Apple and Steve Jobs

Many companies tend to be driven by vision of individuals, especially in their initial years. Akio Morita with Sony, Microsoft and Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Oracle, though it tends to add a lot of value as the aura and charm of the individual rubs on to the company and the brand. But it  can also have some negative fall outs....... 

Actually in the list of company and individuals first name should have been that of ' Apple and Steve Jobs'. Today success apple is intrinsically linked to Steve Jobs, in fact the connection of the individual and the company fortunes is so strong that we can see the share prices of apple tumbling after the news that Steve Jobs has taken a six month medical leave. The reasons is that the series of successful products from apple stable i pod, i phone and the turn around of the company have been attributed so much to Steve Jobs that his absence is being taken as seen as a sure indicator that the company would not be able keep coming up with block-buster products at the same pace as it could do when Steve Jobs was around..

Whenever we have a talk about market-driving companies we cite the example of Steve Jobs, because of his ability to lead innovation in the market, and create product categories. People have asked me the utility of the typical new product development process which tries to capture the consumer exiting needs and develop products in the context of an individual driven process. My reasoning has been that if one is not able to institutionalise the process then we will come into issue of the process being associated with an individual that his absence would be seen as impacting the fortunes of the company....

Lot of blogger have aritten about this incident, link