Theories and Program Design, Essay Example

History

Apple, Inc. is a multi-national conglomerate multimedia electronic network corporation founded in 1977. Apple markets a range of digital devices, mobile communications, and personal computers and sells software and hardware products. The company’s products and services include Macintosh (“Mac”) computers, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Xserve, and iOS operating systems. As of September 25, 2010, the company had opened 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the U.S. and 84 stores internationally (Apple, 2011).

The business strategy leverages its unique ability to design and develop its own operating systems, hardware, application software, and with superior ease-of-use services for customers and productivity solutions. To the extent of the product features, the company faithfully believed in continual investment in research and development on innovative products, technologies, and works with the community on expanding its distribution effectively to reach more customers and provide them with a high-quality sales and post-sales support experience.

Apple Premium Reseller Programis a program in which focus on the Apple platform by well-integrated, support services, and product expertise. Apple’s objective of the program is to enhance reseller sales by placing high quality Apple fixtures, merchandising materials and other third-party reseller locations. The simplification of providing a presentation and marketing Apple products to control the customer buying experience and attract new customers to buy featured products at their high-traffic stores is what employees must acknowledge themselves on sales skills (Apple, 2011).

Verbal Information

Communicate effectively between parties from the merchandise to supplier is the main priority for the product(s) to be placed in the store on time and ready for sell. Verbal information refers to the bodies of knowledge; subjects of interest to acknowledge the responsibility of raw materials and supplies (i.e., microprocessors, enclosures, certain liquid crystal displays (LCDs), optical drives, and application-specific integrated circuits, NAND flash memory, dynamic random access memory (DRAM).) and other resources available (Apple, 2011). An employee should always ask co-worker or supervisor on the levels of the concerns that can be solved quickly, for instance, or that the supervisor has to review the distribution transportation problem that cannot transport units to a different location for another carrier to pick up to the purchased location (store). The problem solved through dispatching a backup carrier to pick up the units to the purchased location.

Intellectual Skills

Intellectual skills are which refers to the ability to adhere project guidelines upon mission and vision statements goals.  It is expected for trainees to adopt their learning style and be familiar with the products coverage policies because many of the products are not covered by the fault of the defective external modems, accessories, attachments, and unauthorized installed configuration. However, Apple  (2011) elaborated on training programs- teaches the participants on problem-solving strategies on retrieval of the materials that are covered in the program. Not excluding the ability for employees as trainees to comprehend the procedure of how customers and suppliers to have their products repaired to the specific location and or re-install the digital device configuration.

Motor Skills

Employees with Motor skills are the necessarily task performance to accomplish a task(s). In this case, the supplier to the distribution center to the merchant is the objectives for training employees to comprehend the roles of each business units. In addition, to the example, employees prepared the number of units requested to be shipped to the specific store-by-store number, which is important for the store number to have certain numbers of units that matches the inventory. In addition to the preparation of the units, employees must check for units that have been scanned twice from the specific distribution location, the shipping number, and the freight number that has the same bar codes (DeSmet, et .al, 2010).

Attitudes

Attitudes are the biological and environmental characteristics innate the beliefs, norms, and culture predispositions. Apple has unusual policy on interpersonal relationship between the distributor and supplier.  Often, trainees get distracted from learning the operations and the process of the project. It is important for trainees to enjoy the training processes and apply the application of the products used in services and end-user services, which enables each trainee to be effective learners. Otherwise, they would perceive themselves as the prisoners of war. The shift between learning the organizational theory and applying the job task application is a daunting task for trainees to adapt the unforeseen activity factors that contributes lack of knowledge in portion of the reseller activities. As result, negative attitudes and behaviors of the operations and products would be ineffective (McGurk, et .al, 2010)

Cognitive Strategies

Cognitive strategies are the ways of which solutions attempt to resolve a problem quicker, smarter and effective. Apple has this type of supplier database information technology system with the lists of the product and product number, telephone, and nearest and farthest distribution addressed centers and so forth. In the matter of timing, and the demand of a special product is used by judgment. Race against time for the product to be sold in each designed distribution centers for re-sell the high priced product to meet the market-specific demand. For instance, Christmas holiday hits Apple for all kinds of products, a must-have product for over hundreds of hungry consumers (Schwartz, et .al, 2010).

Instructional Design

In the Apple case, adult learning theory will be applied to the training and development on both ends of suppliers discreet. The anecdote of the product to be supplied to a destination before deliver to the final destination, which it is a daunting task because of the environmental factors that may infer the freight, processes. Therefore, the instructional design will focus on three important characteristics to choose from which are: emotional intelligence, temporal leadership, and severant leadership.

Wolff and Pescosolido, and Druskat (2002) emphasizes the concept for instructional design – This type of design will teach employees on how to be tactical on needed-to-solve (emotional intelligence) basis with quick thinking solution at its disposal; learn how to be temporal on freight orders delivery on time in which includes the timing of destination-to-destination and current conditions to be advised and products are undefected when supplied to the merchandise.

Training the nexters age group with higher degree of mental capacities on knowledge of information technology and the use of personal computer would focus on tactics of product distribution problem solving management. As mentioned above, freight and shipment issues are applied in the example.  Whereas, the other traditionalists group would be trained on the accountability of the units be shipped to certain number of stores for verification purpose; and to pay attention to the demands of the current trends.  The remaining age group would obtain training in allocating outsourcing resources, such as, search for an idle warehouse to fill up inventory products for rural stores (Apple, 2011).

References

Apple (2011) Applecare Premium Services and Support Plan Terms and Conditions. Retrieved October 15, 2011 from: http://images.apple.com/legal/applecare/docs/AppleCare_Prem_Svc_Supp_NA_en.pdf

DeSmet, A., McGurk, M., & Schwartz, E. (2010). Getting more from your training programs. McKinsey Quarterly, (4), 101-107. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Wolff, S.B., Pescosolido, A.T., & Druskat, V.U. (2002). Emotional intelligence as the basis of leadership emergence inself-managing teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 13, 505-522.