BIZ301 Case Study: Analyzing Apple Inc.'s Creativity and Innovation

This case study delves into Apple Inc.'s organizational creativity and innovation strategies, examining how the company has achieved market leadership through a focus on customer needs and a commitment to groundbreaking product design. The analysis explores key strategies such as beautiful product design, platform strategies, and effective execution. It examines Apple's innovation approach, including design thinking and technology push/market pull methods. The study also highlights the role of employees, particularly a diverse workforce, and the influence of Apple's innovative culture, shaped by the leadership of Steve Jobs. The report emphasizes how these elements contribute to the company's success, emphasizing the importance of simplified technology and a customer-centric approach. The case study concludes by summarizing Apple's customer-focused approach and its impact on the company's continued success in the competitive electronics industry.

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ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
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7/4/2019
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ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Innovation strategy of Apple Inc.....................................................................................................3
Beautiful products........................................................................................................................3
Platform strategy..........................................................................................................................3
Execution strategy.......................................................................................................................4
Apple innovation approach to target customer needs......................................................................4
Design thinking strategy..............................................................................................................4
Technology push approach and Market pull approach................................................................5
Apple employee’s role in innovation...............................................................................................5
Diverse workforce – integrator approach....................................................................................5
Role of apple organizational culture................................................................................................6
Innovative culture........................................................................................................................6
Impact of Steve jobs in innovative success.....................................................................................6
Complete revolution with simplified technology........................................................................6
Made technology beautiful..........................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 2
Introduction
Competition in every industry has introduced the need for innovation by the companies in the
global business. The report’s purpose is to analyses Apple Inc. organizational case referring to
creativity and innovative approach of the company and its impact over the company’s success
(Ahlin, 2014). Creativity and innovation includes introducing something new and novel in order
to attract and retain more customers, which have become a necessity in the electronics industry
in order to sustain in the competition. Apple is customer focus Company and has been working
to provide best quality products to the customers, which has not compromised the ease of use
that has been possible due to innovation in the organization, which would critically be analyzed
in the report further (apple, 2019).

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 3
Innovation strategy of Apple Inc
Apple is considered to be the first mover when it comes to the smartphone and premium
electronic products. In the age, when no company has been able to comes up with new
technology in phones and similar devices; Apple was the one introducing the world with
smartphones through technological innovation and has gained first mover advantage and built
trust among the customers which have resulted in extreme customer loyalty among the customers
(Biemans, 2018). Some of the key innovative strategies included
Beautiful products
The company has focused on product designing and product development in order to prove the
smart devices along with the latest technology through innovation and creativity. For instance,
the company has been able to provide continuous product development and innovation. The
manufacturing process and the use of material were the key focused aspects of the company
while trying new ideas and integrating with the ordinary design form to keep the product user
friendly (Bruns, 2013).
Platform strategy
The platform strategy of Apple included the expansion of the product portfolio that is the
upcoming model of the same product line. For example, the company initiated the iPhone range
initially and yet has introduced a various and upgraded version of apple I phone. This has come
up with the innovation in the next model while keeping the previous model design and designing
elements as standardized aspect. Moreover, the company has targeted the products that were

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 4
found to have the least minimum maintenance and repairing cost. This also reflects the product
quality along with creativity and innovation (Camison & Fores, 2016).
Execution strategy
Along with the product innovation and development, the company has also worked towards the
process innovation, as the combination of the innovation through people process and product
would work towards the success of the company. The company has excelled in execution that is
the companies has improved the execution process through the elimination of seventy percent
new products and has closed two major divisions and reduce the product line to only three
instead of fifteen (Fazlıoğlu, 2019). This increased the focus of the company over limited
product range while making that product perfect and higher potential for the company. Through
this strategy, the company has also introduced with website launch in order to sell the products
directly to the customers. However, this may negatively influence the differentiation strategy of
the company and may increase the risk due to limited product range (Du & Bstieler, 2016).
Apple innovation approach to target customer needs
Design thinking strategy
Designing thinking means providing most relevant to the customer problem, this reflects that the
company adopted the strategy to understand the customer needs and requirements and then
manufacture the products (Procter, 2014). The design thinking strategy of the company includes
 Creation of empathy for the Apple product while helping people

