Well it seems only right that I say something in response to the death of Steve Jobs, however I'm no expert on his life and times. Nevertheless one lesson that sticks out for me, especially in the context of the sort of business model he has created in Apple is that whether or not your actual products and / or services are unique, one way of ensuring you grow and keep your customers is to ring fence your business. With Apple products and services when you buy the products you are rquired to sign into an iTunes account to match all your music and other media files with your new prodcuct. If you start off with an Apple service such as iTunes they work best or only with Apple technology items.
Recently on our Enterprise Innovation course we went through a process of brainstorming for business ideas. Some of our group came up with an idea for ring fencing a garden centre business, (no pun intended). If we were to develop a club which used our garden plots in our garden centre we would have a permanent list of customers that would have to buy from our garden centre business to develop their graden plots, which could have vegetables, fruits or flowers, whatever. Extra services such as training could also be offered. Just like Apple we'd ring fence our business and provide ourselves with a guaranteed customer base.
The ability to recognise trends quickly and know when to give up on something and try another direction is also an important lesson that Jobs has left us.
Now let's hope Apple can survive and thrive without its mentor. If it does it'll be a true testament to how extraordinary Steve Jobs really was.
R.I.P.
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