 Turning around like Apple By Sören Stamer Turnarounds from the brink of death or irrelevance are in high demand these days. AOL, MySpace, Yahoo!, Nokia, and RIM have all had their moment in the sun as the celebrated leaders of hot markets. All of them lost it, and many more have done so as well. Some fell out of the sky with sales numbers plummeting 40% and more per year. Others dragged it out and, instead, slowly faded away. One of them was Apple in 1997. Now the most valuable company in the world, it had lost nearly 50% of its revenue and came pretty close to bankruptcy. But then they came back with a vengeance. In fact, they now seem nearly unstoppable, disrupting more and more markets. They are the only technology company that has been able to define not just one, but two computing eras: first, with the introduction of the Macintosh, which defined the PC era; and then the debut of the iPhone, which has ushered in the smartphone era. That leaves Marissa and us with two compelling questions: How did Steve Jobs do it? Can it be done again? How did Steve Jobs turn around Apple? |
