Background for the Innovation:
California October 4, the stage was all set and audiences were very excited to hear about new technology developed by the Apple. New CEO of Apple started the event by saying “I love apple”. For him it was a moment of great pride when he unveiled the new iphone. If we look at the past trends, we notice that Apple is far ahead from its competitors in launching new and innovative technology. Apple launched sequence of iphone at very short intervals. Have we ever thought that what are the factors that driving Apple to launch new innovations so quickly? There are some factors that drive the innovation process for Apple.
Competition – Companies are witnessing a drastic increase in number of competitors in the market for past few years. Companies are offering products at very low prices. This trend is posing a serious challenge in front of big players. If company does not want to get involve in price war it is better to provide high quality and latest technology to customers. Innovation is one way by which Apple gets an upper edge over its competitors.
Technology advancement – All the companies operating in technology field have their own Research and Development department which continuously works on inventing new technologies. Apple being a top performer in the industry invest huge sum in Research and development which results in bringing innovations very fast. Technology advancement helps Apple in differentiating their products from others.
Demanding Customer – customer is very knowledgably and demanding today and does not get satisfied easily. Today’s customer is willing to pay any price for advance technology but the demand to get more is always on. For him phone is not just a medium of conversation; it’s a lot more than that. This changed attitude of customer drive companies to bring advance technology.
A shift from fulfilling the needs to generating the needs – the day is gone when managers used to talk about fulfilling the needs of customer. In present competitive scenario it’s about generating the needs. Companies need to create demand for their products. The same thing applies to technology field because customer is not aware what could be next so you have to make customer aware about your product and its benefits.
First Mover advantages – when you are launching unique product in market you get advantage of first mover. During the time when competitors will copy your product; you will develop a strong bonding with the customers and awareness among the people about your product will also be very high.
Inspiration and Team behind Innovation:
Apple believes in continuous innovation. Apple simply focuses on its own desires because design team at apple thinks that what they like will be liked by others too. The team at Apple worked on the system that is developed by senior management of the company. Design team at Apple consist: John Gurber as head, Michael Lopp’s as senior engineering manager and very small team of around 20 designers. Gurber along with his team decide upon the future technology and innovation that need to be developed. They developed the prototype and finalized the all specifications in several rounds of meeting with the team members.
Innovation:
Siri – it is an intelligent assistant that help people in performing their tasks on voice request. Siri understands your requirements and performs the tasks allocated to siri in verbal form. You need not to write when you require help; you just need to speak to make it work. Siri helps in setting reminder, calculating, mailing, messaging, organizing meetings, browsing net, search for any specific information on the net etc.
iCloud – it is an advance service which help you in transferring Pictures, data and information to multiple devices automatically. You also need not to connect the devices with your iphone by wire. All the pictures and information taken by iphone get stored in icloud which further transfers to other devices. If information gets updated in one device icloud automatically updates the same in other devices.
Success of IPhone 4S:
The new Iphone 4S introduced by Apple is having both above mentioned features. It’s a great looking Iphone that is fully loaded with all advance features like: Retina display, Pixel-perfect, i-sight camera, wide screen, A5 chip, 1080p high definition recording, Siri and iCloud. The iphone 4S was well appreciated by customers. The iphone sales went up like 4 million in 3 days. The sales of Apple iPhone 4S has beaten all the records. The sale is clear demonstration of companies growing strengths and widening customer base. The iphone is big hit in the market. This success sent a clear message across that the innovation launched by Apple was accepted by mass market.
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