Apple Supply chain – Issues
AMR research and Gartner ranks Apple’s supply chain management as the best in the industry. Apple widely considered as the number one innovative company in the world has developed many breakthrough innovative products like Mac, iTunes, iPods, iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone series and more recently the iWatches. These products garners a huge demand from the consumers even before the products are made available for the release. In the case of iPhone 6 Apple sold a record number of 38 million smartphones and 14 million iPads in a single quarter. To cater to this staggering demand for its products Apple requires a robust supply chain system which can produce these new products at an unprecedented level. But the recent trends show the demand for Apple products has reached to such an extent that Apple is not able to supply the products quickly. This problem poses a question of whether the actual problem of supply/demand imbalance a strategic move by Apple to increase the demand and thereby the exclusivity of the new products or it really shows the surfacing supply chain issues of the so called best supply chain management company in the world. On detailed analysis it looks more …show more content…
This flexibility and agility in adaptation lost over the years due to structural changes and supplier consolidations. This made the entire supply chain rigid and slow in responding to changes in market dynamics. Apple’s strong arming tactics with respect to suppliers sets a bad precedent for other suppliers. The recent contract failure between Apple and GTAT for the sapphire screens supply in which Apple quoted low price for the glasses and forced GTAT to opt for bankruptcy than associating with Apple. This incidence is a curious case of Apple’s failure in maintaining supplier relationship which is generally considered as critical factor for an efficient supply chain
AMR research and Gartner ranks Apple’s supply chain management as the best in the industry. Apple widely considered as the number one innovative company in the world has developed many breakthrough innovative products like Mac, iTunes, iPods, iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone series and more recently the iWatches. These products garners a huge demand from the consumers even before the products are made available for the release. In the case of iPhone 6 Apple sold a record number of 38 million smartphones and 14 million iPads in a single quarter. To cater to this staggering demand for its products Apple requires a robust supply chain system which can produce these new products at an unprecedented level. But the recent trends show the demand for Apple products has reached to such an extent that Apple is not able to supply the products quickly. This problem poses a question of whether the actual problem of supply/demand imbalance a strategic move by Apple to increase the demand and thereby the exclusivity of the new products or it really shows the surfacing supply chain issues of the so called best supply chain management company in the world. On detailed analysis it looks more …show more content…
This flexibility and agility in adaptation lost over the years due to structural changes and supplier consolidations. This made the entire supply chain rigid and slow in responding to changes in market dynamics. Apple’s strong arming tactics with respect to suppliers sets a bad precedent for other suppliers. The recent contract failure between Apple and GTAT for the sapphire screens supply in which Apple quoted low price for the glasses and forced GTAT to opt for bankruptcy than associating with Apple. This incidence is a curious case of Apple’s failure in maintaining supplier relationship which is generally considered as critical factor for an efficient supply chain