How Steve Jobs saved Apple Corp and what can we learn from that? Dorea Team, January 23, 2024 After the 1995 release of Microsoft’s Windows 95 multimedia operating system, Apple Inc. fell into a death spiral. On February 5, 1996, BusinessWeek put Apple’s famous trademark on its cover to illustrate its lead story: “The Fall of an American Icon.” CEO Gil Amelio struggled to keep Apple alive in a world being rapidly dominated by WindowsIntel-based PCs. He cut staff. He reorganized the company’s many products into four groups: Macintosh, information appliances, printers and peripherals, and “alternative platforms.” A new Internet Services Group was added to the Operating Systems Group and the Advanced Technology Group. Wired magazine carried an article titled “101 Ways to Save Apple.” It included suggestions such as “Sell yourself to IBM or Motorola,” “Invest heavily in Newton technology,” and “Exploit your advantage in the K–12 education market.” Wall Street analysts hoped for and urged a deal with Sony or Hewlett-Packard. By September 1997, Apple was two months from bankruptcy. Steve Jobs, who had cofounded the company in 1976, agreed to return to serve on a reconstructed board of directors and to be interim CEO. Die-hard fans of the original Macintosh were overjoyed, but the general business world was not expecting much. Within a year, things changed radically at Apple. Although many observers had expected Jobs to rev up the development of advanced products, or engineer a deal with Sun, he did neither. What he did was both obvious and, at the same time, unexpected. He shrunk Apple to a scale and scope suitable to the reality of its being a niche producer in the highly competitive personal computer business. He cut Apple back to a core that could survive. Steve Jobs talked Microsoft into investing $150 million in Apple, exploiting Bill Gates’s concerns about what a failed Apple would mean to Microsoft’s struggle with the Department of Justice. Jobs cut all of the desktop models—there were fifteen—back to one. He cut all portable and handheld models back to one laptop. He completely cut out all the printers and other peripherals. He cut development engineers. He cut software development. He cut distributors and cut out five of the company’s six national retailers. He cut out virtually all manufacturing, moving it offshore to Taiwan. With a simpler product line manufactured in Asia, he cut inventory by more than 80 percent. A new Web store sold Apple’s products directly to consumers, cutting out distributors and dealers. What is remarkable about Jobs’s turnaround strategy for Apple is how much it was “BusinBusiness 101 is surprisingess 101” and yet how much of it was unanticipated. Of course you have to cut back and simplify to your core to climb out of a financial nosedive. Of course he needed up-to-date versions of Microsoft’s Office software to work on Apple’s computers. Of course Dell’s model of Asian supply-chain manufacturing, short cycle times, and negative working capital was the state of the art in the industry and deserved emulation. Of course he stopped the development of new operating systems—he had just brought the industry’s best operating system with him from NeXT. The power of Jobs’s strategy came from directly tackling the fundamental problem with a focused and coordinated set of actions. He did not announce ambitious revenue or profit goals; he did not indulge in messianic visions of the future. And he did not just cut in a blind ax-wielding frenzy—he redesigned the whole business logic around a simplified product line sold through a limited set of outlets. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy the only mistake Apple made was setting Goals as a strategy for themselves. goals are not a strategy, they are just ambitions, taking over the tech market, being a Microsoft alternative, they are just wishes, and this was leading to bad strategy and nearly bankruptcy of Apple. so Steve Jobs came to save them, using a coherent strategy, focusing on a niche market. the strategy plan he made has a specific guideline policy. so remember 2 things: a coherent plan a guideline policy Cashback as a coherent strategy when we talk about strategy, we talk about an obvious path with strict rules. you can set a coherent strategy for your business like retaining your already customers using some practical strategy like cashback, not just random wishes ( bad strategy ) like reaching out to 1 million users. On the Crypto Dorea platform, we provide everything you need to set up an easy crypto cashback program for your most loyal customers. You can customize it in any way you want for each product or service category. Visit Crypto Dorea and get the latest updates on the product. Articles applebad strategybusiness strategygood strategy