Apple: Frugal to a Fault?
“Ultimately, for them to sustain their growth and be successful in the long term, they’re going to have to move in new directions and tackle some new product lines that they don’t have and haven’t historically done,” says Van Baker, an analyst who covers the company for industry research group Gartner. “That’s going to take significant investment.”
I wonder — another way to do things is empower some people to make decisions and just try something. Granted new software and hardware can take R&D but often through the exploration of design in new ideas takes on the form of R&D in motion.
The whole way Apple has embraced podcasting feels like R&D in motion. The procedures of the landing pages are a bit obfuscated from the outside, who gets featured, how does one get in a large banner, etc… but this way they are nimble and moving very quickly into a realm they had zero presence less than a year ago.
You can’t push new tools and strategies out the door if you always have to create a dedicated research group to do so. You will always benefit from a highly focused R&D team no matter what but in reality, a lot of small shops, no matter what industry do this on a day to day basis.