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           Insiders Explain Apple's Unusual Organizational Structure

   Josh Centers

   Steve Jobs is credited with the greatest business turnaround in
   history, transforming [1]the struggling Apple into one of the largest
   and most powerful companies in the world, with market-dominating
   products. How did he do it? He started by firing all of Apple's general
   managers and restructuring the company.

   In the [2]Harvard Business Review, Apple VP Joel Podolyny, dean of
   [3]Apple University, and Morten Hansen, a faculty member at both Apple
   University and UC Berkeley, have written an extensive examination of
   how Jobs refactored the company upon his return, and how Apple has
   built upon that structure ever since. When Jobs returned to Apple, it
   was organized around products like a conventional company, with a
   division dedicated to the Macintosh, another to the Newton, and so on.
   Jobs decided that this approach hampered Apple's ability to innovate,
   so he switched the company to a functional structure, where there were
   divisions for hardware and software, and individual product managers
   were insulated from short-term market pressures. And it ensures that
   work isn't unnecessarily duplicated'a 600-person camera hardware group
   provides technology to multiple product lines.

   Two keys enable this approach to work. One is that Jobs emphasized
   having managers be product experts, instead of bringing in
   general-purpose management. (The idea of having managers who understand
   their products deeply is still a foreign concept in the corporate
   world.) The other is that senior R&D executives receive bonuses based
   on the performance of the entire company, instead of just their own
   products. That lets Apple experiment with less-popular products like
   the Apple TV and HomePod rather than focusing on just iPhones.

   The entire article is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the
   business of Apple.

   [4]Read original article

References

   1. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-31-fi-10396-story.html
   2. https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation
   3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_University
   4. https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation

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