The rise and fall of Apple ..

The rise and fall of Apple ..

How had Apple Inc survived all these years and what is ailing it now ?

The growth and fame of Apple is largely attributed to the legendary entrepreneur and designer duo, due to the undaunted efforts of Steve Jobs and the Industrial Designer-in-chief, Jonathan Ive who together brought in many revolutionary products for the IT world.

This article is trying to look at what were the specific characteristics of Apple Inc.and its founders that made the products world famous. The paper continues with the present leadership of Tim Cook and looks at what has gone wrong where and whether Tim Cook can ever revive the company from its old name and fame, even though the company stock is doing well on the stock market.

Apple's growth has been phenomenal over the years. It has set the product design for many an IT product to start with the desktop computer.  When the whole world was looking at stared computing and main frames and minis, Steve jobs comes with the first Apple Macintosh, the table top personal computer. He set the direction for the evolution of the IT revolution in the world.

The author was fortunate enough to work on the Apple Mac during his PG college days at the Govt College of Engineering, Goa which also had a NELCO Unix Mini computer during late 80s (and on an IBM Mainframe for the first time at the Govt College of Engineering Trivandrum, Kerala during the early 80s). During the days of 80s and 90s, only government engineering colleges existed and had public funds for these govt colleges.

Regarding Apple, what were the focused reasons that contributed to the success of Apple since the early 80s ?

First and foremost point regarding Apple, is the innovative work culture which focuses on New Product Development. Steve Jobs had a disciplined focused approach which nurtured innovation.

Leaders at Apple, Ive was the Chief Industrial Designer till 2019 ..

The design process used to start initially with 10 ideas which used to be filtered to three in the second stage and finally to one in the last stage.

In the process of accepting the last design, there used to be paired meetings between the product development group members who met on Tuesdays to come up with an innovative approach and used to test it and discuss the outcome of the tests by Thursday. ie. prototypes used to be tested very frequently and this testing process was quite intense.

It was followed by Pony meetings with senior managers once in two weeks so that the senior managers were also aware of the general direction the new product development and design process was taking.

The uniqueness of Apple Design and Manufacturing Operations can be summarised in the following points :

1. No market research

2. Small core design team of max 6 members

3. Apple does not outsource any aspect of the system, it owns the entire supply chain

4. instead of focusing on an entire stable or products in IT area, Apple used to focus exclusively only on certain key products

5. the design team had a maniacal focus on perfection

6. the focus of the design team was always on new product development

All through the design and product development process Apple's focus was on

1. new product development, not process or service

2. Sharp focus on the product being designed by attending to even the minutest detail of the product and material

3. have a thorough understanding of the customer and market and design products that will entice the people and product that never existed before

4. have the right group of people in the organisation and reward them well

At the age of 56 in 2011, we saw the untimely demise of Steve Jobs fighting a losing battle to cancer. Jobs resigned from Apple six weeks before his death, Tim Cook was appointed as his successor. Tim did not have the charisma or the intense focus that Steve Jobs had.

What ails Apple now ?

Just like Xerox and IBM declined after their initial spectacular growth and rise in the early sixties and seventies, Apple too had its ups and downs. Apple is already lagging behind its rivals in new product development.

• In the case of the curved phone. Samsung is clearly 2 years ahead of Apple in this field. Also in the case of bringing smartphones with interesting smart apps, Apple through it's Siri device is clearly lagging behind the industry leaders Amazon and Google in Artificial intelligence apps.
• Though Apple has a 25 % share of the wearable market, competitors like Huawei are catching up fast with growth almost 5 times as much as Apple.
• After the introduction of ipod, the itunes was a service offering which was not a major success across the world, with challengers like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Netflix etc.

If Apple is to survive in the new scenario of the modern world it has to introduce an entirely new product line which customers never ever thought existed before. This product will have to entice the customer like never before.

Without innovation, and the rate at which Google and Amazon are going behind Innovation, it really scares any Apple executive. Apple can only survive trying to understand the customer needs, wants and desires, ie. only through DESIGN THINKING.

Click here for a free case study doc on Apple prepared by the author for the benefit of the student and teaching community of the world..

George..

Class discussion on the Coffee supply chain ..

