For this post and for my final
paper, I want to explore the effects of a company’s emphasis on design in its
products and how that dictates things like organizational structure, values, success
of its products, relationship to customers, and customer perception of the
brand.
I was very lucky to land an
internship at Apple for this coming summer and I have therefore been a student
of their business for several weeks. As I studied the way they did business, it
prompted some questions around their overarching emphasis on product design. It’s
no secret that Apple’s design philosophy steers the entire company, but what
does that really mean for their organization? What are the strategic
implications? Does this yield any long term competitive advantages? What are the
effects on competitors? How has it shaped customer experiences with their
products and what does that do to their brand?
I think
that this topic goes deeper than just make
pretty products – make money. As Apple’s history shows, bold design doesn’t
always pan out (LISA, Newton, etc.), but when it does, it can quite literally
change the world (iPod, iPhone). Now, with their monstrous success, investors
and consumers, like drug addicts, are looking for even bigger and bigger
thrills to keep them satisfied. Apple just had one of the most profitable
quarters in the history of business, but their stock has fallen hundreds of
dollars. Is this the dark side of design fueled success? If you have a track
record of blowing minds, then you miss a step, what does this do to your
customer base? I want to explore the relationship between surprise-and-delight firms and their customers.
As the
first section of this paper, I’ll do a deep dive into Apple’s history of
design. I’ll look at their inspirations and philosophy, and then examine their
successes and failures. My investigation will cover the two most influential
design influencers in the company; Steve Jobs and Johnny Ive, as well as the
corporate structure they’ve created. I’ll dig into Apple’s relationship to
their customers and how they anticipate needs in the market that might not
necessarily exist yet. I also want to examine the relationship, including all the ups and downs, that loyal Apple customers experience with such a publicized yet secretive firm.
While I
plan to focus on Apple as a broad test case, I will also compare and contrast
several examples of design-driven companies and their successes and failures. I
would like to cover several firms; talking about their strategy, relationship to
their consumers, and cases of how bold and unique design either greatly helped
or hurt their companies. Examples of companies and products in which I am
interested are as follows:
· BMW: German luxury and sports car manufacturer.
BMW’s mission is to build “the ultimate driving machine” and has been very
successful at it for the last 30 years. They have stuck to a basic formula of
performance and refinement that has built their reputation as one of the world’s
premier automotive marques.
o
Test Case: 7-series designed by Chris Bangle –
BMW’s premier sedan was drastically redesigned and the company was criticized
for abandoning their traditional design language.
Questions to discuss:
Questions to discuss:
§
What are the implications, good or bad, of
changing iconic designs?
§
How does a consumer who has specific images
associated with a brand react to new designs?
§
How are design and identity tied together in a
consumer’s mind?
o
Parallel to Apple: iMac G4 (pivoting flat-screen)
·
Ducati: Italian high performance motorcycle
manufacturer. Ducati is famous for some of the most extreme motorcycles on the
road. They have a reputation for breaking the rules of motorcycle design with
each new model and are considered one of the most innovative bike builders in the
world.
o
Test Case: Ducati Multistrada – Ducati was in a
tight financial position and needed a new kind of motorcycle that could appeal
to a broad audience and boost sales. They set out to redefine the role and
assumed constraints of a motorcycle with their newest model, combining aspects
of other kinds of bikes in an all-in-one package. They developed completely new
technologies and components to make one of the most advanced bikes on the road.
Questions to discuss:
Questions to discuss:
§
What risks are associated with
category-redefining products?
§
How can a firm create demand with new design?
o
Parallel to Apple: iPad
· IBM/Lenovo: IBM’s hardware division (now run by
Lenovo) was famous for making high quality business-oriented PC laptops. Some
of their laptop designs have persisted for 20 years.
o
Test Case: ThinkPad laptop: Launched in 1992,
the original, basic ThinkPad design persists to this day in Lenovo’s latest
laptops. A 20+ year lifespan in something as fast-paced as the laptop market is
nearly unheard of.
Questions to discuss:
Questions to discuss:
§
What elements of the ThinkPad’s design have
enabled its longevity?
§
How can fast-paced markets be transcended by
great design?
o
Parallel to Apple: PowerBook G4 through current
MacBook Pro
·
Samsung: Once known as one of the largest
companies you’ve never heard of, Samsung has surged into consumer’s lives in
the last 5 years. Their bold new phone and laptop designs are pointed squarely
at Apple.
o
Test Case: Samsung Series 9 laptop. This new ultrabook
launched by Samsung concurrently with Apple’s MacBook Pro is aimed at the
market between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. Its design has sparked lots
of debate and it has been called the most beautiful laptop available on the market
– a title held by the MacBook Air for years. Now that Apple is undoubtedly
successful in the laptop space, is this Samsung’s turn to pull a “1984”?
Questions to discuss:
Questions to discuss:
§
How can Apple stay on top as the competition
heats up?
§
What strategies might be effective for Samsung
as it competes with Apple?
§
How does the launch of competing well designed
products impact a customer’s perceptions of Apple?
Within my paper, I plan to discuss
all of these products and companies in a fair amount of detail, all while
focusing on the core design elements that made them successful or memorable. Then
I plan to compare and contrast to what Apple did or is doing with their
products and how it has impacted their customers. From this, I hope to gain an
understanding of how design driven companies get to the top and stay there.
For sources, I plan to use plenty
of news articles, journals, financials, and analyst reports. Some of my
possible sources are as follows:
4.
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. Kindle Edition. Simon and Schuster Publishers, 2011.
6.
Mega
Factories – Ducati. National Geographic Channel. Documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDJ7mphGrAU