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 5
 Focus over the potential customer's desires and needs instead of focusing over the
company and business needs that have resulted in targeting the customer and making
customer loyal brand and products
 Simple designing and user friendly products to make the products used for the customer
simple as possible with elegance in styling and designing
Technology push approach and Market pull approach
The company has worked towards technological innovation that is creating technology push
products but Jobs believe that it is not essential that the product with the latest technology are
liked by the customer, thus it integrate market pull strategy along with pushing technology to the
industry.
Apple employee’s role in innovation
The employee of apple are the key success of the innovation strategy of the company as gaining
the new ideas from employees and executing the innovative ideas are the major element that
impacts the company success (Pyka, 2017).
Diverse workforce – integrator approach
One of the strategies that have affected innovation at apple organization is recruiting and posting
people from diverse culture considering their ability to accomplish that particular job and
suitability of people at a particular position to achieve effective innovation from designing to
execution (Gilson, Lim, & Gilson, 2015).

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 6
Role of apple organizational culture
Innovative culture
The innovative culture introduced by Steve jobs was responsible for the innovation through the
company and make apple one of the top innovative company. The innovative culture of apple
includes the integration of creativity and innovation, top notch, secrecy, and moderate
combativeness has pros and cons to the company. Through the organizational culture
appreciation, and exception regarding the top notch has been maintained in the company. The
new idea generation and coming up with new every time has promoted because of the
organizational culture of the company, this is responsible for new product development and
design (Gilson, Lim, & Gilson, 2015).
However, the culture also has brought up with the key challenges like the average degree of
combativeness, and increased secrecy in the environment, reduction in employee’s moral.
Moreover, it has also resulted in increased employee turnover (Du & Bstieler, 2016)
Impact of Steve jobs in innovative success
Complete revolution with simplified technology
Steve Jobs has brought revolution for Apple Inc. through innovation and has promoted the
innovative culture in the company to introduce people with new and simplified technology. For
example, the company introduces an iPad along with the iPhone, which was new products across
the globe that no competitor came up (appleinsider, 2019).

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 7
Made technology beautiful
Along with the technical innovation, the company updates the technology in the way that the
company was able to make the technology executed in simplified and user friendly to make the
products easy to use for the customer. Thus, it can be said that Steve Jobs has played a most
important role in changing the scenario of the industry and especially the transformation of
Apple towards the think different strategy (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2015).

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 8
Conclusion
From the discussion, it can be highlighted that Apple is customer focus and has been working to
provide the best quality products to the customers which not compromising the ease of use.
Innovation strategy of Apple Inc included Beautiful products, Platform strategy, and Execution
strategy. Apple innovation approach to target customer needs to be included Design thinking
strategy; this reflects that the company adopted the strategy to understand the customer needs
and requirements and then manufacture the products. Steve Jobs has brought a revolution for
Apple Inc. through innovation and has promoted the innovative culture in the company to
introduce people with new and simplified technology.

ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION 9
References
Ahlin, B. (2014). Entrepreneurs’ creativity and firm innovation: the moderating role of
entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Small Business Economics, 43(1), 101.
apple. (2019). au. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/au/
appleinsider. (2019). apple-ranks-among-best-in-class-brands-for-loyalty-in-new-marketing-
study. Retrieved from https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/26/apple-ranks-among-best-
in-class-brands-for-loyalty-in-new-marketing-study
Biemans, W. (2018). Managing innovation within networks. London: Routledge.
Bruns, P. (2013). Corporate Entrepreneurship: Innovation and Strategy in large organisations
(3rd ed.). london: Palgrave MacMillan.
Camison, C., & Fores, B. (2016). Does incremental and radical innovation performance depend
on different types of knowledge accumulation capabilities and organizational size?
Journal of Business Research, 831.
Du, S., & Bstieler, L. (2016). Sustainability, social media driven open innovation, and new
product development performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33, 55.
Fazlıoğlu, B. (2019). The E ect of Innovation on Productivity: Evidence from Turkishff
Manufacturing Firms. Industry and Innovation,, 26(4), 439-460.
Ferrell, O., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2015). Apple Inc.'s Ethical Success and Challenges. In
Business ethics (11 ed., pp. 551-565). Cengage.
Gilson, P., Lim, H., & Gilson, L. (2015). 11 Creativity in Teams: A Key Building Block for
Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Oxford handbook of creativity, innovation, and
entrepreneurship, 177.
Procter, T. (2014). Creative Problem Solving for Managers: Developing skills for decision
making and innovation (4th ed.). Abingdon: Routledge .
Pyka, A. (2017). Innovation, structural change and demand evolution: does demand saturate? .
Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 337.