The Innovation of the iPod Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Innovation of the iPod - Case Study Example "Timing and execution are everything. Being first in an emerging market is neither as important nor can be as lucrative as designing the right products and services to cater to second- and third-stage growth .A smart company commands a premium for successfully blending off-the-shelf technologies into a new and useful product. Essentially, the iPod is a portable hard drive (in the Shuffle and Nano models, a flash drive) hidden inside a simple and beautiful enclosure, accessed through intuitive menus, buttons and a scroll wheel .separately, these parts were forgettable, but together they became unforgettable, Instead of creating a good product and knocking down the price until everyone could afford it, Apple has sold stripped-down versions at lower price points and hoped demand would follow. This strategy helped create Apple's bestselling music player, the bipod Mini." The development of the iPod is well reminiscent of the complex task of an entrepreneur who has to take all the monetary and intrinsic risks which will ultimately bring him success or failure in the cruel world of technology and innovation. (CNN Money 2005,Collingwood, H. 2005)As far back as in the year 2005 financial forecasters were predicting that the stock price of Apple Computer, Inc.had witnessed an increase of almost 6 times its original size . (CNN Money 2005,Collingwood, H. 2005) All this success can be attributed to the iPod digital music player which was introduced only a few years ago and has met unmatched success than any of its contemporary products and thus is an excellent study model in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation.The product itself has accelerated the growth of Apples digital music player market in the USA and has helped Apple increase its third-quarter sales to increase by 75 per cent within a single year. (CNN Money 2005,Collingwood, H. 2005)This success is puzzling for most critics in the sense that when originally introduced the iPod was neither the first digital music player, nor initially compatible with the majority of personal computers ( it was only compatible with Apple's own Macintosh computers, which only had a 4% market share of US computer sales). (CNN Money 2005,Collingwood, H. 2005) Before going on to discuss the success story of the iPod entrepreneurship it is worth reviewing what Product innovation entails for the entrepreneurial success. The concept of product innovation pertains to the whole process of bringing a new product or service to the market and which include the stages of product conceptualization, design and development. (Dyson, J.1997) More importantly there will be a need to improve upon the conceptions of production and distribution of the new product. (Dyson, J.1997) As the name suggests that the "innovation" pertains to the something new in terms technology and creativity .The innovation process will involve the activity of people and organisations who will be able to change themselves and the environment. (Dyson, J.1997).One of the most brilliant examples of product innovation comes from IBM which has become popular for successfully transforming itself from a provider of hardware-based products to more software-based services .