How Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma 424
hype7 writes "With yesterday's release of the Steve Jobs biography, a raft of interesting information has come to light — including Jobs' favorite books. There's one book there listed as 'profoundly moving' to Jobs — The Innovator's Dilemma by innovation professor Clayton Christensen. The book explains how in the pursuit of profit, good managers leave their companies open to disruption. There's an interesting article over at the Harvard Business Review that explains how disruption works, and how Jobs managed to solve the dilemma by focusing Apple on products rather than profit."
Apple solved the problem by moving to design (Score:5, Informative)
Apple managed to turn profits by outsourceing the actual production so they could focus on design.
Re:Apple solved the problem by moving to design (Score:2, Informative)
Made in China. Designed by Apple in California.
Re:Copy it (Score:3, Informative)
And if someone does the same to you in reverse, tie em up in the courts for so long that their product is obsolete before it reaches the hands of consumers.
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption (Score:5, Informative)
Part of a 101 Business class, that is. You know, that class that all the football players ace.
Growing a business, expanding market share, increasing sales revenues in a competitive market place all require taking risks, otherwise known as 'disruption'. Good managers know how to stay focused on the risk, not avoid it. Meanwhile, they minimize unneeded risks, or issues that divert the organization's attention from their primary goal. There is a very good correlation between risk and ROI. No risk means your investors had better be willing to live with T-bill like returns.
You want no disruption? Go into a government bureaucracy or get a job in a large corporation away from the principle line of business*.
* The problem here is that its easy for companies to outsource these tasks. So in the final analysis, you are still exposed to risk. That which involves turning your job over to leaner, more competitive service providers.
Re:How long... (Score:0, Informative)
They sucked his dick when he was alive. Now... they still suck his dick... only more.
Since death of this asshole, all we have been reading is how great Steve Jobs has been and how pathetic and evil Google is. Apple PR is now in full force on /.
*pukes*
Re:MBAs Prevent Disruption (Score:5, Informative)
You know, as a devout capitalist, I've always believed that customers service comes first.
A capitalist of the Adam Smith variety would say that profit comes first, and that good customer service and mutual benefit is a consequence of pursuing profit.
The fact that this doesn't work under a lot of different contexts, particularly the ones that Harvard MBAs get themselves learned in, is the guts of the story.
Re:How long... (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot is ad-driven and Apple brings a lot fo comments, both good and bad.
Think about that next time you whine about too many Apple stories floating around.
It's a common explanation. But there's a more straightforward one. AFAIKS getting story on slashdot is a 3 step process. A story is submitted. People vote for it or against it on firehose. An editor picks it,theoretically with some regard to how it was voted on firehose.
The number of Apple stories on Slashdot may simply relate to how many are submitted and how they are voted on in the firehose. It doesn't require that were being trolled for comment quantity by the editors.
Either explanation could be true. As could the even more straightforward explanation that the number of Apple articles isn't excessive at all. They just aren't to some people's taste.
Re:Jobs must have went (Score:5, Informative)
Laying off thousands of people, cutting hundreds of product lines to focus on three main products which are beginning to stagnate is hardly 'innovative'. It's hardly a good idea either.
Under Jobs, Apple went from nearly bankrupt to the biggest, most successful company in the world in just 14 years. Congratulations - by claiming that it was all a bad idea, you've just made what must be the stupidest post of the day. And I'm including all the Frist psots! in that.
Re:Ridiculous fanboyism (Score:2, Informative)
I like how he still thought he was an innovator, when he admitted in his own book that another guy came up with the idea for products like the iPhone. That same guy received an award for it. That guy still works for Apple.
Steve Jobs was just the business man who could sell it. This has not only been blatantly obvious from the beginning, but now his own words back it up. So why are we still describing him as an innovator and visionary?
I can however credit him for being a good business man. And that's how he should be remembered. You know, the honest way.
There are a million ideas and engineers in every big tech company. Which CEO has the guts to back them? That's why Jobs is a visionary, because he could see the desire of consumers for these devices ages before anyone else did.
And I don't understand this Jobs' bashing of saying he was a corporate for-profit drone. NO HE WAS NOT. I hate Apple and its walled garden with the now ironical 1984 ad, but Jobs was one of those precious few, who wanted to be successful making things consumers would use. The corporate who-is-who is now littered with executives who want to be successful for the sake of success. Jobs did this for an almost childish tendency of doing something he loves. This must be a source of inspiration to everyone in the world, especially those here in Slashdot.
I ridicule fanboys' selective blindness, but the inability of a group of smart people here in /. to rise above their prejudices is not just silly, but somewhat embarassing.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
They're suing to protect their product, because companies like Samsung are clearly ripping them off [redmondpie.com], and it's obvious to anyone who isn't a raving Apple hater.
Hell, Samsung sells a knock-off MacBook Pro [macenstein.com] running Windows that has a mock Apple logo in the center of the screen to futher intentionally confuse consumers. They're even outright stealing [cnet.com] Apple icons and using them in their store backdrops.
For some reason, Slashdot has completely ignored all these obvious instances of blatant copying and instead obsessed over the fact that Apple is "abusing the patent system," because patent system articles get a ton of page hits around here. But the fact is that Apple really is getting ripped off and is suing to protect its design work.