Obstacles faced by Apple in Innovation
Apple is a multinational company associated with technological developments and innovation. The American tech giant is specialized inthe manufacturing of consumer electronics, software, and online solutions, and is also estimated as the largest information technology firm in terms of revenue as of 2021(Al Mheiri, Hosani&Saif 2021). The company has achieved significant success through the development of a series of revolutionary gadgets and a few iconic innovative products that have raised the organization’s reputation extensively in the market.
With the advent of technological advancements and globalized perspectives, innovation has indeed been a prerequisite for the paradigms of economic development. Responsibilities related to technology are facing significant changes, as consumers are looking to apprehend the concepts behind generating innovative products. This particular document highlights the innovation strategy based upon which Apple attained considerable commercial growth and competitive advantage over others which they lacked quite often due to incremental cost and lack of hardware.They initiated the radical and incremental innovation process. Apple looked to increase the paradigms of consumer satisfaction with their smart and spontaneous products. The organisation also emphasized the structure that centers on practical proficiency and leadership attribute that assisted them in attaining the specific goals. However, they faced certain internal and external barriers while implementing this innovative strategy that is subsequently discussed in each section of this report. The “innovation diagnostic tool” will assist the organisation in specifying innovation issues and opportunities for building a tailored action plan against them. The procedure that will be utilized for analyzing the innovative strategy within Apple will comprise of three crucial elements that include the following:
- A comprehensive evaluation of the opportunity pipeline and marketplace results.
- Health check for the innovation capabilities.
- Comparison of the effective practices related to innovation.
The tech giant often encounters several obstacles that restrainits innovative capabilities. They always look to launch novel ideas and publish the launching quite early, (France, Shi &Kazandjian 2021) to initiate the marketing strategies early. Under tremendous pressure, in terms of meeting the delivery needs, they failed to maintain the aspects of manufacturing cost-effective products. The culture and organisational framework within the firm hinder the innovative thinking procedures even though they have their hand on specific technologies. Because the product lines must fulfill the launch window, organisational stress tends to increase, and they cease thinking beyond things differently. Underneath the regular stress to complete and conform to budget, creativity or the innovative strategy undergoes a flipside unless the primary objective is prevailed. Apple attempts to avoid risks whenever possible, yet low risk equals low gain, thus Apple must take certain measured chances. Apple can demand large incentives if it so desires.Innovation always deals with changes and is not possible to view it from a particular process perspective that concentrates on technical or project management complexities. Apple has made good progress in the innovation and development of products as they comprehensively implemented the tactics of synthesizing individual concepts within bigger platforms before selecting notions for developing further. Nevertheless, their price for the products did not attract the consumers like the other competitors.
Even though the technical equipment and relevant sources are accessible, Apple’s culture and management structure sometimes can stifle innovative thinking, therefore culture must be embraced by everybody and communications must be transparent. The public tends to doubt the effectiveness of some Apple products and has high expectations. This anticipation might put a lot of pressure on Apple, so it’s important to keep up the innovation. Apple occasionally strives to defend its claimed character to strengthen its legitimacy and perpetuate itself, so it sets limitations, assigns tasks, and establishes regulations, but creativity transcends the organisation’s boundaries.
Internal Enablers of Innovation Capability within Apple
The significant internal enablers of innovation capability within Apple are its effective organisational culture, management of its employees, (Tasnim 2018) and relevant individuals associated with the operational entities, the innovation strategy, and its sustained competencies. The entire procedure of innovation is internalized within all the employees in service for Apple as this is their responsibility. The regular evaluation of all the ongoing initiatives within the firm helped them in apprehending all the scope of opportunities for generating new ideas to make their products more efficient and productive. They maintained the essentiality of evaluating existing activities for ensuring appropriate works are being done and emphasized more on double looping learning.
The employee retention and recruitment policies, (Pathiranage 2019) also assisted in having skilled employees which sustained their procedure of practical proficiencies. Every worker could handle the risks and learn from them at a quicker pace. The financial assets available to this organisation provide sufficient assistance in funding the innovations within the company. As per the authors ofRazak et al., (2020), Apple takes pride in maintaining a varied work culture that is considered as one of the most important enablers in their innovation strategy. The organisation does not possess any activity related to discrimination or segregation within employees based upon their social constructs, sexual orientation, and more.
