AAUG Reviews

By Ron Schoedel, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

“The Apple Way” is definitely not a computer book. It will do nothing to help you figure out how to work your computer or your iPod or anything of the sort. Instead, what it aims to do is provide business persons with management lessons gleaned from Apple’s thirty years of interesting and storied existence. It is a management book, and I read it with the intention of seeing how The Apple Way could possibly help my own organization.

Author Jeffrey Cruikshank is not afraid to lay out Apple’s failures along side their successes, being that this is a business book. We learn the scoop behind Apple’s decision to not license its OS to other manufacturers early on (the biggest decision Apple has made, and the one directly responsible for Windows being installed on 95% of the world’s computers). We also learn the genius behind Apple’s retail store initiative, predicted by many business writers to fail within the first year, and now bringing in billions in revenue over half a decade after the first Apple Store opened its doors.

We get fleeting glimpses into the genius of Steve Jobs, and also a few reminders of how other Apple CEOs might have been lacking the drive and ability that Jobs thrives on.

Among the lessons we can learn from Apple:

• Make the product and the customer King.
• Balance manufacturing with delivery logistics
• Motivate and inspire people outside the company to do your marketing and PR
  (something only Apple and Harley-Davidson have been able to do with any degree of success, according to the author)
• Invent new distribution channels
• Decide on your company image and stick to your guns.

The Apple Way borrows from research and Apple folklore to weave a compelling tale of our favorite fruit company and how–despite its miniscule market share–it has rightly earned the title of the World’s Most Innovative Company.

It’s a good read with a few nit-picky things that bothered me. One was that, like any hardbound published book, the information is a bit out of date. Those of us used to business publications and news via the web wince at seeing 2004 and early 2005 sales figures, especially when later figures only serve to further boost the success of Apple. Sometimes the author likes to stretch things a bit to make his point. And on a few occasions, he has his facts mixed up, such as when he describes the Apple Store Genius Bar as glorified sales staff, which they are most definitely not (the minimum qualifications for Apple Genius are quite exhaustive, in reality. Given that the Genius Bar is such an important piece of Apple’s retail strategy, Mr. Cruikshank should have gotten this right).

All in all, it is an entertaining read for anyone who likes Apple, technology, computers, and business reading in general. A big four moose goes out for The Apple Way. Enjoy, and then go conquer your business world building on Steve Jobs’s successes, failures, and lessons along the way.