Apple’s iPod has taken the world by storm. Nearly ubiquitous, it has changed not only the way people listen to music, but it has transformed its parent company Apple into an entertainment giant. In order to understand how this change came about, we’ll take a look at Apple’s ongoing efforts to make iPod synonymous with hip. We’ll also discuss exactly what customers are buying when they buy an iPod, and we will take a deep look at several aspects of Apple’s marketing of this exciting new product, from the iPod itself, Apple’s strategic planning, possible research findings that supported their approach, segmentation strategies that may have been employed and why, as well as pricing strategy across these segments. Last we’ll discuss communications, promotion and advertising, as well as an interesting shift in retailing that the iPod has enabled. Throughout, we’ll tie back to the Apple brand to dig deep into Continue reading
Innovation Management
The Innovation Ambition Matrix
An interesting evolution of the Ansoff matrix, the Innovation Ambition Matrix, coined in an article from Harvard Business Review by two recognized consultants, Bansi Magji and Geoff Tuff, entitled ‘Managing Your Innovation Portfolio’. Innovation Ambition Matrix is a simple six-cell model with the vertical axis concerned with where an organisation is competing (ranging from serving existing markets/customers at the bottom, entering adjacent markets in the middle, and creating new markets at the top end of the axis) and the horizontal axis referring to type of products/assets used (using existing products, adding incremental products, and developing new products/assets). The axes of the matrix are labeled as follows: “How to Win.” This is designated for the novelty of the product that you are offering to customers. Are you using existing, adding incremental, or developing new products? “Where to Play.” This measures the novelty of your customers. Will the innovation serve an existing, Continue reading
Nurturing Innovation in Teams
Innovation in teams can be defined as the act of starting something new for the first time, something that has not yet been done by the team. The creation may rise from a study or experiment. Innovation could be termed as the brain child of creativity of the team members. Proper motivation is needed so as to be able to foster proper innovation in the team. The team must have a clear guideline and understanding of what innovation is and what it entails. Benefits of Innovation in Teams Nurturing innovation in a team also has great benefits on not only the team members but also to the organization as a whole. This includes: The organization benefits greatly by being the first organization to take a product or service to the market before any of their competitors. Innovation gives the organization an edge over its competition. By being the first organization Continue reading
Case Study: Samsung’s Innovation Strategy
The success of Samsung has been widely acknowledged in the last decade. Samsung, the world’s largest television producer and second largest mobile phone manufacturer, is also the largest firm of flash memory maker. Furthermore, Samsung was ranked by Fast Company Magazine to be third most innovative company in the consumer electronics. The company grew from a local industrial leader into a worldwide consumer electronics brand, with up to 261,000 employees, 14 public listed companies, 470 offices and facilities in 67 countries. Samsung was ranked as 11th world’s most innovative companies. It is one of the two Korean companies in the Top 20 companies. While Sony, the Japan’s biggest consumer electronics, was ranked as 10th, only one position above Samsung. This has brought questions among management gurus how this growing company could drive innovation to create success within a short time and remain innovative despite the difficulties of internationalization. In addition, Continue reading
Case Study of Apple: Competitive Advantage Through Innovation
Apple Inc. is an American consumer electronic company which designs, develops manufactures and supports the well-known hardware products such as Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Most of Apple’s products seem to be a trigger of revolution in electronic market and this reason contribute Apple as a market leader. The main strategy to run its business is not only creating new innovation product but also incremental improvement. The strength of Apple is “think different”. With innovative ideas and aesthetic designs, Apple has changed how people listen to music and communicate. One of the success products of Apple is iPhone which is a revolutionary device. It combined the feature of music device (iPod) and mobile phone technology with the key feature on this product that is “multi-touch” and “multi-tasking” on the graphic user interface. The phone supports a camera, a multimedia player, a blue tooth, web browsing and Continue reading
Radical Innovation vs Incremental Innovation
Innovation undoubtedly became the “engine” of the progress, competitive ability and economic growth. Innovation regards as a “life-and-death matter for a firm”. However, paradox is that still some difficulties remain in understanding what exactly the innovation is and how important it is in nowadays world. Despite the fact that there are many definitions of processes of innovation, generally all innovations contain three underlying elements: newness, improvement and the overcoming of uncertainty. Newness is probably one of the most important parts of innovation, although such newness could be understood as something novel to the form or industry as a whole. Improvement is related to the fact that firms need to find the superior quality to those products which currently exist in the market. Overcoming uncertainty means that such improvement is determined by the market and that market need have to be clarified. In addition, it is essential to remember that all Continue reading