Apple's Great receHedgehog ConceptApple chief operating officer Tim Cook tly sang the praises of the forthcoming
iPad,
outlined the company’s plans for more retail expansion, and gave an overview
of the company’s other products during a powerful and wide-ranging talk with
investors at the
Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference in
San Francisco on Tuesday.
Besides their huge market share gains, where they are now the biggest in the Mobile market ahead of Sony, Nokia, etc. Their market share in PC's has grown without stop, due to the Mac.
In
regard to the PC market Tim Cook said " I think people in general, think that enterprise is bigger than
consumer. But it's not true. In PCs, it's only 10%, which is sizable, but
consumers are over 50%. Our heart and soul and DNA is in consumer. It
just so happens there are consumers working in enterprises who want to
use these products." Notice the "one thing" or hedgehog concept emerging. Apple has always
focused on the user experience being simple, easy and reliable. Apple prefers a
consistent delivery of less, rather than an inconsistent delivery of more.
Their one thing is built around CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, as the driver of their
economic engine.
But what comes next takes the cake. This excerpt from Tim Cook's address to the shareholders is powerful and insightful.
"
We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have
any knowledge of.
We say no to good ideas every day.
We say no to good
ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in
number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose.
The table each of you are sitting at today, you could probably put
every product on it that Apple makes, yet Apple's revenue last year was
$40 billion." They say no to good ideas more than anyone else, because they have a guideline for doing so, their hedgehog concept.
He
goes on to indicate how this one thing has become the corporate culture
and is the key to their success." I think any other company that could
say that is an oil
company. That's not just saying yes to the right products, it's saying
no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as
the other ones. I think this is so ingrained in our company that this
hubris you talk about that happens to companies that are successful and
sole role in life is to get bigger, I can tell you the management team
at Apple would never let that happen. That's not what we're about.
Small list of things to focus on."
This is such a vivid illustration of the Hedgehog concept, as applied to Apple.
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