Innovation Process at Apple Inc.

This article discusses the innovation process at Apple Inc. and how it helps the company maintain its competitive advantage in the market. It explores the four core generating processes of innovation - search, select, implement, and capture - and provides examples of how Apple has applied these processes. The article also highlights the importance of innovation in the business and economic growth.

Running Head: Innovation
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Innovation
Apple Inc.
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“Innovation Process at Apple Inc.”
As stated by Tidd and Bessant in their book ‘Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological,
Market and Organizational Change’ about Innovation, it is driven by the ability of the people to
see connections and spot opportunities and successfully take advantage of them as well. Innovation
is something that helps an organization to attain its competitive advantage in the target market and
it helps a country to maintain its economic growth as well. With increasing level of competition, it
has become more important for the company to make use of innovation in the business to
progressively grow and succeed (Tidd, & Bessant, 2013). According to the CEO of the company
Apple, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower”.
Further, the process of innovation includes four core generating processes in it that are search,
select, implement and capture. Further, the paper is going to represent the application of innovation
and its management in the company Apple on the basis of this framework of innovation.
Innovation is a generic process implied in the organizations as an organization initially search for
opportunities present in the market, then they select the right type of innovation that will help
business to sustain its growth and achieve competitive advantage as well. Further, after selecting
the innovation, the business implement it in its process, lastly after implementing the innovation in
the business the management aims to capture it for the maximum time so as to sustain the
competitive advantage and maintain that position as well (Goffin, & Mitchell, 2016). Application
of this framework on the company Apple Inc. is discussed below:
 Searching: In the process of search the business need to initially scan the internal as well as
environment in order to find relevant signals and find out threats and opportunities for change
as well. Being a part of the information technology industry, it was important for Apple to look
for diverse environment conditions so as to attain an upper hand in the environment. So, the
company search for innovation in all geographical boundaries and industries to acquire
differential characteristics of that area in the company (Heracleous, & Papachroni, 2016). Like,
Apple tied up with the company Xerox as Xerox was having better IT services. By strategic
alignment of both the companies, Apple gained the GUI invented by Xerox PARC and
incorporated them in the Apple iOS products. Through the way, the company searched,
selected and implemented the right type of innovation in the business. This innovation further
helped them to grow and maintain an identified position in the market. Thus, it can be said that
Apple Inc. has a dignified research and development team that looks for available opportunities

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present in the market and select them for the future betterment of the company (Stanford,
2019).
 Selecting: In the process of selecting, the firm decides that on which signal they have to
respond depending upon the strategic view of how the company can best develop. The
selection process focuses on selecting the best technology that can help them to attain future
gains in the environment. The selection process answers the question “why” as it helps the
business to know that why they should select this type of innovation in the business
(Christensen, Raynor, & McDonald, 2015).
Relating it to the company Apple, it should be noted that the company had the option to make
the product available in diverse markets at low prices, instead the organization aimed to select
the high quality premium clients’ customers and offer them differentiated and unique products
in the market. This unique selling proposition of the company helped them to differentiate their
brand identity from most of the companies present in the industry. Selection is an important
phase of the business innovation as it defines that how the business will change its face using
the innovation from the environment. Thus, Apple selected the right type of innovation that
helped them to build a strong brand identity in the environment (Farey-Jones, 2016).
 Implementing: Implementation refers to the process of translating the potential to trigger the
ideas into something new and providing differential benefits to the company as well. The
implementation process requires diversified resources, qualitative employees and
knowledgeable management to make the event successful for the company. Right type of
innovation implemented wrongfully can also create problems for the business. In the company
Apple, the management was very particular about the innovation and what productivity they
want from the implementation of the innovation. Resulting to which the business hired
qualitative employees for the company who could understand the objective of the company and
provide them similar results as well. It is believed that the implementation process is most
difficult because difference in expectation and reality can cause various problems for the
company (Hossain, & Kauranen, 2016).
 Capturing: it is the last phase of the process of innovation. Capturing is reason because of
which the business has searched, selected and implemented innovation in the business. The
business wants to capture innovation in order to generate profits from the environment. Many
successfully implemented innovations also fail to deliver the right kind of value to the
company. It would be wrong to say that all the innovations implied by the company Apple

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were right at places and delivered adequate value to the company as well. As in some case, the
company was also unable to capture the right value from the environment like in case of Apple
HomePods. However, the management of the business is fast and intact enough to recover with
the losses. Even after low sale, the HomePod accounted 6% of the total US smart speaker
market which somehow retained the position of the company. Further, it should be noted that
the company has introduced many innovations in the market from which they have adequately
captured the competence as well like in the case of introducing iOS, iPad, Apple Watches etc.
(Kleinschmidt, Peters, & Leimeister, 2016).
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that the company Apple
is a highly efficient organization that effectively make use of innovation to deliver qualitative
products and services to its customers present in the market.

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References
Christensen, C. M., Raynor, M. E., & McDonald, R. (2015). What is disruptive
innovation. Harvard Business Review, 93(12), 44-53.
Farey-Jones, D., (2016). Apple's history in nine innovations. Retrieved from
<https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/apples-history-nine-innovations/1356079>
Goffin, K., & Mitchell, R. (2016). Innovation management: effective strategy and implementation.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Heracleous, L., & Papachroni, A. (2016). Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Apple Inc. SAGE
Publications Ltd.
Hossain, M., & Kauranen, I. (2016). Open innovation in SMEs: a systematic literature
review. Journal of Strategy and Management, 9(1), 58-73.
Kleinschmidt, S., Peters, C., & Leimeister, J. M. (2016). ICT-enabled service innovation in
human-centered service systems: a systematic literature review.
Stanford., (2019). The Xerox PARC Visit. Retrieved from <
https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/parc.html >
Tidd, J., & Bessant, J. R. (2013, July 10). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market
and Organizational Change, 5th Edition, chapters 5-12.