May we wish you the best of new years in 2008! And welcome to the first of a series of posts on business strategy – starting with something that may have been a stocking-filler!
Why mention the iPhone?
Apple has said that it’s on the way to selling 1 Billion iPhones in the next few months. Judging by the news and hype (and the ecstasy I saw on a friend’s face who bought one recently) that quest seems to me to be distinctly achievable.
What’s also staggering is that Apple has muscled its way into one of the world’s most brutally competitive markets, rattling the mobile phone industry’s most dominant players by producing the No. 1 ‘must-have mobile phone on the market’.
Ever since Apple unveiled the Macintosh computer in 1984, it has become the standard-bearer of how to market consumer products.
It has transformed into an increasingly commanding force in the new digital universe by combining innovation and design in ‘got-to-have-it’ gadgets. Firstly with the iPod (which changed how we listen to music) and latterly with the iPhone (which has re-invented how use a mobile phone), Apple has achieved technological dominance.
For this reason Apple has shown us what a superior strategy based on a unique strategic position is all about.
The Secret?
What Apple shows us – and other businesses like it – is that strategy is as much about insight and vision as it is about being simultaneously in tune with customers and two steps ahead of competition.
Think about it for a moment. How many businesses do you know who have created and occupied a unique strategic position? And how many of them do you know who have actually gone on to find another one – and another – consistently offering their customers even more value?
A handful probably.
Yet such superior, and successful, strategies share the same underlying principles. Thus the principles behind Apple’s successful iPhone strategy are essentially the same as those that took Marks and Spencer to market leadership 100 years ago!!
What are these principles? Well that’s for next time. See you then.
Best wishes
