(2022-08-02) Chin Jobs's Second Act At Apple The Next Big Thing

Cedric Chin: Jobs's Second Act at Apple - The Next Big Thing. In an illuminating anecdote in the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, author and business professor Richard Rumelt describes the following story, shortly after Steve Jobs’s return to Apple.

What he did was both obvious and, at the same time, unexpected. He shrunk Apple to a scale and scope suitable to the reality of its being a niche producer in the highly competitive personal computer business. He cut Apple back to a core that could survive.

With a simpler product line manufactured in Asia, he cut inventory by more than 80 percent. A new Web store sold Apple’s products directly to consumers, cutting out distributors and dealers.

This kind of focused action is far from the norm in industry. Eighteen months earlier, I had been involved in a large-scale study, sponsored by Andersen Consulting, of strategies in the worldwide electronics industry.

These executives, by and large, had no trouble describing the strategy of the leader in their sectors.

But when I asked about their own companies’ strategies, there was a very different kind of response. Instead of pointing to the next window of opportunity, or even mentioning its possibility, I heard a lot of look-busy doorknob polishing.

I was interested in what Steve Jobs might say about the future of Apple. His survival strategy for Apple, for all its skill and drama, was not going to propel Apple into the future.

He did not attack my argument. He didn’t agree with it, either. He just smiled and said, “I am going to wait for the next big thing.”

The rest, as they say, was history. Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, iterated on it for the next five years (culminating in the iPods Nano and Video in 2005) followed by exploitation of the iPod platform for another 15 years.