Jennifer Quarcoopome-255254
Unit 1 assignment 3
How important is innovation and enterprise?
In this assignment, I will conduct research and apply my knowledge to investigate how innovation
and enterprise contribute to a company's performance, as well as how successful a company's usage
of enterprise has been. Finally, I will justify a company's use of innovation and enterprise in
consideration of its changing market. The business I will be doing my research on is Apple.
Apple is a public limited company and a multinational technology business based in the United
States. Steve Jobs launched the company in 1976. Apple designs, develops, and sells consumer
electronics such as phones and computers and creates software's and online services like Apple pay.
Their headquarters are located in Cupertino. They are best known for their production of iPhones,
iPads, MacBooks, and watches.
For a firm to succeed, both innovation and enterprise are needed. Innovation is the introduction of
something new and unique that has not been invented yet, it leads to the development of new
ideas, designs, products and services. Even while most people think of innovation as the
development of new things, it can also refer to finding new ways to do the same thing. Overall,
innovation is about figuring out how to improve the business module and produce better and more
noticeable products that solve a need. For companies like Apple, innovation is critical because it
helps them strive and perform better than their competitors. Enterprise is the ability of an individual
to take risks and start a business, it’s important because it provides employment and social changes
as new innovative product are made. It also provides the population with the ability to make more
choices that benefit each individual. When starting a firm, the entrepreneur must have the
confidence to take risks and take initiative, a person who takes initiative makes things happen and
takes advantage of every opportunity to expand their business. To create and innovate their
products, an entrepreneur looks for business possibilities such as a gap in the market or a current
trend. Taking risks does not always go as planned, and it may result in the firm failing to make any
sales. On the other hand, it may lead to a higher return and could therefore double business
revenues.
Even for well-established companies like Apple, there is a level of risk involved in developing new
ideas and delivering new products. When it comes to coming up with fresh ideas, there are several
approaches that may be used, including creative and lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is more
concerned with the advantages and disadvantages of new ideas, whereas creative thinking is more
open to all the possibilities without necessarily considering the dangers involved. Blue sky thinking,
involves brainstorming a bunch of ideas with no real limits, this allows all ideas to be considered.
Another way is serendipity which is about finding things and think outside the box to come up with a
unique idea that hasn’t been executed yet. A way in which apple has shown serendipity is through
the making of the iPhone. For example, having a music collection on a mobile device was unheard of
before the iPhone was created so because of serendipity and Apple's designers, it was an original
and unique idea that added value to their product.
Another thing which some entrepreneurs rely on when making decisions is intuition. This is a “gut
feeling” meaning that they listen to their feelings and instincts. On the other hand, this isn’t
something that every entrepreneur does as others prefer to base their ideas on factual data. Steve
jobs was very reliant on intuition, he said: “intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than
intellect, in my opinion”. This clearly shows how Steve jobs has used intuition to lead Apple to
, success. An example of when Apple used intuition was when they created a fully touchscreen on
their iPhone, they did that because Steve jobs had a feeling that it was going to do really well. And
he was right as now a fully touchscreen phone is seen as the norm.
Apple aspires to be the most inventive corporation, and they are now placed #6 among the most
innovative corporations in 2022. This is because for over 30 years Apple has been innovating
technology, contents and services to keep up with trends and the changing market. Apple has been
innovative in many concepts of their production, and they achieve this by coming up with new ideas,
looking for possibilities, conducting extensive market research, and keeping positive relationships
with their suppliers, dealers, and other business partners.
Apple is also good at finding gaps in the market and using them as opportunities to develop new
products. For example, there was need for a product to fill the gap between a computer and a
phone, so Apple came up with the iPad in 2004 but it was officially introduced in 2010 and sold 3
million units in just 80 days. With an aluminium and glasses design, 1GHz Apple A4 processor and
16GB, 32GB or 64GB storage capacity and a 10-hour battery life. It is believed that the iPad created a
completely new market composed by people of all ages and interests such as kids, artists,
businessmen and elders due to the fact that the iPad has applications for “everybody”. Microsoft,
HP, Dell and Samsung were trying to create their own tablet to compete with Apple but there was
nothing that they could do as for 6 years in a row iPad was the best-selling tablet.
Even though the iPad is a very successful innovative product some computer experts argue that the
iPad is just a tablet with an elevated price for offering basic features that are also incorporated in
every other tablet such as the tablet format, touchscreen, Wi-Fi, eBook reader and video capability.
Because of this reason some individuals question whether the iPad is an innovative product.
However, their judgement is irrelevant because Apple's creative idea has proven to be successful,
increasing their market share and adding value to their brand.
The Apple Watch, which was introduced in 2014, is another example of a successful innovation. The
Apple Watch is a line of smartwatches created by Apple that includes features such as fitness
monitoring, health-related functions, and wireless communication. The Apple Watch is thought to
have revolutionised the watch market because it’s no longer viewed solely as a practical gadget, but
it’s also seen as fashionable piece and because of this Apple watch sales have grown in the over
£3,000 category of luxury watches. This has helped increase competitiveness which improved their
brand value and recognition. It also increased Apple’s turnover and profit.
Apple's innovation strategy is also about adding value to a product. This means that instead of
creating a new product they develop and add new features to an existing product. The iPhone is an
example of an innovative product that Apple adds value to every year. The iPhone 2G was the first
model of iPhone, which was released in June 2007. Then, a year later, in July 2008, the iPhone 3G
was released in 22 countries and sold over 1 million devices in its first weekend, the phone came
with iOS 2.0 software and enabled capabilities like multimedia messaging and copy & paste. In 2010
the iPhone 4 was introduced, and it newly introduced a front-facing camera, this made Apple stand
out from its competitors as it was the first smartphone that had a facetime video chat. A fifth-
generation device, the iPhone 4S was released a year later which introduced a voice assistant (Siri).
The release of the iPhone 6 and 6 plus in September 2014, was the first time that Apple introduced a
plus-size option. Some of the features of the new device were an upgraded camera, increased
battery life and an introduction to Apple pay. Fast forward to the latest iPhone which is the iPhone
13 Pro Max. A 6.7-inch super retina XDR display delivers a fantasy watching experience so individuals
can enjoy their favourite Netflix series wherever they are, other advantages include a water-
resistant feature paired with a ceramic cover that keeps the phone screen from cracking and a share