• Given that Apple continue to bring out new innovative products, it seems inevitable that they will continue to be successful. • Using Apple or other technology companies that you are aware of, examine whether having an innovative culture is a guarantee of success. (40 marks)
Apple is an American multinational corporation that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue after Samsung Electronics. Apple has a very innovative culture which has lead them to be one of the market leaders. This therefore means when they produce new products they can reach the market first and can protect their valuable ideas easily not allowing other companies to copy them. By apple being able to bring out updated products often makes it difficult for similar smaller companies to keep up which also leads to product substitution where new products may displace old products in a similar market and then essentially steal customers. This is all due to apple being one of the technology leaders enabling them to gain advantages. Apple is an example of a company where being innovative definitely has a large impact on the successfulness of their business. Another example of a successful technology based company with a good innovative culture is Facebook. Facebook was founded in 2004 by four enthusiastic youngsters who had an idea in college, one of which was Mark Zuckerburg. Facebook has grown to over 2,000 employees and 845 million users since it was launched in February 2004. One of Zuckerburgs theories to keep Facebook as a company running well is the highly dynamic and innovative culture he wants to have with in the business. To give an example of the culture portrayed to new employees, Zuckerburg said that when new recruits join the 600-strong team of engineers, he expects them to make a change to the live production website within their first week of employment. These constant changes are what keeps Facebook’s innovative culture going. A degree of improvement is made every time meaning the ideas are kept fresh and make it harder for competitors to keep up with their technology they use. By making it harder for competitors to keep up it means they will always have the new ideas in practice first and therefore customers are more likely to stick with Facebook because they know they won’t be able to get better technology or services anywhere else. Facebook made around $5024 million in 2012 which shows they are a very successful company. I believe that Facebook is a great example of where if they didn’t have an innovative culture, competition would take over and therefore they would be less successful due to losing customers. TiVo is a digital video recorder company developed and marketed by TiVo, inc. which was introduced in 1999. People expected that the TiVo as an easy time-shift machine would change the TV industry for ever but this didn't happen due to customers. With the TiVo customers needing to adopt their behaviour to the new device. They had to learn the function of the device and become more active changing their current habits which meant something different in the customers world, breaking their routines. A great business with a
