An Innovation Portfolio Is the Key To Apple’s Success
For every successful product Apple releases, there have been multiple major failures.
Before it released the iPad, it had a product called Newton, a digital assistant that promised the world and bombed badly. Prior to Mac, there was Lisa which was technically superior, but performed so poorly that Apple dumped its excess stock in landfill to get a tax break.
More recently, there’s been Apple TV, which Steve Jobs himself has described as a “hobby”, a product that hasn’t (at least at this stage) radically redefined anything very much.
Granted, it is still early days for the iPad, which could fail to live up to its transformational expectations as well.
The point is Apple has taken some calculated risks with its product, and as a result it has certainly had its share of product failures.
But those who look at companies like Apple with their string of hits almost always conveniently forget the failures still occur, and they happen with a regularity that makes focusing on big hits a very risky business.
In between big hit products, however, Apple spends its time investing in traditional product development using incremental innovations. It has, for example, a backup device called Time Machine. It builds Airport Express, making it simple to set up wireless networks. They are both boring products that pay the bills reliably.
The success of Apple comes not from hits, but because it has a balanced portfolio of innovation. It doesn’t put all its eggs in the transformational product basket, because it knows this results in a very significant concentration of risk. Creating an innovation portfolio with care has resulted in a company which has come back from the dead to challenge powerful players in at least three key markets.
In less than 10 years, Apple has become the leading consumer electronics products company in the world. Innovation portfolios work, and they are one of the only ways to drive reliable growth.
Get predictable growth for your organisation by creating an innovation portfolio. James Gardner’s online, free innovation book will show you how to do it.