Apple Retail's Emphasis on Profits Continues, Tied to Operational Perspective of Cook and Browett

[alent1234]

Originally Posted by ggmissmolly

Since you asked:

Tim is an Industrial Engineer...what we called an imaginary engineer in school. They specialize in things like manufacturing line layout and logistics. They really are not engineers academically. It's a much less demanding curriculum often appealing to dropouts from engineering. I'm pretty sure that dropout line does not apply to Tim Cook.

He went on to get an MBA from North Carolina or North Carolina State while working for IBM in Raleigh. That makes him a classic bean counter.

Who do I think? An engineer from one of the primary disciplines in Apple...software,hardware, or design. I don't know who exactly...possibly an outsider, but an engineer who would continue innovation priority. Not a bean counter focused on stock price and short term profit.

100 million iphones a year don't just make themselves. you need someone who knows how to source everything and manufacture it CHEAPLY. the coolest product is useless if you can't make enough to meet demand

[diarbyrag]

Let me think, if this guy ran Dixons in the UK just look how successful they are now ... oops I forgot, they went out of business ! Their idea of a customer experience was to try to sell you everything you didn't need and staff knew nothing about the things you did want to buy, that's why I never ever bought anything there. How the hell this guy got a job with Apple is beyond me.

Sack him now Tim before it's too late

Best news line I'd like to see from Apple would be ' whatever happened to... Browett !"

[TheSlush]

This is NOT good, folks.

[whyamihere]

I'm guessing this guy is the reason behind Apple Care Plus as well. Prior to Apple care+, you could walk in with obvious user-inflicted damage on an iPhone, be honest and polite, and the genius would replace the iPhone at no cost. I know, I had to do it twice in 2010 with my iPhone 4, even once when there was obvious water damage. They still hooked me up.

Then they stopped being so lenient when they announced Apple Care+. Now if you don't have the insurance they don't care about your sad story, you are getting charged for a replacement.

Perfect example of this new policy of choosing profits and the bottom-line over going above and beyond with service. To be clear, I'm not saying Apple should give free replacements every time, but great service certainly keeps me as a loyal customer. After making record profits and having a huge war chest with the previous method, you'd think they'd realize "if it isn't broke don't fix it."

[damir00]

Originally Posted by Rogifan

...(there were rumors that Bob Mansfield and Jony Ive refused to be in meetings with Scott Forstall unless Tim Cook was present)...

That's not good.

[G51989]

Originally Posted by excommie

Cook is a smart guy. He realizes that Apple will not be the most valuable company forever. He needs to maximize returns while they're ahead and while some of the designs from the last 5 years are still brining in profits.

Cook is a smart guy, but he's no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

Putting profits over customer service is what will ruin Apple, maximizing returns and making that a priority is a terrible idea for Apple. They don't run like a typical company.

They are already the most profitable company in the world, they don't need to sqeeze every dime over a couple retail hours. Those stores and the customer service they provide are the face of apple, once they go downhill, Apple will follow.

As long as Cook lets the Core Apple team do their job, Apple will stay a very successful company. Retail and customer service is part of that team. The bean counters are not.

Steve Jobs was not the one that designed the products, but he did have the ability to pick one winner product out of several mediocre ideas.

Steve Jobs knew that if you think about money, and nothing else. And put profit before the customer, you'll fail. People like say, Steve Jobs knew, that you put the customer first. They'll come back. Annoy the customer? Try to sell him things they don't want? Make their purchasing experience harder? They won't come back, they'll go buy from another company. They won't Tim Cook doesn't understand this.


[QUOTE
The stock price will eventually flatline, as Apple cannot innovate forever, especially since a lot of the original talent is no longer at Apple. ][/QUOTE]

Just because it won't sky rocket forever, doesn't mean Apple can't say very successful. Look at Microsoft, not as big as they once were. But they still make tons of money and are very successful.

Some of the talent leaving? I could see Ive leaving after all this blows over.

[G51989]

Originally Posted by samcraig

How Steve REALLY should have picked the new CEO


Image

That, would do better than Cook and Bean Counter Co.

Not to play the Devils advocate. But seeing as Steve was DYING when he choose the new CEO.... Maybe he could have picked up the phone and said " Hey Bill...do an old friend a favor? "

[dcorban]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

I approve the use of an attractive female photo in every news article.

[entatlrg]

A lot of us here are concerned with the news about Apple retail's emphasis on profits.

I wonder how much of this public concern flows through to Tim Cooks email address, tcook@appledotcom or reaches him.

Be interesting to know if Apple exec's pay much or any attention to these articles and comments or does a guy like Tim Cook ignore it all and surround himself with internal advisers only.

From what I gather Steve was interested to know and sometimes comment on the news/rumors flowing through the grape vine. Tim doesn't strike me as that kind of person, of course I don't know him and I hope I'm wrong.

[Say Hello]

Originally Posted by SirithX

Apple has gone to great lengths to maintain the main vision (Steve's vision) for Apple long after his passing, just look at the "Apple University" program. So then how do the top executives, Tim Cook being one of them, suddenly decide to go against the company values? And Cook was one of, if not the most trusted executive Jobs had. This story has a lack of sources and one reference to a single article which turned out to be greatly exaggerated. That leads me to have a lack of faith in it's validity.

