Assignment - Based on material presented (Chapter 9 examines decision making in
ID: 418747 • Letter: A
Question
Assignment - Based on material presented (Chapter 9 examines decision making in the international management arena and discusses topics such as; models of decision making, decision-making concerns, biases, group decision making, and problems with groupthink. Chapter 10 considers international management in the context of cultural impacts and the manager’s ability/efforts in influence and negotiations), Wall Street Journal article (below), and related material discuss:
1) Issues/concerns faced by an international manager and/or company, and;
2) Consider possible strategies an international company and/or international manager might consider/employ in entering and/or maintaining relations in a foreign market.
The objective of this assignment is to get you thinking and "talking" about how actions/issues, such as those listed in the following Wall Street Journal articles affect business decisions.
Step 1: Briefly review the articles (Listed Below) & relate the the material to Ch 9 and Ch 10 discussion above
Required Length: word count of at least 150 words.
In 2016 the WSJ reported on efforts of the FBI’s request for Apple Company to disable an auto-erase feature on its iPhone, which would assist the FBI in determining if the iPhone contained information on future terrorist activity (Phone was used by terrorists in the San Bernardino, California, December attack which killed 14 people). As noted in this article, a number of issues are raised by Apple Company.
Consider the following March 29th excerpt presented in a related article by the Los Angeles Times: “Apple stood firm in the face of legal threats, framing the company as a protector of privacy rights. That may reassure domestic customers, but it could also have a major impact overseas. China is Apple's most important growth region, set to become its biggest market in the near future. The company's business and relationship with regulators there would be significantly strained if it was forced to provide special access for U.S. agents to its hardware. Though China loves the iPhone, its leaders are deeply suspicious of American technology and fear they could be accessed by U.S. spies.”
Now in 2018, WSJ reports on Apple’s efforts to maintain privacy features through technology development: countering the iPhone-Hacking Box. Apple is a global company and considering the events reported in the WSJ articles, must continue to develop strategies which allow this company to be successful within many countries with differing attitudes, cultures, and political influences.
Did Apple and the government pick the right case for digging in their heels?
The FBI wants Apple’s help to gain access to an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook,
one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino, Calif., attack in December that left 14
people dead. Apple has resisted and instead launched a debate about encryption
technology and customer privacy. But this case isn’t directly about either of those
issues.
The government doesn’t want Apple to unlock the phone. Rather, Apple is being
asked to disable an auto-erase feature—which is triggered after 10 failed passcode
attempts—so that the government can crack the device on its own using a computer.
Nor is privacy a direct concern. Farook worked for San Bernardino County and the
phone belonged to his employer. He had no guarantee of privacy while using a work
phone, and the county has given the FBI permission to hack the device.
The Constitution protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and it is
possible that the phone contains evidence that Farook was in contact with other
terrorist cells or had knowledge of other planned attacks. What’s not reasonable
about the FBI’s request?
Apple, for its part, sees this as a power grab. The company has helped law enforcement on numerous occasions but is now being directed to do something that
even authoritarian states like Russia and China have never requested: write software
that would cause one of its devices to function in the exact opposite way that it was
intended to function. In previous cases, involving earlier versions of the iPhone,
Apple has had the ability to extract data without unlocking the device and did so
pursuant to a search warrant. Apple is unable to do that using existing technology on
later versions of the phone because more user data is now encrypted.
The FBI and other critics of Apple contend that the company is more concerned about
its reputation than it is about thwarting terrorism, but that is overly cynical. Apple
would have to develop a new version of its smartphone software to give the
government what it wants, and the company is uncomfortable with the precedent that
would set. Should the government be allowed to force Apple or other private firms to
create certain products under court order? Should the Justice Department effectively
be allowed to deputize Silicon Valley in this way at its discretion?
Nor would the FBI be the only entity asking Apple to perform this service. Lawenforcement
officials in New York City say they are currently in possession of 175
locked iPhones. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., in a recent TV
interview with Charlie Rose, said that if the government prevails in its case against Apple, he would seek access to any phone that is part of a criminal proceeding.
The company also argues, credibly, that creating such software will make Apple more
of a target for hackers and cybercriminals. And won’t foreign governments reason
that Apple should make the same tools available to them as well? Apple’s chief
executive, Tim Cook, is naturally concerned about the company’s reputation and
wants to reassure customers that their data is protected. That’s his job and fiduciary
duty. But these other concerns are real and deserve responses that rise above the ad
hominem level.
