digital divide network - article database

Second part of 'How did Steve Job Help to Save Apple'

Everything - the business, the people - are subservient to the mission: building great products. And rather than listening to, or asking their customers what they wanted; Apple would solve problems customers didn't know they had with products they didn't even realize they wanted. By taking this approach, Apple bent all the rules of disruption. To disrupt yourself, for example, Professor Christensen's research would typically prescribe setting up a separate company that eventually goes on to defeat the parent. It's incredibly hard to do this successfully; Dayton Dry Goods pulled it off with Target. IBM managed to do it with the transition from mainframes to PCs, by firewalling the businesses in entirely different geographies. Either way, the number of companies that have successfully managed to do it is a very, very short list. And yet Apple's doing it to itself right now with the utmost of ease. Here's new CEO Tim Cook, on the iPad disrupting the Mac business: 'Yes, I think there is some cannibalization... the iPad team works on making their product the best. Same with the Mac team.' It's almost unheard of to be able to manage disruption like this. They can do it because Apple hasn't optimized its organization to maximize profit. Instead, it has made the creation of value for customers its priority. When you do this, the fear of cannibalization or disruption of one's self just melts away. In fact, when your mission is based around creating customer value, around creating great products, cannibalization and disruption aren't 'bad things' to be avoided. They're things you actually strive for - because they let you improve the outcome for your customer.

When I first learned about the theory of disruption, what amazed me was its predictive power; you could look into the future with impressive clarity. And yet, there was a consistent anomaly. That one dark spot on Professor Christensen's prescience was always his predictions on Apple. I had the opportunity to talk about it with him subsequently, and I remember him telling me: 'There's just something different about those guys. They're freaks.' Well, he was right. With the release of Jobs's biography, we now know for sure why. Jobs was profoundly influenced by the Innovator's Dilemma - he saw the company he created almost die from it. When he returned to Apple, Jobs was determined to solve it. As a leading global manufacturer of crushing and milling equipment, we offer advanced, rational solutions for any size-reduction requirements, including quarry, aggregate, grinding production and complete stone crushing station. We also supply individual jaw crusher and Raymond mill as well as spare parts of them. And he did. That 'subtle difference' - of flipping the priorities away from profit and back to great products - took Apple from three months away from bankruptcy, to one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world.