taking a leaf out of their books

this august has been a month of upheavals for the IT industry. hp had posted weak revenue earnings (again!) for the last quarter, in addition to announcements that it would close down its tablet and smartphones businesses and was considering the divestiture (or spin-off) of its pc business division. less than a week later, steve jobs resigned as ceo of apple, but had been appointed as chairman of the board. these major news from hp and apple may seem disjointed, but there's one common lesson we can learn from these two IT giants.

hp's failure was caused because it became a bit too complacent with its series of high-profile acquisitions--compaq, palm, 3com, the most recent, autonomy, and a whole lot of others. a lot of these acquisitions were expensive, but without  sufficient r&d to back them up, hp had to contend with being a market follower despite its persistent struggles to become a leader in several markets for the past years. the company has invested a lot of talent and money in developing formidable sales teams, but all this effort fell short when it came to coming up with new game-changing products. it has been reported that hp supposedly reduced budget for r&d. as a result of hp's recent developments, hp stock had fallen to its lowest in six years.

*picture courtesy of http://pursuitist.com/tech/steve-jobs-resigns-ceo-apple/ *

on the other hand, apple embodies innovation with a capital i. but prior to its prominence in brand recognition, apple struggled for years to increase profitability. it only made a comeback in the late 90's after steve jobs rejoined the company as adviser, then eventually as ceo. with mr. jobs at the helm again, it didn't take long before the company came out with stylized macs, iPods, iPhones, and most recently, the market leader in tablets, the iPad. despite jobs' resignation recently, apple's stock has remained surprisingly strong compared to other companies who have had a drastic change in leadership. this is because of speculations that even if jobs had left his post, apple would still remain the same company that jobs had fought so hard to rebuild--a company that stays ahead of the pack. hardly anyone can remember that time when apple was considered to be a "dying" company.

these two powerhouses show us that innovation plays a big part in their survival. in the bigger scheme of globalization and competition, it doesn't really matter if you have plenty of cash, if you're at the top or at the bottom, or if you have just acquired a string of small companies. global interconnectivity makes things happen so much faster than it was 100 years ago, and what's important right now for a company is to have the ability to reinvent itself. it's not merely about going with the trends or selling what the people want; rather, it's more about bucking the trends and creating a want that people would buy. and you can only innovate if you made the effort to invest in r&d. how would you know if something would work if you didn't take the time to research on market behavior and develop a product? sure, some innovation would be failures, but would failure be so fearsome if you know you can come up with something better? it's interesting to note that what caused hp's downfall is actually apple's winning strategy.

us mere mortals don't have the billions (yet!) to be at the same level as hp or apple, but both teach us that self-reinvention can take you leaps and bounds. learning doesn't stop when we graduate from college (or graduate school); it is a constant process which we have to go through as long as we live. it's a matter of keeping an open mind to new ideas, and in some cases, trying to learn more of what we think we already know. we have to constantly invest time, effort, and money (sadly, this cannot be taken out of the equation) to broaden our knowledge and experiences. it's about knowing how to differentiate yourself from the person sitting beside you. in short, learning how to make our ordinary selves into extraordinary beings just might be the key to survival.