FBI Director James Comey also has a job to do, and he has repeatedly asked for
legislative guidance on data-security matters. “Democracies resolve such tensions
through robust debate,” Mr. Comey wrote on the Lawfare website in July. “It may be
that, as a people, we decide the benefits here outweigh the costs and that there is no
sensible, technically feasible way to optimize privacy and safety in this particular
context, or that public safety folks will be able to do their job well enough in a world
of universal strong encryption. Those are decisions Americans should make.”
The Obama administration, however, seems content to leave these decisions to
judges. The administration could help its FBI director by putting forward some clear
policy objectives that balance privacy and law-enforcement interests. But so far
President Obama has largely ducked the encryption debate, and this leadership void
has left the FBI looking to courts to resolve matters best left to the legislative and
executive branches of government. The president views the tech sector as a deeppocketed
Democratic ally. In an election year, he isn’t eager to tip his hand, let alone
sign legislation that may not be to Silicon Valley’s liking. The Apple litigation is far from over, though the company seems to be losing in the
court of public opinion. In a Pew Research Center poll released this week, 51% of
respondents said that Apple should help the government unlock Farook’s phone; 38%
said it should not. Mr. Cook may have started a debate he can’t win. Apple has asked two of its major product assemblers, Foxconn and Pegatron, to
explore the possibility of manufacturing future iPhones in the US, Nikkei reported
Thursday, Nov. 17 (Friday morning in Japan).
The report suggests that Apple has asked both companies to look into how feasible it
would be to produce the number of iPhones they currently do—roughly 200 million a
year—in the US rather than Asia. Pegatron turned down the request, citing concerns
around how much it would cost, while Foxconn looked into it, according Nikkei.
“Making iPhones in the U.S. means the cost will more than double,” the unnamed
source told Nikkei. Apple wasn’t immediately available to comment on the report.
Apple’s impetus for potentially moving production of its most popular product to the
US is reportedly due to concerns that president-elect Donald Trump may attempt to
force the company to produce at least part of the iPhone domestically. Trump
criticized Apple multiple times during his campaign, including its stance on refusing
the FBI’s demand to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s phone, and suggesting that
the company should build the iPhone in the US.
Production costs would likely skyrocket were Apple to build its next generations of
the iPhone in the US, but it wouldn’t really be because labor would cost so much more
there. One of the benefits of Western companies manufacturing goods in Asia is that
labor costs are indeed far lower than what they are at home. But as Jason Dedrick, a
professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, told The Wall
Street Journal, if Apple could find enough workers in one place to assemble massive
amounts of iPhones in the US, the cost per iPhone would likely increase by about $30
or $40 (a new iPhone starts at $649 in the US), and only a small part of that would be
due to labor. The real issue is that the vast majority of Apple’s suppliers, the companies that build
the individual components that make up an iPhone—such as the battery, the camera, the display, the sensors, and just about every other part inside the iPhone—are based
in Asia.
Apple has suppliers in 28 countries, and the countries with the highest concentration
of suppliers are China, Japan, the US, and Taiwan, according to MIT Technology
Review. Shipping all of those individual parts to the US would cost a lot more than
moving them around China or shipping them across Asia.
Dedrick estimated for The Wall Street Journal that making all the iPhone
components in the US could see the cost of an iPhone rise by $90. And that’s assuming Apple would be able to source all of the same components in the US. Apple
has been working with manufacturers and suppliers for decades, and almost 10 years
on the iPhone alone, and replacing those relationships would not necessarily be easy.
The company also uses manufacturers like Foxconn to help prototype products, so
the research and development costs of finding new partners (or doing more work inhouse)
would also likely increase.
Explanation / Answer
In my views, asking Apple to shift its base to USA, instead of Asia is quite a humongous request. Trump Government should have understood the gravity of such actions first, before demanding such a request. If Apple shifts base to USA, the cost of the product will increase considerably, which may impact its sales adversely. Instead Apple should offer full support to USA and the FBI in any criminal case involving use of Apple products. This way, Apple will not need to shift base and adequate help will be offered to FBI for case cracking. This is a clear example of the burning pressures that an international manager may face from Governments of various countries. To keep doing business, he has to maintain his relationship with the Government of all such countries and sometimes the process of maintaining relationship may become grave for the business.