Question

Question 3 Write a short case study (max of two pages, with readable font size) about “The revolution and evolution of managing innovation in Apple inc” [Total 30 marks]

Answer 1

Effective linkages and networking is very important as valid information can be gained from them, so relations should be maintained with suppliers, dealers and other partners. Apple believes in learning and working in teams. Apple’s innovation is driven by external uncertainty and competition. Apple is also very effective in finding new market opportunities and reorganizing areas which were inefficient. It fills the gaps existing in the markets for example the gap of a product which was needed to fill the gap between a computer and a phone, so Apple came up with IPAD.

Strategic enablers for innovation

Apple’s motto “Think Different” promotes all working people in the organization to be innovative. Apple recognizes, protects and encourages all innovators in the organization. Innovators in the company are also rewarded either in monetary terms or recognition based. Apple has invested many resources in innovation because innovation requires much funding and lack of it can hinder creativity.

Barriers to Innovation

Public can sometimes doubt the effectiveness of some of the Apple products and expects a lot. This expectation can burden Apple a lot, so constant efforts have to be made to keep up the innovation. Apple sometimes tries to protect its reputed identity to increase their credibility and sustain itself, so it creates limits and gives responsibilities and lays down rules but innovation crosses the limits set by the organization.

Apple’s Designing Process

Apple’s innovation strategy involves terrific new products and innovative business models.

Matching Top-down and Bottom-up Strategies

Senior managers describe their dream products and outline what they want from any new application. In response, design teams select and present the best ideas from the paired design meetings to leadership, who might just decide that some of those ideas are, in fact, their longed-for new products. In this way, the dream products morph into deliverables

Paired Design Meetings

Every week, design teams at Apple have two meetings: a right-brain creative meeting and a left-brain production one. At the creative meeting, people are to brainstorm, to forget about constraints, to think freely, and to go crazy. At the production meeting, the designers and engineers are required to nail everything down, to work out how this crazy idea might actually work. This process and organization continues throughout the development of any application. The balance shifts as the application progresses. Options are kept for creative thought even at a late stage.

Developing Perfect Mockup

Creating a full-size model of a design or a device requires a huge amount of work and takes an enormous amount of time, but it removes all ambiguity. That might add time up front, but it removes the need to correct mistakes later on.

Apple’s “10 to 3 to 1″ approach

“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do,” used to say Steve Jobs. Apple’s strategy for innovation demands that design ideas to be generated in multitudes. They are all run through a sort of artificial natural-selection mechanism that kills off the weak and only lets the strongest ideas rise to the top. Apple designers give themselves room to design without restriction and come up with 10 entirely different mockups of any new feature. Later they whittle that number to three, spend more months on those three and then finally end up with one strong decision.

Value Elements

Eliminate :

Price Range:

Apple’s products are premium and don’t really come on a broad price range. Apple essentially serves a premium segment.

Inventory Management: Apple is not able to en cash upon economies of scale as much as Dell and Samsung in their respective core industries which have specialization in Just in Time inventory management.

Reduce:

Supply chain innovation: Apple has not innovated much on the front of Supply chain management despite the fact that It sources it’s integrated chips from a set of suppliers.

While Dell and Samsung (to an extent) have much robust supply chains to sustain their JIT system.

Customization: Dell specializes in customization which is a big plus point.

Apple doesn’t provide as much variety for different customer segments at different price ranges as much as Dell and Samsung do.

Raise:

Features: Although Samsung also provides a rich set of features, but, Apple is even more highly loaded with innovative features. Apple’s interface and apps provide a completely different customer experience.

Create:

Product Innovation :Apple Products are at the frontier of product innovation . They have brought new paradigm to innovation by introducing multi-touch ,Firewire , Aero Theme

Design & Quality: Apple focus highly on design aspect where products created are high on aesthetic appeal .The components used are of highest quality and sometimes custom-made (Scratch Free Glass Screen of Iphone)

Targeting High Profit Margins :Apple products follow strategy of more for more and have higher margins . For Eg : On high end macbook pro Apple captures margin as high as Rs20k ,while dell on similar laptop are able to capture on Rs 5k as profit margin from the user.

Innovation-Radar

: Innovation radar : Apple vs Dell

: Innovation radar : Apple vs Samsung