Would there be Apple without Jobs - Essay Example

?Would there be Apple without Jobs? Executive Summary Introduction Apple Inc. (earlier Apple Computer Inc was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. In 1980 the company was incorporated as a public company. Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, only to return a decade later. Ever since his return, Apple Inc. has grown by leaps and bounds. Steve Jobs’ death earlier this year has raised apprehensions about the future of Apple Inc. Research Problem With the absence of man who has been termed as the single biggest factor in the success of Apple Inc, questions arise whether Tim Cook, the new CEO, will be able to lead the company and retain its dominant position. The other big doubt that emerges is whether Apple Inc. will continue to roll out innovative products as it did during Steve Jobs’ regimen. Research Design The study has used exploratory research to identify the apprehensions raised due to Steve Jobs’ death. Descriptive research has also been used in the study to gauge the likelihood of customers purchasing the Apple brand again. Research Methodology Both primary and secondary research has been used in the study. For primary research a self administered questionnaire was got filled from 100 respondents inside Apple Stores. Findings of the Study Steve Jobs had departed from the Apple on earlier ocassions also. Steve Jobs had certain bad qualities and thus was not the perfect manager. Steve Jobs had resigned in August 2011 and Tim Cook, as a part of Apple’s succession plan, has been the CEO since then. Tim Cook had served as the CEO when Steve Jobs proceeded on medical leave in the beginning of this year. Tim Cook’s performance, per se, has been exceptional in the 13 year old stint with Apple Inc. Primary research suggests that 60 percent of the people will continue to buy Apple products in the future as well. The future success of the company is contingent on its ability to roll out innovative products and not on who is at the helm of affairs. Introduction Apple’s humble beginning can be traced back to 1976 when Steve Jobs along with well-known engineer Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer Inc in a two-car garage (By 1987). The Steve duo complemented each other very well. While Jobs was a consummate salesperson, Wozniak was a technical genius. Apple Computer started manufacturing and selling computers with the launch of Apple II personal computer in 1977. In 1980, the company issued shares to the general public and was incorporated as a public company (By 1987). A year later, in 1981, IBM released its PC and Apple had its first real competitor. In 1985, Steve Jobs left Apple due to his non-compatibility with the then CEO John Sculley. Apple continued to dominate the desktop publishing market for many years after Steve Jobs departure. Under the stewardship of Sculley, Apple grew to an $8 billion company. By 1992, the company started feeling the heat of the competition and its earnings as well as margins started falling. Under pressure to introduce another breakthrough product, Sculley invested a lot of resources on Newton, Apple’s Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Newton did not live up to the expectation and its sales did not really take off. Scully resigned in 1993 and Michael Spindler took charge as CEO. The latter too did not last long as Apple incurred significant quarterly losses in 1996. The board appointed Dr Gil Amelio to replace Splinder. The move did not work well. Eventually Apple decided to purchase NeXT Computer, the company that Steve Jobs had formed after his departure from Apple Computers. The purchase of NeXT marked the return of Steve Jobs at Apple Computers and the beginning of a new era. What happened after Job’s homecoming is what the world admires and looks at with awe. Today Apple has become a 32 billion dollar company primarily due to the efforts and expertise of its co-founder, Steve Jobs (Finkle 2010). The iconic Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011. He was 56 and one of the greatest innovator, technical genius and marketing wizard of his time (Streuli 2011). A compelling thought in the minds of scores of experts and industry commentators is that the chasm created at the top of Apple Inc. cannot be built, at least not easily and not immediately. Research Problem With Steve Job’s death, there is no doubt that the world has lost a great corporate leader. Steve Jobs has been credited with taking Apple Inc, the company that he co-founded, to the dizzy heights. His death has raised a million dollar question. ‘Will there be Apple without Steve Jobs?’ The answer to this question impacts, in varying degrees, all stakeholders of Apple Inc., be it employees, vendors, business partners, shareholders or even competitors. Everyone is hunting for this elusive answer. There is no doubt that Steve Jobs held a cult-like status with tech enthusiasts and that his biggest contribution has been that of innovation (Yukari 2011). However, a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question do not emerge merely out of the reputation of Jobs. In order to correctly answer the question ‘Will there be Apple without Steve Jobs?’ one needs to answer some other, equally important questions as mentioned below: Will the company continue to lead the charge with revolutionary new products? Will Tim Cook, the new CEO of the company assume a much bigger role, over and above the role that he has been performing in the company? What will happen to the numerous product plans that are at present in the ‘work-in-progress’ stage? Will Apple still have that obsessive attention to detail without Jobs running the show? The answers to these and many more such smaller questions will collectively answer the bigger question. Discussion on that ensues. The statement ‘Will there be Apple without Steve Jobs?’ is very broad and can assume numerous connotations as stated under: Apple Inc. would shut down and would cease to exist. Apple Inc. would no longer be a dominant player in the Smartphone market industry. The stock price of Apple Inc. will crash resulting in erosion of billions of dollars of shareholders wealth. The company will fail to produce innovative products Apple Inc. would no longer be admired by the consumers. Steve Jobs was indispensable and hence no future CEO can suitably replace him. A detailed analysis of all the possible connotations mentioned above requires lot more time than the researcher has and therefore the scope of this paper is limited to the following: Finding out the contributions made by Steve Jobs in making Apple Inc. a successful company. Gauging the appropriateness of Tim Cook, the successor of Steve Jobs, to the post of CEO at Apple Inc. Finding out if Apple Inc. has the necessary wherewithal to continue churning out innovative products. Hypothesis of the Study The present study aims to test the following hypothesis: H01: Apple Inc. will fail to roll out innovative products in the future as it did during Steve Job’s regimen. H02: Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple Inc. does not have the capability to enable Apple retain its dominant position. H03: There will be a change in the attitude of the consumers towards the brand because of which they will not buy Apple products. Research Design Exploratory research has been used in this paper to find out the contributions made by Steve Jobs in making Apple Inc. a successful company. The role and importance of Tim Cook have also been researched in this manner. The researcher has also employed a cross-sectional research design which is most commonly used in marketing research. Cross sectional research has been used to gauge the consumer attitude towards the brand and their likelihood of purchasing the Apple brand again. Research Methodology Research Method For the purpose of this study both primary and secondary research has be employed. The basic purpose of the secondary research was to analyze history of Apple Inc. since inception till date and find out the contributions made by Steve Jobs in the success of the company. Various news articles, research papers published in renowned journals, annual reports of Apple Inc have be studied to gather the aforesaid information. The scope of the primary research was restricted to gauge the attitude of the consumers towards the Apple brand. An attempt has been made to elicit a response from the consumer on whether Steve Jobs’ death would make any material impact on customer attitudes and their purchase behaviour towards the brand. H01 and H02 would be rejected or accepted through secondary research while H03 would be accepted or rejected with the help of primary research. Sampling Plan The sample size for the study was 100. The convenience sampling method was used and the endeavour was to gather information from a cross section of the society. Questionnaire Design The study was conducted with the help of a structured questionnaire. The number of questions in the questionnaire was restricted to10 to ensure that the survey does not consume too much time of the respondents and thus the ‘no response’ proportion is low. Field Work Plan The data was collected in Apple Stores through a self administered questionnaire. Limitations of the Study Give to time and other resource constraints, the study relies on a sample size of 100. Convenience sampling method has been used thus the collected data is not subject to statistical tests. Findings of the Secondary Research Apple Inc. without Steve Jobs: Earlier Episodes While Steve Jobs death may be recent, his absence from the company fro long periods is not a new phenomenon. In fact, his first departure from the