How Apple’s Products Continue to Stay in High Demand
A look at how Apple implements the product development process for their iPhones
There is no doubt that Apple is the top dog when it comes to the Smart phone industry. Apple is always looking to improve, offering newer and better products routinely. But how do they manage to stay innovative within the ever changing market?
New Product Development
In order to remain competitive, companies must be constantly creating new products or adapting their products to match competition. Businesses that desire to remain successful in the market, must be able to move quickly to meet the evolving standards of consumers. Moving quickly so products won’t get left behind while still taking the time to develop quality products that won’t fail, requires following a strategy called: the new-product development process. And Apple does just that with their iPhones.
The new product development process consists of 5 categories: idea generation, screening, idea evaluation, development, and commercialization.
Let’s look at the iPhone 11 Pro which was released in September 2019.
Idea Generation → Screening Process → Idea Evaluation
Every product starts off as an idea. Ideas for new products or improvements to old products can come from a variety of sources: customers, competitors, consumer surveys, other markets, or from people within the company such as sales or production staff.
The screening process may involve a S.W.O.T analysis which evaluates the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This allows the company to utilize their strengths in the creation of a new product and become aware of potential weaknesses. The new product idea needs quantitative and qualitative components for the screening criteria. Quantitative requirements include the company’s objectives such as: sales, profits, and ROI targets. Qualitative components include: what market the product should be in, what resources the company has, what the strengths and weaknesses of the new product idea are, and what the risks are with the new product idea.
In the idea evaluation stage, the product idea gets a more in depth evaluation than it did in the screening process. It is focused on getting customer reactions, feedback, and researching more about how to create the perfect product to meet the target market’s needs.
How does Apple implement these steps in the creation of an iPhone? Apple actually has a team whose sole job is to design and create. Apple understands the importance of creating an environment that encourages and ensures a steady flow of new ideas. Therefore, the design team is separated from the rest of the Apple company which allows them to focus solely on generating new ideas and designs instead of worrying about other tasks within the company. This involves lots of meetings, screening the idea, research (such as marketing and engineer research), sketches, and brainstorming. Because Apple seems to be a secretive company, I’m not sure how they go about getting customer reactions and feedback with their new product ideas before they enter into the development phase since they are big on not wanting their products to be “leaked”. Perhaps, they rely on customer feedback from their current products in order to stimulate new ideas to work with and evaluate.
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Related: How The Super-Secret Apple Industrial Design Team Really Works
Regardless, the iPhone 11 Pro must have taken lots of brainstorming and research by the design team. Apple did not disappoint — they definitely had some fresh new ideas to implement in the designing process. For example, the iPhone 11 Pro is offered in new colors, has improved water durability, the toughest glass surrounding an iPhone yet, a triple lens camera for better quality photos with an ultra wide camera angle, a new night mode, an improved front facing camera, an improved chip that is supposedly the fastest chip yet in a smartphone, better battery life, and so much more!
Development
Development is the stage that involves more research and the physical development of the product.
The development team at Apple gets the Apple New Product Process (ANPP) which is a detailed guide for how the design process should take place such as who should do what and when it should be completed. Apple creates many prototypes to effectively test their concepts for their iPhones. They start with many prototypes and eventually narrow it down to one final product. Apple has many meetings to ensure the design team is making progress and to continually make modifications and improve the product while in development. The Engineer Product Manager and Global Supply Manager oversee the production process. Apple relies on outsourcing for its manufacturing process therefore, a lot of the production magic happens in China.
But it doesn’t stop there! Once the product is created, it is tested further and the design team makes any necessary modifications. Then it is sent back to the development process to be re-built. This can happen multiple times until the perfect product is finalized and meets the high quality standards that Apple is known for. While no process is guaranteed to provide 100% success rate, Apple has gotten it’s development process down to a science — and the development of the iPhone 11 Pro was no exemption from this process.
Commercialization
Commercialization is all about how to bring your new product into the market place. Some things a firm might consider in this process are: what channel of distribution to use, who to hire and train to help sell the product, where to launch their new product, and how to promote their new product.
Apple creates the perfect launch plan. Ever notice how iPhones are normally released in September each year? This is strategic planning to introduce their iPhones to the market around the time of prime Christmas shopping. I mean, who doesn’t want the newest iPhone as a Christmas gift? Apple formulates an action plan called “Rules of the Road” which details what to do in order to ensure the perfect launch of the product.
Apple is no rookie. They’ve been consistent with creating new products in order to remain a top competitor within the technology realm. The creation of the iPhone 11 Pro undoubtedly followed the new product development process to ensure consumer attraction and purchases. You could say that Apple was definitely a pro when it came to the creation of the iPhone 11 Pro.
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