This morning at Alliance University, Bangalore, we had a great discussion about the coffee supply chain in the MBA sem 2, Supply Chain class. I took up this very useful, interesting and beneficial
case discussion as I had discussed this case with earlier batches and wanted the students to know how cash crops supply chain is different and important.

The class discussion, was on the challenges faced by Suresh, the GM of Super Coffee, the protagonist of the case, in his company. Coffee is grown in the temperate zones of the world between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn at altitudes of 500 m and above. It grows along with other cash crops like tea, cardamom, pepper etc.. (for a copy of the case mail me). Even though the costs for the Robusta (and Arabica) Coffee beans is around Rs 122 per kg ( a variability of -8% in costs since January of 2019), the ground coffee powder varies in costs ranging from Rs 120 for 200 grams to almost Rs 500 for 200 grams for the top end variety.

Finest coffee beans ..

One exciting thing about coffee is that the altitude where it is grown determines the taste, flavour and aroma of coffee to a large extent. 

Different Heights Produce Different Flavors
Elevation doesn’t just have a generic positive effect on a coffee’s quality. Allowing for variances from region to region and lot to lot, certain general flavors are associated with different elevations. Coffee grown:

• below 2,500 feet (762 meters) will be soft, mild, simple, and bland
• around 3,000 feet (914 meters) will be sweet and smooth
• around 4,000 feet (~1,200 meters) may have citrus, vanilla, chocolate, or nutty notes
• above 5,000 feet (~1,500 meters) might be spicy, floral, or fruity

                                                                                        - www.driftaway.coffee

The most exciting, tastiest and expensive variety of coffee, Kopi Luwaki, is got when the Indonesian palm civet cat eats the berries and from the excreta of the cat, the beans are picked up, roasted and ground. Only about 5000 pounds are produced in the world annually.

The discussion hovered around the different aspects regarding cultivation, plucking of the coffee berries, drying, grinding process and final sale.

A coffee plantation in South India..

Among the challenges faced by Suresh, the class was of the opinion that the following were critical

1. Climate change - it is the biggest challenge faced by coffee growers, causing maximum disruption to the process. The varying temperature and the uncertainty of rain and cold was affecting the quality and quantity of the output (yield).

2. Presence of pests and diseases - it is another aspect, which necessitated frequently chemical treatment of the coffee plants. This is usually done in tea plantations very frequently, lowering the taste and health benefits of tea, necessitating the birth of another stream of tea leaves called organic tea.

3. Absence of skilled  manpower - on the coffee plantations was listed as the second biggest challenge Suresh was facing. Due to the better educational facilities available in the south of the country where coffee plantations are more, the women employees prefer to be at home teaching and looking after kids than coming to the plantations for plucking the coffee berries.

4. Limited number of coffee tasters - is another problem in the industry as the available ones go for better options in big companies and the small estates are left with no quality check on the beans collected.

5. Price volatility - due to varying output the prices become very volatile in national and global markets.

6. Small average land holdings : Since coffee bean processing is not as technology intensive as tea leaf processing,  we see smaller land holdings with farmers. A close acquaintance of mine in Kottayam Kerala also has an area less than three acre with coffee trees. She plucks the berries, dries the beans and grinds for home use. Any extra is sold to the nearest provision store who pays her at market rates.

The climate change discussion took us to the recent rains and landslides in Kerala. The ext3ent of granite quarrying and the resultant environmental damage it creates was highlighted in the class well. Upon interest of the students the next class we are having a discussion on a writeup of mine on the Prof. Gadgil and Kasturi Rangan committee studying the Western Ghats preservation.

The aim of discussing the case was to create an awareness among the students of the importance of cash crops supply chain as against the food crops like rice, wheat etc. Since the coming years there will be great stress on availability of food and cash crops, an awareness of it is beneficial for students in the long run.

george..

Chandrayaan 2 risk assessment ..

As engineers  very much interested in technology and engineering applications and as a business school professors, we look passionately forward to the technological developments happening in the country and space has been an area that has fascinated all of us.

Please click here for an earlier detailed writing on the Chandrayaan2 mission ..

The unbeatable Indian combo, the nation can never forget them ..

