Innovation Apple Inc. Apple Is a Classic

Innovation Apple Inc. Apple is a classic example for the modern business world of a company that bases a significant proportion of its strategy on innovation. Most all of its products are innovative by some measure while a few of their product offerings have been revolutionary. There are two events that have occurred recently that make an examination of Apple an especially interesting event.

The first is that the co-founder and the commonly known Apple visionary, Steve Jobs, has recently stepped down as the company's chief executive and shortly after he passed away (Sherr, 2011). Another headline that was recently reported on the major media channels recently is that Apple had passed up Exxon Mobile to become the world's most valuable company in regards to its total net worth (Market Data Staff, 2011). Apple's strategy of innovation is built into its product design. Apple doesn't manufacture the products it sells internally.

Instead the company relies on outsourced strategic partners for production. These third party vendors are primarily located in China and often a plagued with less than satisfactory working conditions which have been reported to employee child labor and also be subject to other human rights violations. Never the less, the negative publicity hasn't seemed to affect Apple too significantly given the evidence of their financial success. Most of Apple's breakthrough products were a result of a new technologies developed with a digital hub strategy.

This strategy recognizes that the computer can be the central component for a wide array of various products. If Apple is going to continue with this strategy then it will require a great deal of creativity. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all natural extensions of the digital hub strategy. However, it is difficult to identify any other extensions of this strategy. This doesn't necessarily mean that other options do not exist and therefore must be considered a possibility.

Apple has already capitalized on the major gadgets that are consistent with a digital hub strategy. They have music, videos, cell phones, and a tablet already covered. Therefore it is hard imagine what could come next for Apple. It may be the case that they must continue to develop the products that they already introduced without entering any new markets. Netflix Another example of innovation in the modern market is provided by Netflix. While Apple Inc.

provides a case study for product design innovation, Netflix serves as an example of innovation through distribution channels and business process redesign. There model was so innovative that it acted to bring down one of the major competitors in the industry which was Blockbuster video. Netflix utilized the mail for movie deliveries instead of traditional brick and mortar retail locations. Consumers no longer had to drive anywhere to get their movies nor did they have to worry about late fees.

With the Netflix model customers could hang on to movies for as long as they liked with a monthly members which is starkly different than the per use model employed by Blockbuster video. In another innovative move, Netflix now offers an online access to many movies and television shows that can be watched on various devices in addition to the subscription DVD rental service which is all included in the standard monthly fee.

Therefore Netflix customers browse all of the roughly sixty five thousand videos available and either watch them instantly or wait for them to arrive in the mail. There are multiple subscription choices which basically vary by the amount of DVDs the customer may have at one time. The customer maintains a list or cue of their most desired movies and they are mailed to the subscriber through the postal service through various distribution centers and generally arrive in about a day.

The movies are delivered with a pre-paid return envelope so that when the customer finishes with the movie they need only drop the movie in the mailbox to return the video. Once the movie is received at the Netflix distribution center, the next DVD on the queue is subsequently mailed out. Therefore this allows for customer to virtually watch as many movies per month as they want with the only limitation being the transportation time for the movies to shipped back and forth.

Netflix has attributed their success on a strategy they refer to as talent density (Lipschutz, 2011). The basic theme surrounding their interpretation of talent density.