1) News article : http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/iphone-5s-and-iphone-5c-reaction-and-first-impressions-8808622.html
Apple has always known to be an innovator (or at best when it just misses the innovator train- an analyser) in the technology space. Focussing on premium products with enhanced user experience has allowed it to ward off stiff competition from Asian manufacturers. This time round they seem to have gone for a two-way market stretch. Initial reactions were mixed and only sales will tell if they achieved their goal.
With the iPhone 5S Apple has won the innovation badge for this round of the sparring with Samsung which had really taken the fight to its US competitor with the S2,S3,S4 and Galaxy series. The new fingerprint technology and the 64 bit processor have reassured the public that innovation did not die with the death of its founder. Full points for being a prospector(high Customer Centric innovation)
The 5C seems to be targeted to the Chinese market. With plastic bodies, a range of colours and a comparitively cheaper pricing, I believe Apple is testing the waters to take the fight to Samsung's own backyard of competing on cost. They seem to want to position themselves as the Analyser in the Asian market combining trademark innovation focus with a new found vigor towards cost-centric measures.
It will be interesting to see if this strategy works out.
2) Bounded rationality : A thought experiment suggests that complete rationality would in fact lead to death, since the individual would not even be able to get up from his/her bed without first considering the entire infinity of possibilities. Therefore, rationality does not seem to be the natural state of the human mind. This goes very well with the way laws are framed in our country(as a conversation with the "ordinary and reasonable person"). Natural laws also seem to suggest that entropy is preferred over order and hence it would not be erroneous to assume that tackling such entropy requires a fair degree of heuristically determined behaviour. If this is true for an individual, it must be so for an organisation as well.
3) If believing in leadership affecting the culture of a firm is difficult, one need not look very far from the tech giants with leaders well known for their quirky habits which later formed the basis of the organisations they founded or helped shape. First to come to mind of course, is Google with its "Don't be evil" Manifesto.Based on an innate apprehension that sales would kill the culture of pure technology for technology's sake, it is perhaps this motto which consistently keeps Google high on the list of most admired brands.
Then of course there is Zuckerberg's "Code wins arguments" . It tells you facebook has passionate coders, end of story. Rumor has it that Hackathons- a favourite of Zuckerberg- are the way most of the stuff at Facebook is invented.
These companies today stand for the values that their leaders stand for. Their employees are passionate technologists before all else. This is keeping in line with their founders' visions. Their economic success is just incidental to this value fit.
Contrast - Microsoft: Steve Ballmer is an exceptional salesman. Under him Microsoft launched XBox, acquired Nokia, brought out Windows 8 and completely revamped itself. However since he has taken over the share price has remain well below the $50 mark when he took over. (Partly due to changes in dividend policy). This is because it made mistakes- Vista, Zune, completely misreading the mobile market until it was forced to make an acquisition. It took ore than 10 years for them to find a balance under his leadership.
Apple- same story , different names. Headed by a visionary techie founder soon after his death iOS6 maps happened. Even the recent iPhone 5C has not been met with the same thunderous applause that Apple had grown used to in the past decade.
All of this points to the notion that the continuation of the original story a company stood for is extremely important in its future. Tech companies which have their founding fathers at their head are thriving. But one must wonder- how do they ensure that posterity does not dilute that vision?
Articles: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323665504579030842346520218.html
http://theweek.com/article/index/246045/tk-the-story-behind-5-great-business-mantras
4) Here is an interesting read on a large scale re-branding exercise carried out by Argos. Over 96% of UK's population lives ten mins away from an Argos store is a household name in the UK. The company changed its internal culture in 2003 responding to employee needs. Then in 2010 it embarked on an ambitious marketing mix and re-branding strategy. This seems to have worked. Does this show that any re-branding or external facing change must also be predated by an internal change wherever necessary? The People Expess case study had the company jump into external growth strategy without resolving their internal problems. Argos has handled it differently and the results are starkly different.