When ISRO could successfully carry out the Martian Orbit Insertion (MOI) 220 million kms away in 2014, the lunar orbit insertion  (LOI) just 0.38 million kms away carried out on 20 August at 9.30 AM is not a tough task for ISRO ..

ISRO made all Indians real proud !! 👍👍

As the next milestone in the project, India is edging close to soft landing the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft on the lunar surface in the next fortnight and get a rover rove on the lunar surface then onwards. The vast opportunities to understand the evolution of the solar system and the possibility of searching for life on lunar surface are very gratifying in itself.

As a technology and risk enthusiast, I am looking at the risks associated with the project. In terms of major risks in this vast project management exercise, most important milestones in the Chandrayaan 2 project have been the following.

1. cryogenic ignition and burn completion,

2. lunar orbit insertion with angular correction

          3. lander Vikram separates from the Orbiter Chandrayaan 2

4. autonomous landing spot identification and soft landing of Vikram near lunar South Pole

5. 27 kg rover Pragyaan release onto lunar surface 4 hours after landing

6. surviving the first lunar night by first week of October promising longer life for the rover

Courtesy ISRO and BBC

From a layman perspective, it can be said that 33% of the tasks have been completed and the rest 67% is remaining. But from the technology intensity perspective, it can be said that with the successful cryogenic burn in the GSLV Mk III rocket and lunar orbit insertion, about 50% of the risk associated with the project is over. The rest 50% now rests at the separation, autonomous soft landing of the lander, the release of the rover and independent movement of the rover on lunar surface.

Task wise, only 33% of tasks are over, rest 67% are remaining ...

Hope we can find answers to these inquisitive questions.. 

• What if we are able to discover vast underground reserves of frozen ice of 4.53 billion years at lunar evolution ? 
• What story is it going to tell us of the evolution of the solar system in general ?
• Was the solar system of 4 billion years back same as it is now ?
• How did life evolve on earth and why not on moon ?  and many more  ..

George ..

Supply chain transparency..

This note brings to the fore another aspect of supply chains, transparency. The basic classification of supply chains are as being efficient or efficient and  functional or innovative. Supply chains are also classified as being responsive or not responsive, flexible or not flexible and in another classification as being agile or not. Flexibility is more concept based while agility is more action based. All of these classifications are not reflective of the contemporary pressing needs of the society relating to sustainability and lean manufacturing processes indicative of low resource needs.

courtesy Philips ..

What do we really understand by the term supply chain transparency ? Is it related to tracing the source and path of the item in the supply chain and the level of the voluntary disclosure one carries out ? Does it go further than that ? Can a Supply Chain be more transparent and open to the stakeholders and public alike ?

Supply Chain transparency can mean different things to different SC players. This can distort the true meaning. When we buy an item from a provision store, for example bread, how many of the retailers are able to disclose factual information to us other than from where that bread was baked. Does the customer get to find out the farms where the wheat was grown, the fertiliser details, watering patterns, climatic conditions and the rainfall patterns in that land etc. Absolutely nil.

This introduces two new terms relating to the supply chain: supply chain transparency and supply chain opacity. Represented as ratios, supply chain opacity ratio is subtracting supply chain transparency ratio from one (unity). This is measured with the Supply Chain Transparency Index (SCTI).

It is in this direction that we need to look to understand supply chain transparency better. One interesting document that came up in HBR in 2010 highlighting the sweatshops of Apple and Mattel in different parts of the world. (click here for the document). 

Courtesy HBR.org

A more recent 2019 article in HBR from the MIT supply chain lab throws more light and comes up with a quantitative graphical classification mechanism of the different stages of supply chain transparency. The attempt was to understand how the different supply chain practices of tracing the origins of products and raw materials on one axis to the level of openness on the x-axis to reflect on the level of innovativeness of organisations.

Accordingly we rarely find organisations that have very good traceability right upto the raw material suppliers stage and full voluntary disclosure of highly difficult to collect and store supplier related information, form the most innovative supply chains. These supply chains  are quite difficult to be designed for operation as voluntary information disclosure and collection upstream the supply chain is quite an arduous task. In fact, these Supply Chains by virtue of being highly innovative are highly effective to end customers.

On the other hand we find in the above figure, majority of organisations are near to the origin, where at the most only internal process details of the supply chain are disclosed to the regulatory authorities and that too not voluntarily, more as a code of conduct.

