Can a business leader hell bent on only creating ground-breaking leaps in technology change to adopt a strategy of small advancements on their existing products?
Hell yes, and probably the most high-profile person to prove this point is Steve Jobs.
Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985 after the failure of his giant leap project the ‘Macintosh’. Jobs only had time for employees directly involved with his projects, calling them ‘artists’, and referring to the others working to advance Apple’s earlier products as ‘bozos’.
A similar thing happened when Jobs bought NeXT and built a supercomputer called the ‘NeXT Cube’, saying at the launch “I think together we’re going to experience one of those times that occurs only once or twice a decade in computing”.
Jobs had designed the NeXT factory for billions of dollars in sales, but over the course of the following year only sold 400 units, leaving NeXT teetered with bankruptcy until Jobs returned to Apple and convinced the board to buy them.
It was before Jobs returned to Apple, where he learned you can operate two growth strategies simultaneously. Small advances in existing products and ground-breaking leaps in technology.
In 1986 Jobs bought the computer graphics division off Lucasfilm and renamed it Pixar Inc.
Pixar had developed their own supercomputer which they used to render animation films for the likes of Disney, and Jobs wanted to commercialise the technology and sell it to businesses.
Much like happened at NeXT it was a flop and Jobs spent much of the following decade keeping bankruptcy at bay by using his own money to keep Pixar afloat.
It wasn’t until Jobs brought in Lawrence Levy things began to change. Levy worked with the existing Pixar team and found they had a fantastic existing product ‘digital animated film making’.
The rest is history and Jobs learnt you can build on existing products to become successful, and that together with ground-breaking leaps in technology you can create a fantastic business.
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he put what he’d learned into place and combined the disparate functional departments of the business units into one functioning organisation.
And as well as launching ground-breaking leaps in technology with the iPhone and iPad, Jobs also focused the organisation to make small technological advances on these already great products.
This strategy led to a continuous conveyor belt of new products, which has established Apple as the world’s biggest technology brand.
What’s the learning?
Why not make small advancements to your existing products to create a new market?
It doesn’t have to be physical changes, it could be moving to a new payment model, like we’ve done for print & scan technology and laptops bundled with 365.
There’s no up-front fees, hidden charges, or long contracts. It’s just a fixed and affordable rolling monthly fee and everything’s included, with no strings attached.
