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Angela Ahrendts Promises Details on Apple's 'Back to School' Situation Next Week
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Since when does any retailer publish an external audit of inventory? Why doubt that Apple ran into production issues? There was no reason for Apple to withhold supply. If they had enough for a "traditional" launch there's a good chance they would have done so. At minimum, they would have wanted to have them in store on the first day.
Not after you've promised "early 2015" on multiple occasions. They already stretched the definition of "early" as much as they possibly could.
It's pretty simple really, since she has taken over, can anyone point to a single policy that has been instituted that seems to have made Apple for the better? Just one? For close to 100 million dollars, you would think there would be something..
But it's practically all negative around this woman and, frankly, she kind of just rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Again, putting a nice bow on an overpriced product for the rich at Burberry doesn't impress me all that much.
But it's practically all negative around this woman and, frankly, she kind of just rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Again, putting a nice bow on an overpriced product for the rich at Burberry doesn't impress me all that much.
I agree - this whole year has looked like bumbling nonsense. There are right now tens of thousands of students waiting for information on the education discounts. It's not like Angela's videos are highly crafted productions - their sloppy, perhaps intentionally, but she could put one out in 5 minutes if needed and given interested parties guidance.
So the fact that she was called out and told everyone to wait a week shows not only that she's behind strategically, but also operationally poor and indecisive. Maybe the whole management team is lost, but we do know that Cook has operational talent, Ive is clearly strategic in products (design tradeoffs) and Cue is decisive (Taylor swift). While each one of them does deliver, I don't see what Angela is bringing to the table. Pricing strategy? Edition watches on celebrities? Ugh...
And stuff goes wrong in business - even the bast operations can still run into shortages or delays. But problems are being amplified needlessly. For example, maybe there were supply shortages of the watch. But I remember that they ran out of pre-order. How can you "sell out" of pre-order?
Funny -- I still waited 6 weeks to receive my watch. The held back the launch regardless. Angela appears in react mode for all but the boutiques.
Apparently she gets high marks from the actual retail staff.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-insiders-gave-us-report-130240993.html
I'd say she's in anything but "react" mode. She seems more experimental. Browett's cost cutting managed to inflict damage in just a few months. They went into a period of benign neglect during the interim until Ahrendts came in.
Angela Ahrendts threads are like catnip for misogynists.
Does it really need to be framed this way? What difference does it make if the person is a man or woman? It's about incompetence, and decisions she helped make that have been the wrong ones.
Because nothing she's blamed for is actually her fault. She was a brilliant CEO at Burberry, and the people who work with say she's brilliant.
But somehow she's blamed for things like Apple Watch shortages. As if she clicked the "order 1 million" button instead of the "2 million" button.
If you ask me they should have been made to order. Each watch is built based on the customization of the customer and only those watches are made. Building a million space grey Apple Watch Sport models seems stupid for something like this that requires personalization. Too damn bad if it takes longer to get, at least they won't be "out of stock" but hey, people will bitch no matter what.
This may come as a blow to many of you, but the days of the traditional Apple BTS program are over. Back to School season at Apple begins long before the previous school year ends with internal planning and discussion. For the last decade, the final approved program has rolled out to consumers in the US anywhere from mid-May to late June, so no one should expect anything to emerge from Apple at this late date. If something does come out, it is likely to take on a significantly different form than previous iterations.
Parsing the message sent to Retail employees by Angela Ahrendts, note that she promises only to "share a little bit more insight," not to roll out a program. In short, Apple no longer needs to give anything away to move the needle at BTS time. Finally, the BTS program in previous years has NOT been authored by the Retail team; rather, it was a product of the Marketing group. Hammering on Angela for the lack of a program this year is entirely inappropriate.
Finally, BTS is not an ongoing entitlement program. A little birdie shared that the bitching and moaning directed at the company when the program moved from freebie iPods to App Store credit was interpreted as a sign that BTS had run out of steam.
