Ondrej Holzman For a whole year, Apple was looking for the ideal candidate for the position of head of its retail business. And when he found it, it was more than six months before he actually sat down in his new chair. The ideal candidate is a woman, her name is Angela Ahrendtová, and she comes to Apple with a huge reputation. Can a fragile woman at first glance, but who is a born leader inside, manage hundreds of apple stores around the world and at the same time take care of online sales?
On Tim Cook finally finding a new VP of retail and online sales, informed Apple already in October last year. At that time, however, Angela Ahrendts was still fully devoted to her position as executive director of the fashion house Burrbery, where she experienced the most successful period of her career to date. He now comes to Apple as an experienced leader who managed to revive a moribund fashion brand and triple its profits. Alongside Tim Cook and Jony Ive, she will be the only woman in Apple's top management, but this should not be a problem for her, as she will bring experience to Cupertino that no one - except Tim Cook - has.
It will be especially crucial for Apple that after eighteen long months, when Tim Cook managed the business and sales activities himself, the key segment will get its boss again. After the departure of John Browett, who did not combine his thinking with the company's culture and had to leave after half a year, Apple Story - both physical and online - was led by a team of experienced managers, but the absence of a leader was felt. The Apple Story has stopped showing such dazzling results in recent months and Tim Cook must feel that some changes need to be made. Apple's strategy towards its stores has not changed for many years, but time is inexorably running and it is necessary to react. It is in this scenario that Angela Ahrendts, who has managed to build a recognized network of stores around the world at Burberry, has the perfect role to play.
For Cook, Ahrendts' success in her new role is critical. After reaching out and signing John Browett in 2012, he can't afford to waver. Months and years of unhappy management could have an adverse effect on the Apple story. So far, however, Ahrendts' address at Apple has been overwhelmingly positive. When Cook announced her engagement half a year ago, many watched in amazement at what prey the Apple boss was able to attract to his company. He comes with a truly great persona in his field and with it great expectations. But nothing will be easy.
Born for fashion
Although in recent years Angela Ahrendtsová has been working in Great Britain, where not long ago she got even an appreciation of the British Empire, her move to Apple will be a homecoming. Ahrendts grew up in the Indianapolis suburb of New Palestine, Indiana. As the third of six children of a small businessman and a model, she gravitated towards fashion from an early age. Her steps were directed to Ball State University, where she received a bachelor's degree in business and marketing in 1981. After school, she moved to New York, where she intended to start her career. And she thrived.
She became president of Donna Karan International in 1989, then held the position of executive vice president of Henri Bedel and also served as vice president of Fifth & Pacific Companies, where she was responsible for the complete line of Liz Claiborne products. In 2006, she received an offer from the Burberry fashion house, which she initially did not want to hear about, but finally met the fateful man of her professional life, Christopher Bailey, and accepted the offer to become the executive director. So she moved to London with her husband and three children and began resuscitating a fading fashion brand.
The art of driving
Ahrendts did not come to a company of the size and renown that Burberry is today. On the contrary, the situation of a brand with a long history dating back to the middle of the 19th century was very similar to the one in which Apple found itself in 1997. And Ahrendts was a little Steve Jobs for Burberry, as she managed to get the company back on its feet in a few years. What's more, to rise up to one hundred of the most valuable companies in the world.
Burberry's portfolio was fragmented at the time of her arrival and the brand was suffering from a loss of identity. Ahrendts began to act immediately - she bought out foreign companies that used the Burberry brand and thereby reduced its exclusivity, and radically cut the products offered. With these steps, she wanted to make Burberry a premium, luxury brand again. That's why she left the tartan pattern so typical for Burberry on only a few products. In her new place of work, she cut expenses, fired unnecessary employees and slowly headed towards bright tomorrows.
“In luxury, ubiquity will kill you. It means that you are no longer luxurious," said Ahrendtsová in an interview for Harvard Business Review. "And we slowly became ubiquitous. Burberry needed to be more than just an old, beloved British company. It needed to be developed into a global luxury fashion brand that could compete with much larger competition.”
Looking back on Angela Ahrendts career at Burberry now, we can say that her mission has been successful. Revenues tripled during her reign of the fashion house and Burberry was able to build over 500 stores around the world. That is why it now ranks among the five largest luxury brands in the world.
Connecting with the modern world
However, Apple is not hiring the 500-year-old Ahrendts to run the entire company. Of course, this position remains with Tim Cook, but Ahrendts also brings with her enormous experience in the field of business. The more than XNUMX brick-and-mortar stores around the world she was able to build at Burberry speak volumes. In addition, Ahrendts will be the first Apple manager who will have complete supervision not only of retail, but also of online sales, which in the end may turn out to be a very important authority. Even with online sales and connecting the store with the latest technologies, Ahrendts has a lot of experience from her British station, and her vision is clear.