How can an organisation move from being a very low level process supply disclosure agent to a high level disclosure player from the internal operations right upto the RM supplier stage ?

Basic etiquette ..

ETIQUETTE : (you probably are aware, just a small reminder .. 👍)  .. 

We live in a society and interact with hundreds of people in our daily interactions.  These basic etiquettes are gems that will not only give you peace of mind and help you go about your daily chores more effectively, but also instil a sense of respect in the other person for you .

1. Don't call someone more than twice continuously. If they don't pick up your call, presume they have something important to attend to;

2. Return money that you have borrowed even before the other person remembers asking for it from you. It shows your integrity and character. Same goes with umbrellas, pens and lunch boxes;

3. Never order the expensive dish on the menu when someone is giving you a lunch/dinner. If possible ask them to order their choice of food for you;

4. Don't ask awkward questions like 'Oh so you aren't married yet?' Or 'Don't you have kids' or 'Why didn't you buy a house?' Or why don't you buy a car? For God's sake it isn't your problem;

5. Always open the door for the person coming behind you. It doesn't matter if it is a guy or a girl, senior or junior.  You don't grow small by treating someone well in public;

6. If you take a taxi with a friend and he/she pays now, try paying next time;

7. Respect different shades of opinions. Remember what's 6 to you will appear 9 to someone facing you. Besides, second opinion is good for an alternative;

8. Never interrupt people talking. Allow them to pour it out. As they say, hear them all and filter them all;

9. If you tease someone, and they don't seem to enjoy it, stop it and never do it again. It encourages one to do more and it shows how appreciative you're;

10. Say "thank you" when someone is helping you.

11. Praise publicly. Criticize privately;

12. There's almost never a reason to comment on someone's weight. Just say, "You look fantastic." If they want to talk about losing weight, they will;

13. When someone shows you a photo on their phone, don't swipe left or right. You never know what's next;

14. If a colleague tells you they have a doctors' appointment, don't ask what it's for, just say "I hope you're okay". Don't put them in the uncomfortable position of having to tell you their personal illness. If they want you to know, they'll do so without your inquisitiveness;

15. Treat the cleaner with the same respect as the CEO. Nobody is impressed at how rude you can treat someone below you but people will notice if you treat them with respect;

16. If a person is speaking directly to you, staring at your phone is rude;

17. Never give advice until you're asked;

18. When meeting someone after a long time, unless they want to talk about it, don't ask them their age and salary;

19. Mind your  business unless anything involves you directly - just stay out of it; 

20. Remove your sunglasses if you are talking to anyone in the street. It is a sign of respect. More so, eye contact is as important as your speech;

21. Never talk about your riches in the midst of the poor. Similarly, don't talk about your children in the midst of the barren... or talk about your spouses around those who don't have.

(Text and image courtesy - The Internet ..)

Fall of BSNL and rise of Reliance Jio in India ..

Of late with the spectacular growth of the private sector Reliance Jio in the global telecommunications scenario, the issue of the rise of private organisations and fall of governmental organisations in different sectors of the Indian economy has come to the fore. This case points to the role of a senior employee in the Indian telecommunication public sector giant BSNL Sunil Chandran who has seen the rise and fall of BSNL.

A. Introduction

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) set up in 2000, is the national body in India that has been providing telecommunications infrastructure and facility to the people across India. (Click here for the wikipedia link). It was hived off from the Department of Telecommunications and to differentiate it from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL).

B. Role of Governmental Organisations

In early 90s in Goa, while working at Govt College of Engineering, I had to wait for 3 years to get a home telephone line after giving an application to the Dept of Telecom. 

How situations keep changing ..

My parent organisation being a governmental organisation,  I was a privileged customer and got the home connection in 1995. Imagine the plight of the hapless private customer and citizen of this country..

BSNL being a govt organisation, it flexes its muscles quite often in resource allocation. As they always find excuses when asked about their deficient cistomer service, their common refrain was that government organisations have its limitations. But we cannot forget one fact that this limitation also gives them great freedom for action.

The government and all organisations under it is meant to serve the public. If these constraints prevents one from serving the public, then that organisation should not be in public service, simple.. BSNL failed to understand this market reality ..