Leadership characteristics that are maintained within the company are centralized and disciplined. Their core approach for innovation was oriented towards the products that helped them to stay ahead in the market. The management and tech experts also focused on designing paradigms of their devices that not only involved a pleasing aesthetic structure but also introduced simplification in working. The diagnostic tool discussed above (also mentioned in the appendix) will consist of a part termed as “health check for innovation capabilities”, will help the organization in assessing the perspectives of internal enablers such as leadership and organization, procedures, and contraptions, and cultural values. According to a finding of a report by Coccia(2018, p.7), cultural aspects and leadership management evolved as one of the most significant components that induced purposeful innovation within the organisation. Throughout the last decade, Apple has gained significant success in formulating and incorporating a logical and concentrated tactical vision. This has also enabled the investors of the organisation, which has led them to achieve cutting-edge success in the consumer electronics sector. After-sales services from the employees have also made the company’s innovative strategies a success particularly in the aspect of maintaining consumer satisfaction.
“Think Different”, the agenda specifically followed by Apple (Tasnim 2018), motivates every employees within the group to be creative. Every individual of Apple associated with the innovative strategy team are standard, confined, and optimistic. The members related to the innovative team are also acknowledged and honored with adequate benefits, either monetarily or by appreciation. The company has invested a lot of financial resources for invention since it takes a lot of money to innovate, and a lack of it can stifle creativity. Apple highlights and motivates the importance of diversity in their workplace, (Wang and Fang 2020), because people from diverse cultures experience things completely differently, allowing for new perspectives and concepts to emerge.
Leadership Characteristics and Innovation
The sustainable factors associated with the growth and emergence of the company depend externally upon the capability of how they maintain their brand reputation alongside the other luxury global companies or brands. As per a report highlighted in Dempsey (2019, p.2), it has defeated several other competitors in the luxury brand sector, as its image and appeal enabled them to market and sell its devices at a higher price than many of its rivals. However, one of the prominent barriers that can be seen is regarding the external uncertainties and relevant competition from the other companies operating within the sector. The android platform upon which smartphones are generally rosining in the market is the chief competitor for the organisation. Nevertheless, the android platform is much more cost-effective, (Wang et al., 2020), and easier to purchase. The hardware, procedures, and tools for manufacturing products like iPhones, I-Pads, and more are much costly and these products are sold at a much higher price. This generally results in the fact that innovative products are not able to prevail sales in the market in context to other competitors.
Another external barrier is they are very selective in terms of recruiting relevant system engineers, designers, and other employees required for manufacturing purposes. Due to this fact, several occasions are found where they feel the lack of expertise and research and development assets while developing a product. Moreover, Apple’s ability to research the market is considerably limited, (Shapiro 2019), simultaneously resulting in a hindrance where the general consumers become the ruler instead of the company and their preference is much preferred. The tech firm has also encountered specific barriers in terms of outsourcing resources (Teicher& Khan 2020). They generally rely significantly on logic rather than allocation of sufficient resources; they need to apprehend the fact that innovation is not just derived from logic and certain assumptions are required that might stay incorrect but will overhaul the entire strategies related to the implementation of innovating tactics.
The utilization of advanced technological mediums for staying focused within the shifting dynamics related to the scenarios of external commercial operations is one of the most specific instances of how organisations adapt continuous improvement as a phase of their organisational framework. The external factors related to the technological aspects of Apple’s innovation strategy will provide significant opportunities for the enterprise. Their external enablers include the increase in cloud computing demand, (Yang et al., 2021) enhanced technological implementation within their commercial business, the growing mobile market, and the enhanced capability of the entire firm in terms of providing their consumers with better and more sophisticated electronic gadgets and devices. Effective links and connections are critical since they provide reliable knowledge, therefore relationships with suppliers, distributors, and other stakeholders must be preserved (Fahmi 2019). Apple is a firm believer in teamwork and learning. External volatility and competitiveness drive Apple’s innovation. Apple is also considered adequate in terms of identifying innovative market potential and reforming other possible opportunities. Apple is generally way ahead in a similar market where the main competitors are lagging in terms of meeting the consumer demands and production levels. The company can develop a great surge for its products in the market even before the production starts within the manufacturing plant. For instance, their pre-booking abilities start a month before the launch of the product. This proves the fact they are the pioneers in innovation and consumers’ trust in them for creating a robust and innovative device.