I can assure you, sadly, that this is true. Sadly no Apple Retail employees would go on the record for fear of repercussions and all about this news but if you had any friends working there they could confirm it.

Walk into any Apple Store and you'll see less employees on the floor than before. I remember a time when the floor was swarming with blue shirts. Now, they are running left and right everywhere. I can't imagine what it's like working during the week-ends. This will lead to two things: either the wait time will increase greatly and buying a product in an Apple Store will become the equivalent of waiting at DisneyLand to hop in an attraction (if they continue with the route of serving each customers correctly and taking their time answering them), or the lack of decent employees number on the floor will lead them to speed up the purchasing process and thus reducing greatly the customer experience.

I remember being told that what made the Apple Stores so unique was the experience one could have there... Now I fear it'll be just another electronic store, a Best Buy clone. Oh sure they'll still have some passionate employees that'll give their 110%, but down the line, those employees will eventually become jaded if nothing is done to support them (like having more troops to help share the work load). Profit is a good thing, but don't do it by ruining the customer experience and asking the impossible of your employees (I know that everyone will say this is the reality of retail, but boy, I love the Apple experience because it's exactly that -- an experience, not just an in-and-out visit at Target).

[G51989]

Originally Posted by Say Hello

I can assure you, sadly, that this is true. Sadly no Apple Retail employees would go on the record for fear of repercussions and all about this news but if you had any friends working there they could confirm it.

Walk into any Apple Store and you'll see less employees on the floor than before. I remember a time when the floor was swarming with blue shirts. Now, they are running left and right everywhere. I can't imagine what it's like working during the week-ends. This will lead to two things: either the wait time will increase greatly and buying a product in an Apple Store will become the equivalent of waiting at DisneyLand to hop in an attraction (if they continue with the route of serving each customers correctly and taking their time answering them), or the lack of decent employees number on the floor will lead them to speed up the purchasing process and thus reducing greatly the customer experience.

I remember being told that what made the Apple Stores so unique was the experience one could have there... Now I fear it'll be just another electronic store, a Best Buy clone. Oh sure they'll still have some passionate employees that'll give their 110%, but down the line, those employees will eventually become jaded if nothing is done to support them (like having more troops to help share the work load). Profit is a good thing, but don't do it by ruining the customer experience and asking the impossible of your employees (I know that everyone will say this is the reality of retail, but boy, I love the Apple experience because it's exactly that -- an experience, not just an in-and-out visit at Target).

It will be worse than best buy, I think best buy is starting to figure out the whole customer service thing, i've noticed more services and employees lately, its still terrible, but improving.

People like Tim Cook are not capable of running Apple the way it needs to be run, Apple isn't a typical company, nor has it ever been run by one. Tim Cook needs to go. Now.

Great tech companies, like Apple, Microsoft and google, just as examples are not founded and made great by Bean counters like Tim cook. They're founded by people like Steve Jobs and Bill gates, who didn't think " whats popular, what already worked? " People like Steve Jobs and Bill gates thought " whats next? What can we do next that will be the next amazing thing? "

As far as the Apple and Microsoft thing goes, I don't think people realize how much Microsoft and Apple have helped each other, the have an awesome relationship going back 30 years. Lets home Cook doesn't ruin that.

Lets look at the 2 greats, Jobs and Gates

Steve Jobs would look at a problem, or a user interface problem or a whatever problem and think " how can I make this easy to use? Whats next? "

Bill Gates was very much a programmer and engineer, as well as an incredible businessman, and he would say " How do I make this WORK better? in the future? how do I make this work better? How can I make this work among multiple machines "

Tim Cook thinks " how can I reduce costs as much as possible to get every last penny into my checking account? "

Not good.

[theipodgod16]

[QUOTE=Rogifan;15546629]Cook did not make $378M in 2011. Get you facts straight. [COLOR="#808080"]

Between Mr. Cook's salary, bonus, and stock awards, uhhh, yeah, he did.



http://www.cultofmac.com/139193/appl...oxy-statement/

[old-wiz]

The local Apple store has definitely changed; there used to be workshops at different times during the day and evening, but now the only times there are workshops are before the store opens in the morning. If you want to attend a workshop and happen to have a job, you are pretty much out of luck. The store staff has gotten a lot more sales aggressive; I used to go in regularly to see if there were any interesting new apps on iPhone/iPad and they never had a problem. Nowdays, they ask if you need help when you enter, and you say "I'm fine" and go to the iPhones/iPads and check on the app situation and 30 seconds later there's a sales rep there. I tell them I'm just checking for new apps that I might like to have on my iPhone and they back off a bit, but you can see they are not happy that you are not there to buy anything. It's no longer a friendly atmosphere - they are really pushing to sell. It's very annoying; I have lots of Apple stuff and like to check things out in the store before buying. I go in and see how Mountain Lion is running, and bingo, sales person asks if I "need help". Good grief. I thought they didn't mind having people just checking things out. I haven't upgraded to ML, and I want to play with it to see if it's worth the upgrade now, but the staff makes it hard to just try loading things and see how it runs now.

[Will do good]

Thank goodness Browett is gone...

[johnhope]

Satisfied customers = profits.
If they want profit, and want to remain the top company in the industry, they need to remain focused on product quality and customer satisfaction.
Money follows