This report you gave to us is talking about the problem facing by an apple in shipping which is completely wrong. Here, the assignment is about designing a new apple app taking apple as a company and meeting all the criteria as I mentioned below. What is required? • Introduction : Define your Project: (our project is to develop a new app for apple) • what is/are the deliverables, what is the end result, who are the stakeholders • Motivation : why you pick this project • Draw your WBS (remember) your project must show minimum 3 levels on WBS • Draw your project gantt chart ( in MS Project , or excel ) this must include : resource allocation ( how much resource you estimated) this must show the relationship between activities (start to finish, start to start ,.. ) showing Predecessors • Draw your project networks and show your critical path • Conclusion Analyse your network , explain why the critical path has occurred. Give some advice on how can you as a project manager ensure the project is going to be on-time ( considering critical activities and the activities with no or minimum slack). For you assignment submission, the report is minimum 1500 words. For your presentations , create around 5 slides to talk about The weight of your assignment : 10% for Project Report and 5% for Presentation. This are the requirement as our teacher mentioned. Please make sure you take an apple as company and developing a new app as a project. Introduction to the organization When one talks about Steve Jobs, the first name to ring a bell is Apple. Apple is an organization that was established in California, United States. The company has expanded its operations to many parts of the world. Despite the company having manufacturing plants in China, it also has a lot of retail outlets in different parts of the world including in the country. The outlets are in place with the aim of providing customers with the company's products. Apple is a manufacturer of mobile phones, mobile phone accessories, computers, computer accessories, and software. The company has a reputation for manufacturing some of the best products, and that is the reason why despite it being an organization that sells its products at a higher price, it still has numerous customers from all corners of the world. However, just like many other organizations, Apple has its fair share of challenges in the market. The problem that will be focused more, in this case, is a problem that has proved not to get out of apple's backyard and that is shipping. Description of the problem The demand for Apple products is high in many parts that it is operational. Such is likely to go on because the issue of shipping is still a wound on the foot of the company and it affects its speed in dealing with the issue. Apple being a global organization, it ought to have shipping mechanisms that make sure that the demand is met at the grassroots. On September 2016, Apple was already feeling the pinch of shipping problems. This is because the organization had already manufactured Apple iPhone 7 but getting the brand to the market proved to be difficult. It is shocking that some of the customers who have been waiting for the product from last year in some parts of the world are still waiting. This is because the problem has not been solved yet despite the assurance by the company that the problem will be solved soon. According to Ritchie (2016), the predicted big problem that Apple must deal with in 2017 is shipping. There is no doubt that the products that Apple releases to the market are of high quality. However, they must be supplied to the customers if the organization is to make profits from the organization. The problem is shipping is enough to put an organization down. In the manufacturing industry, an organization utilizes shipping in two different stages. The first stage is supplying the raw materials and the second stage is supplying the products to the customers. Apple has not been limited to manufacturing products of its choice and products that will meet the needs of the customers. Such means that supply of the raw materials has not been affected. However, the supply of the finished products is affected, and such raises questions on who is responsible. The problem is serious because it affects the organization in different ways. First, it delays the profits of the organization. The reason for stating so is because when Apple talked about Apple iPhone 7, people were eagerly waiting for the iPhone in the market. Such means that people were ready to purchase the product in large quantities. When it delayed in the market, it is most probably that there are customers who lost hope and decided to purchase another brand and maybe from another organization. Such means that the company missed that profit and lost it to the competitor. Second, the reputation of the organization might be at stake. Brand loyalty does not come without the organization proving that customers can trust the organization and its products. Apple assured its customers in 2016 that the issue of shipping would be dealt with once and for all. However, the issue is still affecting the customers and the company as well. When an organization starts failing to deliver its promises, it lands itself in a problem that might be hard for it to run away from. Customers are very important stakeholders but very sensitive; they like to be treated well and told the truth. The moment they realize that the organization is not delivering on its promises, they start leaving and talking. The words of a disappointed customer are enough to tarnish the image of a good organization, and that is why the issue of shipping is big and should be addressed with all the seriousness it deserves. Analyzing the problem The current problem at Apple can be analyzed from two different perspectives; organizational culture and model of leadership. The culture of any given organization has an effect on the operations of an organization. As a matter of fact, it can also affect the leadership of the organization. The culture of an organization guides it in all its processes. Therefore, when the culture does not promote quick ways of resolving problems, the organization might suffer from the problem for a long time. Such is one of the reasons why Apple is still dealing with a problem that started affecting it last year. Last year, the CEO and the COO assured the customers that the problem would be solved. However, that has not happened yet. This is an indication that the problem can be leadership motivated. It is the responsibility of any leadership to make sure that it does all it can within its power to solve problems that might be affecting the customers and the organization at large. Therefore, the fact that the leadership has not solved the problem shows that there is a failure from the side of the organization. If that were not the case, there would have been an action taken by the management. In many cases, when an organization fails to work effectively, the management makes sure that the leadership does something. For example, when Volkswagen entered into a legal conflict, the action was taken to all leaders involved. An action of the same nature has not been taken, and that shows that the whole leadership might be a dilemma since there are no actions and the problem is not going away. Designing an intervention Change of leadership The fact that the shipping problem has been in place for almost one full year now shows that there is a need for a new leadership. The leaders in place have proven that the issue might be too huge for them to handle and therefore a new leadership should be ushered in to deal with the problem once and for all. Change of the shipping companies FedEx is one of the shipping companies that supplies apple's products. Though it is not right to speculate, the organization is either having problems with Apple, or the task of supplying Apple products might be too huge for it. With this in mind, there is a need for Apple to bring another shipping organization on board or replace the current organization with an organization that has the capability of supplying Apple products to all corners of the world. Investing more on shipping In the business world, organizations flock in markets where there are high returns. Apple should start paying well to organizations that ship their products. Such will attract many shipping organizations, and at the same time, it will motivate the current shipping organizations to be effective with the fear of losing the contract. Establishment of an internal shipping network Apple is a big organization with enough resources to run its shipping operations. Since dealing with shipping organizations have proved to be problematic, the organization should establish an internal shipping department which should take care of all shipping issues.