This assignment shall mainly focus into the affairs of the success story of Apple. It shall consider various things related to the innovation strategy that is used by the company and how this strategy has helped it to stand out in the competition. The study shall also point out the overall condition of people, culture and innovation at apple and further, how Steve Jobs led to the success of the company.
Apple has been bale top stand out in the market as well as in the industry because of its perfect balance and application of the essence of strategy altogether with innovation. The growth of Apple had steeply fallen and the financial growth of the company had been crippled before August 1997 (Nylén & Holmström, 2015). Worth the entry of Jobs in the company and taking up the lead, different kind of strategic changes were brought in the company. Jobs believed in simplicity yet elegancy. As part of his new strategy to revive the health of the company, he closed down 70% of the new projects and two of the divisions, licensing programs, changed the course of the distribution channel and developed stable and attractive website in order to carry on with direct sales (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). He also took the lead to open up retail stores of Apple, the first of which was opened in May 2001 (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). Jobs used a platform strategy in order to design the products and give them life with a commonly used and unique kind of Operating system (Pisano, 2015). The operating system and the overall structure were same but kept on evolving and changing with the products and with the passage of time. Apple started carrying on with more extensive experiments in order to make the software smoother, stable and well equipped for a good consumer and user experience (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012).
Figure 1: Various steps taken by Apple which led to their success
(Source: Dolata, 2017)
The company took up many bold steps in order to carry on with innovation along with the development of their strategies. The making use of new kind of materials for the products which were more attractive looking and durable and the use of different attractive colors were part of Apple innovation about the design of its products (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). The apple stores were unique off their kind and sales and quality repair services were conducted by genius people in those stores worldwide (Dolata, 2017). The stores had beautiful machineries that would attract and amaze travelers and passersby. All these things helped to simultaneously made use of and develop better innovation and business strategies.
Apple came into the business and manufacture of computers by simply keeping in mind what consumers want. Before the late part of 1970s, computers were not used on a personal level (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). They were huge sized and were stashed in Government buildings and offices of big companies (Bygstad, 2017). Apple was the first concern to develop and design computers for people so that they could take the advantage of the machine at a personal level. They started experimenting with hardware and software and started equipping their computers with intel processors and software that were developed by themselves. They started enquiring about what people wanted and based upon such, they started designing their software in order to smoothen and ease the usability (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). Consumers could suggest new things that the developers would keep on adding in the software that were to be released in various of the Apple devices (Fink, Reeves, Palma & Farr, 2017). They wanted to make simple devices that could do excellent job, equipped with good display, good music output system, stable operating system, less reboot time of 15 seconds and a lag free usability (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). Apple had their original ideas and most of their ideas were getting cloned by IBM which entered into the market shortly afterwards. The company however withstood the competition from IBM and outdid it due to their innovative approach and good user experience (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). Apple started to have a huge fan base and it was the first company to make it true that people would fall in love with their computing devices (Ceccagnoli & Rothaermel, 2016).
Figure 2: Business Model of Apple
(Source: Pisano, 2015)
Apple had unique strategies for making devices and launched application stores first in the world. These application store became famous and reached millions of download within a short period of time. Steve Jobs was the first to design the iTunes where people could stream and listen to millions of songs and shuffle them (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). This changed the whole face and operations of even the music and entertainment industry. They also had to change their course due to the innovation brought in by Jobs.
Different people in the company had different roles to play. The developers would consider what people wanted and took samples of consumer suggestions in order to add features and make changes in the software that were being designed by them (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). The company has a very shabby kind of culture. In this present time where economies are open and companies use third parties to develop and assemble their products, apple does everything by itself (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). It does not make any disclosure regarding the things that are developed in the organization, the projects on which they are working upon and the things that are yet to come in the market (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). No disclosure is made regarding products and technology and if anyone makes speculation, the company sues them (Cecere & Battaglia, 2015). The main roles were taken up by Steve Jobs as the prime innovator in the company. He took and employed likeminded people and showed them the designs and the technology and kind of things that had to be used for the products. The company even had many retail stores worldwide and the repair jobs were done in these retail stores equipped with talented and knowledgeable geniuses (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). However, the opinion of the staffs as well as the core customers of the company was taken into consideration since the initiation of the company and products have been made and designed as per the suggestions that were provided by them (Teece, Peteraf & Leih, 2016). The company also has offered flexible and healthy working spaces and conditions to its employees and all these things have brought in huge commitment, responsibility and hard work from their side (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). Thus, the culture of Apple has somewhat encouraged them a great deal to develop and innovate new products and software.
The impact of Steve jobs can be said to be a huge on the whole of the company. The company had started its business in later half of 1970s and then after a decade, Jobs was fired from the company (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). The company which started with huge response from customers and with a growing fan base slowly started to lose its hold of the market. The share prices fell and revenue fell to great heights. During August, 1997, Jobs was again taken in the company (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). Jobs brought in with him revolutionary ideas, experience and bold decisions that is he change the whole distribution channels, opened up website to carry on with direct sales and initiated the closing of operation units and previously taken projects (Biemans, 2018). He also took the initiative to open up direct Retail stores on behalf of the company. He was the main creative force and took up the work of main innovation in his own and came upon with new ideas, strategies and technique to design and deliver good and excellent products to the consumers (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012). He believed in simplicity and made things which every user could lay his hands upon by paying a hefty price (Gawer & Cusumano, 2014). He also started making use of platform strategy in order to make the devices based on a print software and making changes on it based on the models and computing device that is being made (Thomke & Feinberg, 2012).
Conclusion
This assignment has covered various discussions related to the details of the company Apple. It has covered details about its success, it strategies and innovative policies and steps taken. The role played by the chief innovator Steve Jobs has also been considered in the latter part of this assignment.
References
Biemans, W. (2018). Managing innovation within networks. Routledge.
Bygstad, B. (2017). Generative innovation: a comparison of lightweight and heavyweight IT. Journal of Information Technology, 32(2), 180-193. Doi: 10.1057/jit.2016.15
Ceccagnoli, M., & Rothaermel, F. T. (2016). Appropriability strategies to capture value from innovation. In Technological innovation: Generating economic results (pp. 3-31). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Doi: 10.1108/S1048-473620160000026001
Cecere, G. & Battaglia, R. D. (2015). Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant design?. Telecommunications Policy, 39(3-4), 162-175. Doi: 10.1016/j.telpol.2014.07.002
Dolata, U. (2017). Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft: Market concentration-competition-innovation strategies (No. 2017-01). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Organisations-und Innovationsforschung, SOI Discussion Paper.
Fink, T. M. A., Reeves, M., Palma, R., & Farr, R. S. (2017). Serendipity and strategy in rapid innovation. Nature communications, 8(1), 2002. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02042-w
Gawer, A., & Cusumano, M. A. (2014). Industry platforms and ecosystem innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(3), 417-433. Doi: 10.1111/jpim.12105
Nylén, D., & Holmström, J. (2015). Digital innovation strategy: A framework for diagnosing and improving digital product and service innovation. Business Horizons, 58(1), 57-67. Doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2014.09.001
Pisano, G. P. (2015). You need an innovation strategy. Harvard Business Review, 93(6), 44-54.
Teece, D., Peteraf, M., & Leih, S. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and organizational agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California Management Review, 58(4), 13-35.Doi: 10.1525/cmr.2016.58.4.13
Thomke, S. H., & Feinberg, B. (2012). Design thinking and innovation at Apple. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
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