Conclusion
The employees working within the company are generally deemed with a transformative leadership style (Ceil 2018). This style has made the scenario more productive as the managers participate and encourage the experts in the generation of ideas and implementation. The leadership attributes covered within the company have often provided beneficial oversights of novel procedures and provided timely opinions regarding the existing projects. This assisted or provided the team associated with innovations, sufficient time required for correction and improvement of the relevant ideas or concepts. Research by Chen, Lew and Gong (2021, p.3), highlighted another external enabler for the company where respondents of a survey including the employees of the organisation stated that the creative aspects followed within the company assisted them in the development of innovative solutions for its commercial purpose and for meeting the customer demands. The investment made by Apple for its ventures along with the acquisition approaches is not that aggressive but it is evident that Apple seems to invest more in its supply chain that has let them achieve significant support from the resource suppliers and other relevant stakeholders.
A portfolio assessment must analyze a firm’s track history in introducing innovative products to the marketplace to gauge the sustainability of the new products or business pipeline. Apple also should seek a healthy balance of progressive and revolutionary breakthroughs, as well as a combination of short-term vs long-term possibilities.
This section of the assessment evaluates Apple’s particular challenges in each of the four important areas: “leadership and organization”, processes and tools, individuals and abilities, and lastly “values and culture”. It examines the degree toward which levers include budgeting of resource mechanisms, in addition to assessing how successfully the organisation is implementing innovation procedures and technologies that are being used. As Lee et al., (2019, p.1), mentions the fact that Apple significantly lacks consumer interaction and user feedback systems. Apple must utilize this diagnostic tool that will include interview and survey sessions with both the users and the consumers of innovation levers, procedures, contraptions, and a robust action strategy that will address the crucial loopholes within the firm’s innovation capabilities.
As per the evaluation of the internal and external enablers of Apple, it is evident that their leadership and workplace culture have significantly contributed to their innovation and development processes. All that is important for the company is to enhance their research and development more to introduce much more cost-effective products such that their innovative gadgets become more effective. As an instance of innovative products, experts cite the debut of the Apple iPod that replaced the famous and reliable Sony Walkman device (Boyer 2019). Similarly, to maintain this prosperity they need to evaluate their abilities to improve their innovative approaches.
According to the findings, it is evident that in this department the organization can be rated 4 out of 5 as they had more enablers instead of potential barriers to their innovation process and development.
As per the enablers and barriers discussed above, it is evident that strong leadership and talent improvement are critical to Apple’s innovative culture. The firm’s innovation strategy will be the propelling engine of its potential development, related to its competence in protecting its entrepreneurial ecosystem as well as its brand recognition and appeal that other organizations have failed to replicate, according to key sections of this document. A more in-depth examination of these data found that the firm’s leadership behaviors will continue to promote innovation since it is its core competency. If a closer look is given at the abilities that Apple’s employees have now, it can be seen that they are unequaled. Indeed, the corporation has established unrivaled expertise in the production of software, hardware, and services. However, as per the diagnostic tool and its components, certain alterations and recommendations are required for the company to sustain with their further.
- Apple must ensure that its distinctiveness is protected, especially when it comes to the utilization of its creative gadgets or products, and that its definite sequence regarding its quality which has been the driving factor behind its brand appeal, are safeguarded.
- It is likewise essential that perhaps the corporation needs to pay awareness towards market requirements and produce items that meet those needs as a permanent and be a part of its long-term strategy. This would be a shift from the company’s current technology-pull approach.
- Apple’s true prosperity is predicated on its capacity to innovate and develop new user engagements predicated on its ever-growing content library. To maintain this they must initiate consumer feedback sessions to engage them more and make them understand the aspects of why products are costly and how flexible it is when compared to other products.
- Apple needs to optimize its product testing before introducing any device or gadget in the market to increase its competitive position. Nevertheless, it should not come at the cost of Apple’s technical dominance. Apple has to develop faster testing procedures that allow for extensive testing and early release at identical times.
- Apple needs to establish a stealth culture in their workplace culture. To build the trademark, the executive members should promote attention to every detail, secretive culture, and communication with their consumers.
Conclusion
The entire paper above specifically highlighted the innovative products and procedures implemented by Apple to ensure their competitiveness within the market and sustain commercial growth. Discussions based upon the barriers and enablers, both internal and external ones have somewhat assisted and hindered simultaneously the processes of innovation that the company needed to perform. The diagnostic tool evaluated the innovation strategy and also certain recommendations were also added according to those. The driving factors that increase the growth of the company were also discussed in the subsequent sections. Nevertheless, the analysis indicated that leadership and culture were the most important aspects that assisted the organization in achieving its innovative success.
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