Articles:
http://communicatemagazine.co.uk/archive/99-april-2010/1394-brandrebrand-argos
http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/argos/re-focussing-a-companys-culture-and-marketing-mix/changing-the-culture-at-argos.html#axzz2iikdzRdZ
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24634730
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHuOfdLabCw
5) One little known site making waves on the internet by acting as the photo sharer of choice for the internet's billboard Reddit is imgur.com. Started by Allan Schaaf in 2009, this website has redefined image sharing and commenting on the internet.
The interesting phenomenon to be observed is the way one can see a community evolving on the internet from scratch just as it would in the real world. Overtime the site's members have defined artefacts such as the mascot "imguraffe", rituals such as "giving love for cake day posts". The site itself promotes some of the artefacts by giving medals and trophies based on popularity of submitted content- forming an informal heirarchy of sorts.There are some roles people perform on the site and not all these roles are socially acceptable in the context of the imgur society e.g downvote fairies. There are also invisible aspects of culture - set of underlying beliefs and attitudes (an almost morbid fascination for cats and video games, general abhorence for airing political/religious views, a strong support of democracy and free speech and supporting talent and charities when possible). It's amazing how people who have never met each other, do not track each other(this is not the facebook model of content sharing) come together to form a strong community closest to a meritocracy. Sure, there are geographical biases based on the timezones, but the site's content management system(which the developers often tweak based on inputs form the community) does a pretty good job of giving you options in terms of what you want to see.
Then there is the spillover. There are plenty of cases of people in meeting in the real world and interacting via real world gifts and letters post the online interaction which again makes it into the content submitted.
This clearly goes to show that culture when seen in an organisational perspective is something that humans gravitate towards. The amount of money raised, the number of missing people found and stories of people bringing each other back from the brink bear testimony to that fact. Culture binds communities and it is important for an organisation to view itself primarily as a community of its clients, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders within its sphere of influence.
If this is true in such a flat community as an online sharing site, the power of imposing a culture top down to move the organisation as a cohesive unit should never be underestimated.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/imgur.com
http://imgur.com/r/startledcats
imgur study: http://imgur.com/gallery/ah8hZkN
Apple has always known to be an innovator (or at best when it just misses the innovator train- an analyser) in the technology space. Focussing on premium products with enhanced user experience has allowed it to ward off stiff competition from Asian manufacturers. This time round they seem to have gone for a two-way market stretch. Initial reactions were mixed and only sales will tell if they achieved their goal.
With the iPhone 5S Apple has won the innovation badge for this round of the sparring with Samsung which had really taken the fight to its US competitor with the S2,S3,S4 and Galaxy series. The new fingerprint technology and the 64 bit processor have reassured the public that innovation did not die with the death of its founder. Full points for being a prospector(high Customer Centric innovation)
The 5C seems to be targeted to the Chinese market. With plastic bodies, a range of colours and a comparitively cheaper pricing, I believe Apple is testing the waters to take the fight to Samsung's own backyard of competing on cost. They seem to want to position themselves as the Analyser in the Asian market combining trademark innovation focus with a new found vigor towards cost-centric measures.
It will be interesting to see if this strategy works out.
2) Bounded rationality : A thought experiment suggests that complete rationality would in fact lead to death, since the individual would not even be able to get up from his/her bed without first considering the entire infinity of possibilities. Therefore, rationality does not seem to be the natural state of the human mind. This goes very well with the way laws are framed in our country(as a conversation with the "ordinary and reasonable person"). Natural laws also seem to suggest that entropy is preferred over order and hence it would not be erroneous to assume that tackling such entropy requires a fair degree of heuristically determined behaviour. If this is true for an individual, it must be so for an organisation as well.
3) If believing in leadership affecting the culture of a firm is difficult, one need not look very far from the tech giants with leaders well known for their quirky habits which later formed the basis of the organisations they founded or helped shape. First to come to mind of course, is Google with its "Don't be evil" Manifesto.Based on an innate apprehension that sales would kill the culture of pure technology for technology's sake, it is perhaps this motto which consistently keeps Google high on the list of most admired brands.
