Apple - Understand the Dynamics of the Network Effect

Passion behind the brand ‘Apple’:

Apple as a brand, generated its passion along with its identity exclusively from Steve Jobs. His personal passion and dedication is what has driven Apple and it’s products to become so committed to their consumers. It has previously been stated that he had ‘an intensity most anyone could recognise’. His secret – Steve Jobs could take other people’s creativity, creations and their passion and add it to his own. Alongside this mastermind creator, worked Tim Cook (CEO of Apple). Together they generated and maintained a brand and an image that became recognisable worldwide, a brand that came with a high reputation and one that would go on to become one of the most universally competitive companies.

4 Themes – ‘The 4 P’s’:

Patience – Patience is needed to help get the product right, to take a creation and turn it into a product that people not only want, but also willing to buy takes times. Innovation takes time and is definitely not something that should be rushed. ‘Palm-to-forehead innovation requires a healthy dose of patience. The original iPhone took more than two years of effort inside Apple before it was revealed to the world. If you're going to change the world by getting rid of tactile keyboards by turning smartphones into slabs of touchscreen glass, you need patience to get that right. Apple has succeeded through patience by adopting this motto: ‘Get it right the first time, not get it out first’. 

Persistence – Apple’s persistence is simple. Steve Jobs never gave up. People disagreed with his designed and they misjudged his ideas, they put him down by saying that it would never ‘catch on’ or that people wouldn’t buy it because it was so new and so different. Yet 40 years later it is safe to say – Steve Jobs did well to ignore these comments and preconceptions. Persistence is also relevant when mentioning the pure amount of effort and time that took to perfect each new product Apple chose to launch.

Pressure - Meanwhile, passion is cool and patience is good, but neither can produce innovative products again and again. Creative people need pressure to get things done - pressure to pry their hands from their creation and let it loose in the world. When? When it's perfect enough. However there's more to pressure, too -- outside market pressure. Wait too long to deliver a new product, and the market need will evaporate or evolve. Lightning might strike somewhere else, and Apple's loyal consumers might turn to the new light. With the evolution of products being released by competitors, some companies might feel defeated or put off by this, but Apple will thrive with this added pressure.

Precision – Each product has a design, a design that has been thought about for years and has been put together by a team of extremely talented experts. Each product has a method of release behind it, a method that has been strategically planned and put in place and each product has been executed to the highest level of perfection. These are all perfect examples of precision; these are the building blocks to Apple’s triumph.

Influencers: 

Steve Jobs - Founder of Apple

Tim Cook - CEO of Apple

                      

                   Jonathan Ive - Chief Designer at Apple

Angela Ahrendts - Senior Vice President,
Retail and Online Stores 

                   Jeff Williams -                                          Craig Federighi -                                              Eddy Cue -               Chief Operating Officer                         SeniorVice President, Software Engineer    Senior Vice President,Software+Services