Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products

Innovation is in Apple’s heart. For those of who that don’t know already, that “i” in every Apple’s product name stands for innovation. One of the biggest competitive advantage of Apple Inc. over its competitors has been their design. Apple’s Product Development Process may be one of the most successful design process ever implemented. Apple likes to keep secrets when it comes to product development. In Steve Jobs’ time at the company it was nearly impossible to find out about the internal workings of the business. Although, the growing interests of people in Apple’s new products has made it hard to keep secrets. Apple gives a lot of importance to their Designing process. Jony Ive, the British designer that is the Chief Design Officer (CDO) at Apple and his design team lead the company and they do not report to finance, manufacturing, etc. They are given free rein to set their own budgets and are given the ability to ignore manufacturing practicalities. At the heart of the design department, they have Industrial Design Studio, where only a select few Apple employees have access. The design team has their own reporting structures and report directly to the executive team. Apple’s Executive Team holds a regular Monday meeting to examine every single product that the company has in design phase at that point in time. One of the keys to Apple’s success is that they don’t work on hundreds of new products at once. Instead, resources are concentrated on a handful of projects that are expected to bear fruit rather than being diluted over many lesser projects.

Steve Jobs along with Apple's top executive in Design Studio

          Earlier this year, Apple came out with its iPhone 7. iPhone 7 is considered their one of the least innovative phone. But, still it had a good design and was able to generate enough sales. According to some reviewers, Apple seem to be too focused on Design and leaving out features included in phones. Many think that the next iPhone, their 10^th anniversary phone, would be one of the most advanced and the most innovative phone. Let’s hope for the best.