Apple Operations Strategy

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Strategic Implications of Apple Pad on Toll Brother Operations Managerial Applications of Information Technology (lolls) BY Italy Abstract This paper explores the strategic Implications of supporting and implementing the Apple pad into Toll Brothers, Inc. Operations. The articles cited in this paper discuss the merits of the Apple pad, Toll Brothers operations, and the increasing place of the notebook com-putter in the workplace.

The articles, however, do not intentionally support the arguments of one another, but rather serve as a basis of analysis of the rewrite of supporting the tech-oenology and implementing it into the equipment lifestyle program. Forrester (2008) jug-gets that the notebook computer is the future of workplace dynamics facilitating increased productivity, mobility, responsiveness, and customer satisfaction. Other articles suggest that the Apple pad could economically serve the role of notebook computer in enterprises.

This analysis discusses these articles and makes recommendation to how the future of the equipment lifestyle program should be modified for future growth. Strategic Implications of Apple pad on Toll Brothers Operations Apple introduces the pad Apple introduces the pad and with it states Giber (2010) has officially become a media company. Media refers to all facets of mass communication from print to electronic affecting the way we receive news, communicate with family, friends, and coworkers, mar-get our products, and share Information.

Ipad Essay

Capitalizing on success found with Its smart-phone, the phone, Apple has decided to expand its offering with the Pad, a product poss.

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-tooled to compete with notebook and laptops seeking to redefine the mobile computing ex-parlance. With Apple controlling 7% (and growing) f the enterprise smartened market and the similar platform shared by the Pad according to McLean (2010) this newest offer-ins prompts the need for an analysis of the strategic implications of implementing this technology into Toll Brothers operations.

The pad just a new product for consumers; the company is targeting the new device at business users with features designed to make it attractive suggests McLean (2010). Ted Schedule, an analyst at Forrester Research, is quoted as stating that the pad most likely will enter the enterprise through the consumer door, much as the Phone did (Humble, 2010). Evidencing the emergence of Phones within corporate enterprise Humble (2010) notes that 20% of companies support Phones and that the requirements to accommodate and Implement the Pad are McLean (2010) supports Humbleness? similar In context to that of the phone. Assessment Day noting Tanat Apple silence Opinion 2. 0 NAS Marlene Its security profile, added Exchange support, and created mass congou-ration and deployment tools at the enterprise level. Moreover, with the release of the pad Apple has added further enterprise refinements such as file sharing and multiple file for-mat reading tit future features such as network printing and VPN forthcoming according to McLean (2010).

McLean (2010) further notes that this foray into the enterprise market is being met with acceptance by corporate America with 70% of the Fortune 100 comma-nines now actively piloting or deploying support for phone (the same operating platform as the pad). This requires a proactive position by Toll Brothers to be aware of current position in the enterprise market, future ambitions, and address them head on as the technology enters into enterprise use through consumer hands. Toll Brothers an Innovative Company

Toll Brothers, an innovative company, holds the title as the largest luxury home builder, has been building and selling residential product since 1967. Operating in the midst of a five-year recession, the company has watched its revenue decline from $6. 12 billion in fiscal year 2006 to $1. 76 billion for fiscal year 2009. This decline in revenue is attributed to reduced absorption of product into the marketplace causing a peak of 8,800 delivered units in fiscal year 2006 to fall to 3,000 residential units in fiscal year 2009. Fish-cal year 2010 projects to deliver between 2,100 and 2,750 units to market.

Despite this De-cline Toll enjoys strong credit ratings from S&P, and Fitch of EBB-, Bal, and EBB- respectively (Toll Brothers, 2010). In the face of a slow economy, Toll Brothers is stilled recognized as a good invest- meet by Wall Street. This is due to praise worthy navigation of its operations in the midst of a five year housing recession. Fueled by a buyer demographic that possesses an average PICO score of 751, higher median incomes, and greater net worth (Toll 2010) Toll has witnessed more resiliency against mortgage defaults on product they have developed compared to the industry.

This statistic coupled with the power of their brand has pro-vided Toll with the leverage necessary to continue to develop product and restructure all of its capital to more favorable terms. In fact, Toll has no public debt maturing until 2013 thanks to these efforts (Toll 2010). Furthermore, Toll has continued the disposition of built product and undeveloped lots in vulnerable markets reducing its undeveloped lot in-venture to 31,743 for IQ 2010 the same level of inventory as 2000 before the boom-bust of the housing market (Toll 2010).