Then of course there is Zuckerberg's "Code wins arguments" . It tells you facebook has passionate coders, end of story. Rumor has it that Hackathons- a favourite of Zuckerberg- are the way most of the stuff at Facebook is invented.
These companies today stand for the values that their leaders stand for. Their employees are passionate technologists before all else. This is keeping in line with their founders' visions. Their economic success is just incidental to this value fit.
Contrast - Microsoft: Steve Ballmer is an exceptional salesman. Under him Microsoft launched XBox, acquired Nokia, brought out Windows 8 and completely revamped itself. However since he has taken over the share price has remain well below the $50 mark when he took over. (Partly due to changes in dividend policy). This is because it made mistakes- Vista, Zune, completely misreading the mobile market until it was forced to make an acquisition. It took ore than 10 years for them to find a balance under his leadership.
Apple- same story , different names. Headed by a visionary techie founder soon after his death iOS6 maps happened. Even the recent iPhone 5C has not been met with the same thunderous applause that Apple had grown used to in the past decade.
All of this points to the notion that the continuation of the original story a company stood for is extremely important in its future. Tech companies which have their founding fathers at their head are thriving. But one must wonder- how do they ensure that posterity does not dilute that vision?
Articles: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323665504579030842346520218.html
http://theweek.com/article/index/246045/tk-the-story-behind-5-great-business-mantras
4) Here is an interesting read on a large scale re-branding exercise carried out by Argos. Over 96% of UK's population lives ten mins away from an Argos store is a household name in the UK. The company changed its internal culture in 2003 responding to employee needs. Then in 2010 it embarked on an ambitious marketing mix and re-branding strategy. This seems to have worked. Does this show that any re-branding or external facing change must also be predated by an internal change wherever necessary? The People Expess case study had the company jump into external growth strategy without resolving their internal problems. Argos has handled it differently and the results are starkly different.
Articles:
http://communicatemagazine.co.uk/archive/99-april-2010/1394-brandrebrand-argos
http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/argos/re-focussing-a-companys-culture-and-marketing-mix/changing-the-culture-at-argos.html#axzz2iikdzRdZ
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24634730
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHuOfdLabCw
5) One little known site making waves on the internet by acting as the photo sharer of choice for the internet's billboard Reddit is imgur.com. Started by Allan Schaaf in 2009, this website has redefined image sharing and commenting on the internet.
The interesting phenomenon to be observed is the way one can see a community evolving on the internet from scratch just as it would in the real world. Overtime the site's members have defined artefacts such as the mascot "imguraffe", rituals such as "giving love for cake day posts". The site itself promotes some of the artefacts by giving medals and trophies based on popularity of submitted content- forming an informal heirarchy of sorts.There are some roles people perform on the site and not all these roles are socially acceptable in the context of the imgur society e.g downvote fairies. There are also invisible aspects of culture - set of underlying beliefs and attitudes (an almost morbid fascination for cats and video games, general abhorence for airing political/religious views, a strong support of democracy and free speech and supporting talent and charities when possible). It's amazing how people who have never met each other, do not track each other(this is not the facebook model of content sharing) come together to form a strong community closest to a meritocracy. Sure, there are geographical biases based on the timezones, but the site's content management system(which the developers often tweak based on inputs form the community) does a pretty good job of giving you options in terms of what you want to see.
Then there is the spillover. There are plenty of cases of people in meeting in the real world and interacting via real world gifts and letters post the online interaction which again makes it into the content submitted.
This clearly goes to show that culture when seen in an organisational perspective is something that humans gravitate towards. The amount of money raised, the number of missing people found and stories of people bringing each other back from the brink bear testimony to that fact. Culture binds communities and it is important for an organisation to view itself primarily as a community of its clients, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders within its sphere of influence.
If this is true in such a flat community as an online sharing site, the power of imposing a culture top down to move the organisation as a cohesive unit should never be underestimated.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/imgur.com
http://imgur.com/r/startledcats
imgur study: http://imgur.com/gallery/ah8hZkN
