People Wit

: 12 Management Lessons from the World’s Most Innovative Company karya Jeffrey L. Cruikshank. Banyak Point dan pelajaran tentang management yang bisa kita ambil dari Perusahaan paling inovatif di Dunia ini. Mari kita belajar dari Keberhasilan dan Kegagalannya. Selamat Menikmati.

What does the tangled tale of Apple’s distribution and retailing efforts tell us? It tells us that consistency is important in dealing with retail channels that you don’t control. It tells us that selling personal computers can be harder than selling products in slower-moving industries like cars, even though selling cars is plenty hard. And it tells us that at the end of the day, cachet counts. And inspiration counts even more.

Eight specific lessons jump out of the preceding chapter:

■ Sell your geniuses at retail.

Spend the time and money to develop a sales force that’s (at least) as good as your product. (Even the best products can’t sell themselves, especially if they’re intimidating.) Make your “geniuses” out to be scarce commodities, for example, with a sign-up sheet.

■ Retailing experts are like any other experts. Sometimes they get it really wrong.

In May 2001, the pundits were predicting that Apple’s retail gambit was going to prove an unmitigated disaster.

Wrong!

■ Be nice to nerds, but don’t let them do your marketing.

Let’s face it: engineers, for all of their many virtues, don’t speak “marketing.”

■ It’s nice to be able to call the shots. But it won’t last.

Few products stay hot forever. Abusing your retail network today will almost certainly haunt you tomorrow.

■ Move that inventory, based on better numbers!

If—like fish and computers—your inventory goes bad real fast, you have to move those goods ASAP. This means fixing the distribution chain

in ways that give you better numbers, so you can make and ship more winners and fewer turkeys.

■ Go after Dell. Go after anybody with a great marketing idea.

After 30 years of trying, Apple seems to have expunged the “not invented here” syndrome. They’re prepared to copy Dell, Gateway, or whomever.

■ If all else fails, sell it yourself.

The long sad saga of Apple in the retailing arena comes down to this: The more special your product, the more likely you’ll have to sell it yourself.

■ Design a shopping experience that defines the buyer as much as the seller.

Starbucks got there early, as did Barnes & Noble. This is also called “lifestyle shopping”: Let the customer validate himself or herself simply by walking in the door. I’m cool, therefore I am.

Source : The Apple Way. 12 Management Lessons from the World’s Most Innovative Company. Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.McGraw-Hill. 2006