Steve Jobs : A Perfect Case Study

, October 7, 2011, 0 Comments

Apple global-brand-marketexpressApple’s co-founder and chairman, Steve Jobs dies at the age of 56 following a long cancer battle. The event which occupies the headline of the world of media is reminding us to dig into the life and attitude of a very great human being, a legend in the world of Technology and a very inspiring manager. Following are some of the highlights of certain aspects of his personal and professional life which can be analyzed from a perfect ‘Case Study’ point of view

Believe in yourself

From his parents garage when I was 20 started “Apple” along with two people and by the time he was 30 years of age it transformed into a $2bn company with over 4,000 employees. This is a great achievement and one major factor behind the journey is his “Self belief” in himself, his ideas, his vision. In his speech at Stanford University, he openly accepted “Don’t lose faith, I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.”

Nothing is Impossible – Every record is meant to be broken

With the launch of iPhone and its astonishing success being replicated by every launch of new products by Steve Jobs, he proved that nothing is impossible and every record is meant to be broken. Nokia was the best in the business till iPhone was launched, and it changed the whole dynamics of mobile industry. Even when iPad was launched apple was the one of its kind to introduce such a product, though product such as “NetBook” – a laptop specifically designed to perform tasks such as net surfing and document management.

Be the change

Since its inception, with its innovative products “Apple” always tried to represent itself as a – ‘Unique executor of ultimate idea’ whether it was Machintosh Workstation, Mac Book, iPhone, iPad or Mac Mini one thing is very clear and that is it tried to represent the change people want over the conventional offerings. Today Every company in the world would like to replicate product feature, design, functionality that Apple offers in its various products.

Face the Failure

Life of Steve Jobs holds much significance in more than one aspect of life in the sense that, he himself has gone through a situation which was simply unacceptable. The board of the company which he himself started decided to fire him. This is a very complex situation, difficult to accept. After he got fired, he really didn’t know what to do for a few months and thought to run away from Silicon Valley but eventually he started a new company named NeXT, another company named Pixar. NeXT was taken over by Apple and Pixar, being the most successful animation studio till date reminds us the ups and downs and fighting spirit of Steve jobs. Face the failure and sometime these failure turns out to be the best thing for something even success could not achieve.

Every Challenge is an Opportunity

When Apple were designing the first Macintosh computer, And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If he had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If he had never dropped out, he would have never dropped in on the calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when he was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

(This article is a tribute to a true legend – Steve Jobs, a technocrat who transformed our lives by its unique offering of a variety of products and continue to be a guiding force even after his death.)