Innovative Strategy and Product Design
1.Apple is an American Multinational company which has been globally considered as the number one innovative company. Its innovative strategy has been based on launching new products and innovative business models (Winter, Battisti, Burström & Luukkainen, 2018). There are different ways in which innovation and strategy work together at Apple Inc. Apple has innovative leaders who think regarding platforms that push the rate of innovation. With these innovative leaders, they can create a vision, mission, and goals for the organization (Meyer, 2018). Take, for instance; Steve Jobs was able to create values, mission, and vision that has been adopted by Apple. An example of a mission statement can be given by the 2017 mission statement: “Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App store, and it is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with the iPad.” In the mission statement, there is a description of their products and the states of their products. With this mission statement, employees and leaders will be motivated to work delivering the best products to consumers and fulfilling the mission objective of the organization. When it comes to the vision statement of Apple, employees are guided in ways in which they are encouraged to keep their products simple in regards to product design and development.
Secondly, Apple has an organizational culture where they take motivation from the mistakes that they make. As an illustration before the launch of its innovative product, Apple completely mired the demand of the market. With the help of their innovative leaders, they had to rethink their strategies when it came to market penetration. In this scenario, Apple needed skilled teams, therefore, with the help of Steve Jobs, Apple was able to form an iPod team who were working on both software and hardware. Apple’s innovation and strategy has been motivated by the needs of the consumers (Wilson, 2018). With this, they have designed products based on market needs and preferences. As a result, they have been able to penetrate the market and increase their market share compared to other rival companies.
2.Apple has been able to produce consistent products. A closer scrutiny of Apple products indicates that they are all having similar basic product design and architecture. Because of this product consistencies, an Apple customer will always have an idea of the products to buy once he or she gets into the market (Langley & Leyshon, 2017). Secondly, Apple has been introducing innovation periodically. With these new innovative products, consumers will be having different types of products to enjoy that are being provided by the company. These innovative products give consumers an opportunity to use Apple products at all times in the houses or while driving (Giachetti, 2018). For example, we have the iTunes music platform. These new innovative products have made Apple stay ahead of rival companies as they increase their market share in a competitive market. Thirdly, Apple products have been equipped with a sense of attraction due to the packaging, product design and the user interface experiences (Meyer, 2018). Apple has been able to make its products and attractive through having bright colors, user-friendly interface hence maintaining customer loyalty.
Organizational Culture and Employee Engagement
Furthermore, Apple has been selling its products to schools and universities. As a result, they have a transformed “classrooms into showrooms”. As a result, students using Apple products become comfortable using these products. This is a strategy towards creating brand awareness. With this, Apple captures consumers without even knowing that they are customers. Apple has been considering the tastes and preferences of customers (Derbyshire & Giovannetti, 2017). As a result, before the company releases new innovative products, there is extensive market research that is conducted to determine the reactions and behaviors of consumers. Their reactions will determine whether the product will be released into the market or not.
Additionally, the knowledge gained through the extensive research will be used to redesign the products that suit the needs of consumers. Apple has been able to communicate with its target market effectively. Through effective communication, the company can collect vital information regarding the market and the needs of the consumers. Within the organization, employees are aware of the expectations of the company (Safian, 2018). As a result, they can dedicate their times, skills and experiences towards the delivery of better and innovative products. The effectiveness of their innovative strategies has been based on effective leadership and management style where the top executives involve employees in decision making. Steve Jobs used a democratic leadership style that positively influenced the organization and helped in the generation of new ideas.
3.Apple people played a role in collecting information that could be used in the creation of innovative products. Additionally, they were also playing a role in the creation of a positive work environment where there could be positive organizational behavior and organizational culture (Hinterhuber & Liozu, 2017). Within the organization, it was the responsibility of the people to adhere to the management styles and leadership style that was being exercising. Through this, they were in a position to be aware of the chain of command and apply different ways of solving their issues such as conflict within their teams.
The organizational culture encouraged employees to continue generating innovative ideas that were to be used in launching innovative products. As an illustration, Apple’s organizational culture has been based on adhering and maintaining the philosophies of the organization such as mission, vision, and values of the organization. As an illustration, the cultural characteristics of the organizations have always been aligned with driving innovation. With the mission and vision of the organization, employees were being guided on the paths that they should follow towards achieving organizational goals in regards to innovation and new product designs. Through leadership, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have been able to improve organizational culture through the maximization of human resource support in regards to business relevance in different types of markets (Dolata, 2017). Apple together with its management has been able to shape its corporate culture with an objective of using it as a management tool.
Effective Leadership and Decision Making
Furthermore, when it comes to leadership, Apple leaders; Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have been able to include their employees during the decisions making process. This is a platform that can be used to generate new ideas crucial in launching new innovative products and product design. The organizational culture which is being practiced by Apple has made employees feel like they are part of the organization through being constantly appreciated and included in the management process (Chauhan, S., & Goyal, 2018).
4.Steve Jobs changed Apple through product development and delivery. This can be supported by the fact that, Steve Jobs launched iMac in 1998 which gained popularity in the technology market. Additionally, he has been able to introduce new products with the help of his teams (Gallo, 2014). Steve Jobs’ view of innovation was that people should be doing what they love because, through this, they would do all it takes to ensure that their work becomes a success. Steve considered creativity to be connecting things such as associating ideas (Teece, 2017). This can be achieved by coming up with a team with an objective of launching a new product hence as a result, numerous ideas are generated.
References
Chauhan, S., & Goyal, S. (2018). Platform ecosystems: the expert opinion. Journal of
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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.
Gallo C. (2014). The 7 Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2014/05/02/the-7-innovation-secrets-of-steve-jobs/#648fb183751c (Accessed 8/10/2018)
Giachetti, C. (2018). Explaining Apple’s iPhone Success in the Mobile Phone Industry: The Creation of a New Market Space. In Smartphone Start-ups (pp. 9-48). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Hinterhuber, A., & Liozu, S. M. (2017). Is innovation in pricing your next source of competitive advantage? In Innovation in Pricing (pp. 11-27). Routledge.
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Platform capitalism: the intermediation and capitalization of digital economic circulation. Finance and society. 3(1), 11-31.
Meyer P. (2018). Apple Inc.’s Organizational Culture & Its Characteristics (An Analysis).Retrieved from: https://panmore.com/apple-inc-organizational-culture-features-implications (accessed date 8/10/2018)
Safian R. (2018). Why Apple is the World’s most innovative company. Retrieved from: https://www.fastcompany.com/40525409/why-apple-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company (Accessed 8/10/2018)
Teece, D. J. (2017). Profiting from Innovation in the Digital Economy: Standards, Complementary Assets, and Business Models in the Wireless World. Research Policy (forthcoming).
Wilson, E. (2018). Apple’s Key Success Factors in the UK that Could Be Learned and Applied
by Other Companies from the Same Industry. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3152328/
Winter, J., Battisti, S., Burström, T., & Luukkainen, S. (2018). Exploring the success factors of mobile business ecosystems. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 15(03), 1850026.
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