‘Millions of folks have good ideas. Cook is
neither a visionary, nor has he shown the ability to see the unique potential
of someone else’s idea’, Rob Enderle
Streamlining the supply chain was a big
issue for Apple in 1998. One of many problems exacerbated by its Byzantine
product range was excess inventory: hundreds of millions of dollars were tied
up in computers sitting boxed in retail, distribution and Apple’s own
warehouses, some of which would end up being remaindered, to be detriment of
profits. ‘Just in time manufacturing’ was the solution, a contemporary buzzword
that Jobs took to heart. A simple idea, it required mastery of insanely complex
logistics. Cook’s job was to make it happen.
Rob
Enderle
Under CEO Gil Amelio, Apple had flirted
with the possibility of no longer being a hardware company. The Mac OS was
licensed to other computer makers who built systems that weren’t Macs, and had
no Apple badge, but worked identically, much as PCs aped IBM’s original
hardware design. Although Apple was still making and selling Macs, it was
increasingly focused on software. After all, Microsoft was the dominant player
in computing, and it didn’t do hardware.
Under
CEO Gil Amelio, Apple had flirted with the possibility of no longer being a
hardware company.
Jobs had a different plan. He ended the
licensing programme, killed off much of Apple’s product range in a simplicity
drive, and bet the farm on a different, exciting new hardware product, the
iMac. But this didn’t mean he would leave Apple’s manufacturing divisions
intact. Far from it.
Cook, as VP of worldwide operations, set
about extracting Apple from the business of actually making computers. More of
the components inside the machines became standard parts, the same ones used in
PCs, bought from the same suppliers, rather than expensively designed and built
from scratch. While Apple’s own expertise went into the overall design of the
systems and their increasingly distinctive cases – guided by an in-house
designer, Jonathan Ive, who Jobs promoted to oversee all industrial design –
the job of assembling the computers was outsourced to third parties.
Like Willy Wonka, Apple closed its factory
gates; but rather than shipping in Oompa-Loompas from their distant homeland,
Jobs and Cook found skilled labour where it was cheapest and shipped their
ingredients out.
It’s not the most compelling or romantic
storyline in Apple’s history: the company that started out as two geeks
building computers with their own hands in the heart of Silicon Valley
outsourcing its manufacturing to cut margins. But it worked. Whatever may have
been the extent of Cook’s involvement in the conception of the iMac and iPod –
and, while they appeared on his watch as a senior and pivotal member of the
Apple management team, we must also remember Jobs told his biographer that Cook
was ‘not a product person’ – he almost certainly deserves the lion’s share of
credit for their profitability. It was in recognition of his crucial
achievement that Cook was promoted to chief operating officer in January 2007,
coinciding with the launch of the iPhone – another triumph of efficient
production.
Remarkably,
cook had established himself well before this as the anointed successor to Jobs
Remarkably, cook had established himself
well before this as the anointed successor to Jobs. In 2004, when the CEO first
underwent surgery for the pancreatic cancer he’d avoided talking about for
months, it was Cook that he selected – autocratically, one would assume, but evidently
with the approval of the board and at least sufficient buy-in from other senior
VPs to avoid any signs of revolt – as acting chief executive. Was Jobs’
confidence in his stand-in well placed? He was a famously decisive judge of
ability and not one to suffer fools. But veteran analyst Rob Enderle
(enderlegroup.com) has his doubts. Interviewed for this article, he began from
a typically contrarian point of view: ‘Steve Jobs really wasn’t a visionary.
‘His skill was far more valuable: he saw
the potential in the visions of others, and could execute against that
potential. There are millions of folks that have good ideas; the number of
people that can turn those ideas into gold is incredibly small.
‘Cook is neither a visionary, nor has he
shown the Jobs-like ability to see the unique potential of someone else’s
idea’.
George Colony, writing for Forrester in
April 2012, expanded on Cook’s unsuitability, referring to the theories of
sociologist Max Weber: ‘Charismatic organizations are headed by people with the
“gift of grace” (charisma, from the Greek)… the magical leader must be
succeeded by another charismatic – the emotional connection of employees and
(in the case of Apple) customers demands it. Apple has chosen a proven and
competent executive to succeed Jobs. But his legal/bureaucratic approach will
prove to be a mismatch for an organization that feeds off the gift of grace’.
Colony’s alternative suggestions for the
succession, however, betray Apple’s dearth of realistic options. Like others,
he favours Scott Forstall, the relatively charismatic – at least, by various
accounts bossy and eccentric – senior VP of iOS software. But, as we’ve seen,
Apple has chosen not to recast Tim Cook itself as a software company, and built
its recent success on excellence in hardware. Forstall would be an odd fit.