company dates back to 1985 when Steve Jobs left Apple due to non-compatibility with the then CEO John Sculley and formed a company by the name of NeXT Computers. He returned to the company after a decade (Cook 1988). In the recent past Steve Jobs proceeded on medical leave on more than one occasion as he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. During his leave, the reigns of the company were in Tim Cooks hands. The difference between Steve Job’s absence then (during the medical leave) and now is that now he will never return. At that point of time, there was always a hope that Jobs would recover and resume office. In August this year, Steve Jobs had announced his retirement. However, by virtue of the fact that he was appointed as the Chairman by the board, he was involved directly or indirectly with the functioning of the organization. Two important points emerge from this discussion. One, Apple Inc. has functioned without its iconic CEO in the past as well. Two, Tim Cook, the present CEO has worked in the capacity of the chief executive on earlier occasions. He would have proved his mettle then, which is why he has succeeded Steve Jobs again. Contribution of Steve Jobs Arthur D. Levinson, Chairman of Genentech since 1999, speaking on behalf of Apple's Board on August 24, 2011, when Steve Jobs’ tendered his resignation from the post of Chief Executive Officer said, “Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company. Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.” (Apple 2011) Now there are two ways of taking out meaning from this statement. The optimistic approach would be to remind Apple as an organization that their iconic leader had hung up his boots quite a few months back and that the company continues to do well with Tim Cook at the helm of affairs. The pessimistic way of looking at things is that although Steve Jobs stepped down as the CEO of the company, he continued to be associated with Apple Inc. in his capacity as the chairman. This school of thought entails that one undermines the calibre and contribution of Tim Cook and passes on the credit again to Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs built Apple into a $350 billion juggernaut. Many would say that no words can ever describe the enormous contribution made by Steve. Jobs is hailed, and rightly so, as one of the greatest CEO in the corporate history of the United States. Steve Jobs was endowed with an unparalleled imaginative power that helped him create a series of seminal electronics products (Reinberg 2011). Jobs' attention to detail, confidence, and controlling personality were his strengths. At times his propensity to dictate decisions turned out to be his biggest flaws (Finkle 2010). Steve Jobs’ success is what everybody talks about. However, he too had his share of flops. During the initial years of Apple, Lisa, an ambitious but highly priced office-automation computer flopped. , failed miserably. Thereafter the Macintosh, which incorporated Lisa's novel features into a smaller, cheaper package, did not take off very well. Eventually it did though. When Steve left Apple in 1985, he formed his own company, NeXT, that marketed computer systems to schools and other educational institutions. NeXT sold its first computer in 1988 and its last computer in 1993 (Streuli 2011). In all, the company managed to sell merely 50, 000 computers in 8 years. Steve Jobs had some stumbles after his return to Apple. In his second stint at Apple, he introduced a cube-shaped Macintosh which failed to take off the shelves and was eventually scrapped in 2001 (Yukari 2011). Steve Jobs was famous, rather infamous, for his mercurial management style. He minced no words in calling employees or their ideas ‘dumb’ when he did not approve of them. Jobs worked in utmost secrecy. Nobody else knew what he was up to. On May 6, 1998, Apple rolled out the new iMac. Not even the employees of Apple had had of iMac till it was launched (Finkle 2010). In nutshell, Steve Jobs, like any other human being, had strengths and weaknesses. If he was the man responsible for many designing, manufacturing and launching successful products, he also had his shares of flops. Steve Jobs may have passed away. However, there is no exodus of other personnel from the company. Thus Apple Inc. gets to retain all its precious human resources that have, in their own ways, contributed in making the company a triumphant one. It is worthwhile to mention that Tim Cook has the support of Scott Forstall, the Senior Vice President of iOS software, as well as Jonathan Ive, the Senior Vice President of industrial design. The two men are also said to have a mutual admiration and taste for design that's driven the company to create some of its most iconic products. At the end of the say, Apple is a finely run company with numerous capable executives. A collective