C. ISRO as a governmental entity :

As an example, ISRO as a governmental organisation was set up in early 60s and is one of the most respected space organisations in the world.. It had least customer interaction and that gave it great freedom. 

Leadership also played a major role. Nehru in 1961 gave Dr. Vikram Sarabhai the responsibility of setting up a space organisation in India and in 1962 was born INCOSPAR (Indian National Committee for Space Research) which in 1969 became ISRO. Leadership made the difference..

BSNL at a point of time held monopoly and they thought they could continue like that into the future. They forgot that their master is the customer, not the other way round. Situations are so dynamic, it keeps changing overnight. In a matter of a decade or two, the scenario has changed. 

D. The Reliance part of the story ..

Reliance initially was in petrochemicals only. What made them venture into telecom ? It was the inefficient utilisation of resources and a tendency to have a stranglehold on the public of this country through monopoly in telecommunications which has been broken up.  

I agree BSNL was innovative, but why couldn't it maintain its hold over the public ? Heavy Corruption and utter disregard of their customers.. The senior leadership in BSNL has to take the responsibility of this downfall.

Why is Reliance unbeatable in global telecom and how did they beat BSNL ??

My two cents ..  BSNL was innovative in bringing many technological developments for the first time in India, but

• BSNL failed to carry out timely market interventions and convey their plans to the people
• Even though BSNL had a large captive customer base, their service was poor and slow
• Even though BSNL was the cheapest, Reliance undercut them and for the first time in the world gave local calling free across the country.
• Jio brought Innovation in offerings and scale to operations 
• Reliance spent $31 billion upfront in providing massive optical fibre communication infrastructure across India, nobody in the world has invested like Reliance.

The result is they are the FIRST telecommunications company in the world to offer for the first time free national calling with roaming within the country . No Japanese, Korean, Chinese or US company can catch up with Reliance now .. 

E. Reliance style of operations or operations strategy 

Reliance Operations Strategy, both in Petrochemicals and Comunication has been to

• plan and invest heavily in huge infrastructure. 
• start small
• scale up rapidly with sure firm steps
• keep costs low
• capture the market

Just on the basis of agility and huge infrastructure they are unbeatable in the world.

It's a big lesson and case study for MBA students. 🙏🙏

George..

This academic note has been written as a case trying to differentiate between the Operations strategy of governmental and private organisations in India. (click here for the case and detailed teaching note)

Recent studies of a nuclear holocaust

Copyright The Sun, UK ..

What can happen to the world in case of a nuclear winter. The early study in 2007 was done by NASA which had predicted seven years of winter and an 80 km plume of ash and smoke effectively totally blocking out the sun for up to 7 years.

The recent study was undertaken by Rutgers University Environmental Scientist Joshua Cope and published in 2019.

As of today, planet earth through it's nine nuclear forces countries (in possession of nuclear bombs) in total hold about 14,570 nuclear bombs. 

Amount of nuclear warheads (and percentages) held by the nuclear power states of the world

Rank	Country	No. of nuclear warheads	Percentage
1	Russia	6550	47
2	US	6350	45
3	France	300	2
4	China	280	2
5	Britain	215	1.5
6	Pakistan	145	1
7	India	135	1
8	Israel	80	0.49
9	North Korea	15	0.01

What would that nuclear holocaust moment look like ?

 The study mentioned the damage these countries could pose to earth and humanity in general.

All forms of life would we wiped out.

The dust and smoke would rise up to a height of 120 kms into the air.

The nuclear winter that results would last for a long ten years.

The temp on earth would be about 13 deg C

No sunlight and excess of radiations would result in zero vegetation

Even animal life would not be there. 

How long would it take for planet earth to recover from this accident. To make things short, any form of life, human, animal and sea life, on land or water would not come up at least for the next million years.The damage would be so extensive and damaging that human life would

Which are the countries capable of bringing maximum damage to the planet ?

Because of these nuclear warheads, these countries can in short hold the other 184 countries (of the total 195 countries) to ransom. 

If by that time, human settlements start on Moon and Mars, those people would escape the nuclear holocaust and spared death. They would be carrying human species on Moon or Mars and back to earth after a million years.

George