in diverse markets to visit the brick and mortar stores and retail e-commerce sites available online.
Product development phase may take from 12-36 months, depending on the progress of engineers and designers. As Apple has experienced in its history, it is better to wow the public with a surprise attack than to introduce products prematurely onto the market, as competitors will quickly introduce substitutes and one strong competitive advantage of Apple is that it is not explicable in the PC market. Once engineers signal that a design and prototype is available, the formal product development phase will begin over a period of 3 to 6 months. During this period, a prototype is fully developed and the new product will be reviewed by a panel of managers to determine its profitability and feasibility. After receiving approval for development of the product, plans for formal production will begin. At this time, the Marketing department will begin work in preliminary advertising and marketing campaign development. At the conclusion of this 3 to 6 month period, product generation will take place over the next 12 to 18 months.
Contingency Plan : Risk Mitigation
Apple Inc.’s contingency plan addresses alternative plans in the event we face an interruption in our original action plan. In addition to normal bottlenecks that may occur in R&D as well as supply chain production, Apple is subject to a number of risks and threats in its day to day operations which make it vulnerable to a number of security threats such as cyberespionage, hacking and data breaches. Apple's contingency plan focuses on short-term, restorative measures it can take in the event one of these problems arises concurrent to the roll-out of its action plan.
In the event of a known data breach or security emergency, Apple will halt all product development, testing and production for a default 7 calendar days. During this time, Apple will implement a company network-wide security audit to harden its network security layer with the plan of hardening the network security layer to the highest preventative settings in order to minimize damage and prevent future attacks while the threat subsides.
In the event Apple faces delays in product development, Apple will extend its product development and product generation phases by a default minimum of 3 months each. Engineers and product specialist must submit a formal request to the Vice President who will then approve extend the rollout with additional cushion for time. Releasing a product later than scheduled – from 3 months or 90 calendar days up to 6 months or 180 calendar days has been determined through extensive research to be a less than ideal but still safe window of time for a company to delay its release efforts. Any unforeseen delays higher than this window of time will require formal strategic reassessment by senior management and may result in a discontinuation of plans altogether.