Parsing the message sent to Retail employees by Angela Ahrendts, note that she promises only to "share a little bit more insight," not to roll out a program. In short, Apple no longer needs to give anything away to move the needle at BTS time. Finally, the BTS program in previous years has NOT been authored by the Retail team; rather, it was a product of the Marketing group. Hammering on Angela for the lack of a program this year is entirely inappropriate.
Finally, BTS is not an ongoing entitlement program. A little birdie shared that the bitching and moaning directed at the company when the program moved from freebie iPods to App Store credit was interpreted as a sign that BTS had run out of steam.
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Lol. I still call bull. Education is important to Apple Marketing. BTS will happen.
Agreed. I'd suggest you read your own post, back to yourself, as you are in no position to judge ! Lead by example maybe ?
You're right, Education is important to Apple. So important, in fact, that back to school is happening in Apple Retail stores, Authorized Campus Stores, and online, right now. There simply isn't a freebie program tied to it this year, nor is there likely one forthcoming at this late date.
Sorry...
Just because it's late this year, doesn't mean they're stopping the promotion all together. This is an Apple tradition that happens every single year the past few years in order to promote education and plus, it's a better way to up their sales. Yes, there are student discounts already, but the incentive that Apple tends to give customers around this time every year is what make customers continue being customers of Apple. Maybe the approach for BTS will be different this year but there will be a promotion just like every year. This is just like how it's been a couple years back. Promotion would start in June instead of July, then people would think the same thing about BTS and then what do you know? It started later in July. Same thing is happening now. We're use to the July 1-2 BTS offer and are worried that it's gone but they're just starting a little later this year. There's still plenty of time left for back to school shopping since schools tend to start around the 2nd-3rd week of August. Anyways, there's only one way to find out which is to wait and see what Apple does within the next week.
Absolutely. You're on the Tim Apologists Hit List now. Be prepared to be assaulted by incompetent woman comments.
Would you call the Apple Watch rollout successful? The entire roll out? I'm talking, the sell only online, the reservation system to try the watch on, the putting watches in boutique shops before they are even available in Apple retail stores.. You think all of that was successful? Are you saying that she didn't have a giant seat at the table during all of this? I'm thinking that she did...
Or what about this dandy of a quote she sent to retail employees prior the Apple Watch launch:
"This is our moment to shine, this will be a launch unlike any we've ever had before... this is what you were born to do, this is why you are at Apple," Ahrendts told employees hoping to encourage them to re-review the Apple Watch training materials.
We could also get into a broader discussion about the choices that have been made in actually promoting the watch prior to launch.. The MASSIVE marketing campaign that was created by putting the watch on the wrists of celebrities, in fashion magazines, etc. All screaming exclusive, all screaming elite, all something we had never seen from Apple as a company before. Again, were these decisions made by her alone? Probably not.. But did she have a very large seat at the table? Obviously. She just so happened to head an overpriced fashion house prior to Apple offering her 100 million dollars for what purpose I do not know. It's some coincidence, wouldn't you say, that such a marketing direction was taken for the first major product she was a part of after being hired at the company? She seems out of touch to me for what the company has always stood for.
So no, it has nothing to do with her being a woman. It has to do with incompetence and not particularly liking the strategic choices she has made in regards to her very large position in the company.
Hey, bud. The overall tone online itself refutes your argument. It is extremely condescending bordering since she was hired. Im not just talking about here. Ive heard pretty bad things elsewhere.
Comments about her looks, her tone, her being a supposed bitch, her being confused, etc, etc, etc. Never heard those things about any man, EVER. Seriously, I'm tired about this blindness to how casual sexism is when talking about a female CEO or top exec (sounds a lot like the comments about Clinton...)
When its a man, people comment the actions that clearly have been instituted by the guy (and how they failed) and leave the rest of the failure on the company itself (or other execs).
Considering the massive misogyny in online tech circle, please spare me the defense that this can't possibly be the case; yeah right I've been around online 30 years and can't take any such declaration seriously.
I've been a female engineer since the 1980s (when only 5% of people in computer engineering were female) and let me tell you I've seen a glorious helping of crap from male colleagues over the years; many situations are simply hard to believe they could have happened (yet they did).