effort of the talented workforce that Apple has will ensure that the products which are currently in the ‘work-in-progress’ stage see the light of the day as well as many new innovative products are churned out from Apple factories. Thus H01: Apple Inc. will fail to roll out innovative products in the future as it did during Steve Job’s regimen, is rejected. Suitability of Tim Cook, the new CEO Tim Cook’s 13 year stint with Apple Inc. has been marked with outstanding performances. Apple’s board has reposed full faith in him and has stated that Tim’s elevation to the helm of affairs is nothing but the implementation of the succession plan. The fact of the matter is that Tim Cook had been working as the ‘fill-in’ CEO when Steve Jobs proceeded on medical leaves. A seasoned Apple veteran, Tim Cook has worked in the capacity of chief operating officer at Apple for seven years. Throughout his stint with Apple, he has always been present at all important meetings and functions. He had assumed the role of the full fledged chief executive in August when Steve Jobs resigned. Just that the public is taking note of him now and that too because of Steve’s demise. Cook has a plain-speaking, meticulous speaker who has always taken the stage to apprise the stakeholders of company's business, new ventures and overall health. He has played an important role in various strategic decisions including vendor selection and outsourcing decisions. It can thus safely be said that Tim Cook has the experience, insights and capability to carry out plans that Steve Jobs set in motion as well as successfully implement plans of his own. Thus the hypothesis H02: Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple Inc. does not have the capability to enable Apple retain its dominant position, is rejected. Findings of Primary Research The findings of the primary research establish that 60 percent of the respondents would buy Apple products in the future. Steve Jobs death will neither change their attitude towards the Apple brand nor their purchase decision. 15 percent of the respondents who stated that they will not buy the brand cited expensive products or failure of Apple to develop innovative products as the reason for not buying. A fourth or 25 percent of the people are still potential customers as their decision to buy Apple brand hinges on the product that the company will roll out in the future. Regarding the 15 percent who stated that they will refrain from buying an Apple product because of its high price, the decision rests with the company; whether they want to decrease the price or they do not want to target this set of people. Thus the hypothesis H03: There will be a change in the attitude of the consumers towards the brand because of which they will not buy Apple products, is rejected. Conclusion Steve Jobs demise will be sorely missed by Apple Inc. In him, Apple had a great leader and an innovator. He can safely be termed as the single biggest force that catapulted Apple to great success. At the same time, Steve Jobs, as an individual, had certain weaknesses. He too, went through a roller coaster ride in his personal and professional career. His association with certain flopped products prove that no individual is infallible. The findings of secondary research establish beyond doubt that Apple Inc. has, in the past, been successfully run in the absence of Steve Jobs. In fact the elevation of Tim Cook to the post of CEO has been termed as part of the succession plan. Tim Cook’s own experience and proven track record at Apple gives the researcher reasons to believe that the reigns of Apple Inc. are in safe hands. At the end of the day whether people will buy Apple products or not will depend on whether the company is able to launch innovative, new-to-the-world products as it did during Steve Jobs’ regimen. Who is the CEO of the company does not really matter to the final consumer so long as he gets value for money. Recommendations Apple should try and replace the single-minded thought process and influence of Steve Jobs with a more structured, team oriented approach aimed at developing new innovative products. With a democratic set up where all are employees are encouraged to come up with new products, Apple would literally ‘bubble’ with new innovative products, a sine qua non for the future growth of the company. References Apple Computer Accepts Resignation of Steven Jobs 1985, , United States, New York, N.Y. Apple Computer Continues to Study Cost-Cutting Steps 1985, , United States, New York, N.Y. Apple Computer Inc.: Steven Jobs Receives $1 Salary, Unchanged From Year Earlier 2006, , United States, New York, N.Y. Apple Inc 10K -- 20072007, , ProQuest Annual Reports, United States. Apple Reviews Possible Action Against Jobs 1985, , United States, New York, N.Y. 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