This has allowed Toll to create the financial stability to theater the recession, create a more conservative production model, and increase market share over competitors. Toll continues to operate it primary business as a premier home-builder in all operational regions creating sustained demand for technology investment and support. In addition, its unique capital position and Advertorial TTY know street give It TTY to seek ways to Invest In new technology in an effort to increase efficiency and effectiveness of its mission. Current Operations Toll Brothers operates in 4 United States regions, encompassing 20 states and over 50 markets.

Building in over 205 communities is accomplished by end-to-end AP-approach of residential development. End-to-end begins with the acquisition of the develop-moment site, site engineering, home design, construction, customization, financing, and sales. Toll facilitates this through a number of subsidiaries with SEES tasked with engineer-ins functions, Toll Architecture to introduce over 70 new home designs every year, Toll In-degraded to prefabricate building components for over 1 50 models and oversee local sub-contractors, Toll Sales to market, sell, and interface with buyers, and TAB Mortgage to originate retrogress (Toll 2010).

Employing a mixed strategy of regional operations with centralized subsidiaries serving all regions requires technology coordination, integration, and extensive travel for a number of key team members. Homes constructed in the West coast receive prefabricated pieces from Toll Integrated located in Philadelphia, Virginia, and Indiana. Furthermore, Toll Integrated acts as the Construction Manager over subcontractors nationally. SEES is tasked with land entitlements nationally, while Toll architects is responsible for creating diverse product responding to local design tastes.

The underpinnings and foundation for the successful interaction of the centralized subsidiaries and regional operations rests with robust IT infrastructure (Toll 2010). Toll employs Customer Management Systems (SMS), Supply Chain Management Systems (SCM), and Knowledge Management Systems (SMS) to eliminate redundancy in data and create consistency to allow for more efficient economies of scale, however, with a workforce that is as mobile as finding, implementing, and supporting the right mix of hardware to access these systems is always important and necessary.

Certain invest-meets in video-conferencing have been dad to connect the four operational regions, however, the nature of the industry requires physical attendance to a number of functions related to the development process. Proposed Solutions As a function of a normal IT management strategy certain technologies exhaust there useful life and need to be replaced either due to wear and tear, obsoleteness, or other miscellaneous conditions. The useful life for a laptop averages 4-6 years with 5 considered the average (Gush 2004).

As the equipment in use by our workforce approaches this threshold a review of what that equipment is replaced tit is ordinary and necessary to IT management. Proposed Solution #1 According to Forrester Consulting (2008) the workforce is becoming increasingly decentralized and enterprises encourage employees to work from home to increase me-people productivity, responsiveness, flexibility, efficiency, and both external and internal customer satisfaction.

Therefore, shifting capital investment from desktop computers to notebook computers as a part of the equipment lifestyle program is responsive to the changing work place dynamic. Furthermore, this shift in Investment snouts Increase me-people proactively, responsiveness, Ana inclemency enervating faster results and increased customer satisfaction (Forrester 2008). Notebook users already comprise a notable percentage of enterprise users thus re- squiring previous investment in security solutions for VPN access, file sharing, and ex- change servers.

In addition, certain legacy systems have already been designed with web interfaces using internet encryption standards. Therefore, whether entering the system by way of VPN or Web security concerns are mitigated under the standing IT plan (Forrester 2008). This solution while increasing the mobility of the workforce would require funding additional capital to the equipment lifestyle program as laptops can cost up to 40% more than desktops possessing the same components (Computer Buy 2007).

Proposed Solution #2 According to Crux (2010) citing a Citric survey: 80% of pad purchases were for business use 84% of organizations will support personal pads; 50% expect their organize-actions to purchase them. – 87% cited the primary application to be used on pad as productivity APS. – 90% cited the largest benefit of the pad as an increased mobility to work re-mote, at home, or anywhere, 74% cited improved productivity. Forrester (2008) finds that Enterprises could stand to make further notebook in- vestments across all worker segments.

Furthermore, Forrester (2008) finds that notebook computers represent almost 40% of enterprise PC’s today and that productivity increases by 51 minutes per day compared to desktop users. Computer Buy (2007) finds that the downside to this investment rests with 40% cost increases to invest in a notebook over a desktop causing Capital Budgeting analysis to evaluate the two alternatives. The Apple pad could overcome the downside of notebook pricing given its low cost of investment. With pricing between $500-829 (pre-software) the pad is below most notebooks and below or comparable to desktop computers.