“I grew up in the physical world and I speak English. The next generations are growing up in a digital world and talking socially. Whenever you talk to employees or customers, you have to do it on a social platform, because that's the way people talk today." she explained Ahrendts thinking about today's world a year before Apple announced her hiring. It should be recalled that she did not command any technology company that manufactures mobile devices. It was still a fashion brand, but Ahrendts recognized that mobile devices, the Internet and social networks are what people are interested in today.
According to her, mobile phones are the entry device to the brand's secrets. In the shops of the future, the user must feel as if he had entered a website. Customers will need to present products containing chips that provide important information, and stores will also need to interweave other interactive elements, such as a video that plays when a person picks up the product. That's exactly what Angela Ahrendts has about the future of stores, which is already behind the door, and it can tell a lot about how the iconic Apple Story will develop.
Although Apple is still building new and new stores, their growth has slowed significantly. Just three or four years ago, sales grew by more than 40 percent year-on-year, in 2012 it was by 33 percent, and last year they even ended the Apple Story with a balance of only 7% growth compared to the previous period.
Same values
Equally important to Tim Cook is the fact that Angela Ahrendts shares the same values as Apple. As John Browett proved, you can be the best in your field, but if you don't embrace the company's culture, you won't succeed. Browett put profits over customer experience and burned out. Ahrendtsová, on the other hand, looks at everything through a slightly different lens.
"To me, the true success of Burberry is not measured by financial growth or brand value, but by something much more human: one of the most connected, creative and compassionate cultures in the world today, revolving around common values and united by a common vision." she wrote Ahrendts last year after it was already known that she would be leaving for Apple. Eight years of building eventually created the company Ahrendts says she always wanted to work for, and her experience at Burberry also taught her one thing: "The powerful experience reinforced my firm belief that it's all about the people."
Ahrendts, otherwise a devout Christian who reads the Bible daily, will probably have no problem fitting into Apple's very specific culture. At least as far as professed values and opinions are concerned. Although Apple does not sell jewelry and clothing for millions, its products tend to be the more premium goods in the technology world. It is this market that Ahrendts understands perfectly, just as she understands the need to ensure the best experience for customers in her stores. That's what Burberry was always about, that's what Apple was always about. However, thanks to Ahrendts, the Apple Story can now move to the next level, because the likeable American is perfectly aware of the importance of the digital age, and few people in the world have so far been able to connect it to the shopping experience itself like her.
Under her leadership, Burberry began to enthusiastically adopt everything new that just appeared on the market. Ahrendts and technology, this connection belongs together like perhaps no other. She was one of the first to recognize the potential of Instagram and began using it to promote her own brand. Deep within Burberry, she also implemented other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and also used world magazines for promotion. Under her, Burberry grew into a truly modern brand of the 21st century. When we look at Apple from this angle, the always media-shy and aloof company remains far behind. It is enough to compare Apple's communication on social networks, that is, where nowadays a very important part of the competitive struggle takes place.
Apple has always remained very down-to-earth in its communication with the customer. It used to offer impeccable service in its stores, but it seems that in 2014 that is no longer enough. It will therefore be very interesting to see how Apple's stores will transform under Ahrendts. The fact that Tim Cook was willing to wait more than half a year for a new addition proves that he firmly believes in his new colleague. "She puts as much emphasis on the customer experience as we do," Cook explained in an email to employees when announcing Ahrendts' hiring last year. "She believes in enriching the lives of others and she's devilishly smart." Ahrendts will only speak to Tim Cook, so it will be up to him how far he will let the transformation of apple sales go.
Maybe a pitfall
Not all that glitters is gold, says a well-known Czech proverb, and even in this case we cannot rule out darker scenarios. Some say Angela Ahrendts is the best hire Apple has made since it brought Steve Jobs back on board in 1997. At the same time, however, it is necessary to realize that a person is now coming to Apple who has had no parallels in the ranks of the company until now.
Angela Ahrendts is a star, a world-class star, who is now entering a society where the highest-ranking people's contact with the media or their attendance at parties is considered an exceptional event. During her career, Ahrendts was surrounded by celebrities from the music and film industry, she often appeared in public, posing for magazine covers. She was definitely not a quiet executive director pulling the strings in the background. What a contrast to Apple's current leadership. Although it has been said that she will easily fit into Apple in terms of values, it may not be easy for Ahrendts to come to terms with the very functioning of the company.
Until now, the energetic businesswoman was used to giving interviews almost whenever someone requested them, maintaining contact with customers and actively communicating on social networks. But now he's coming to a place where he won't be the most senior person, and it will be extremely interesting to see what position he takes at Apple. Either Tim Cook or Jony Ive, two of Apple's most powerful men, will direct it, and the bright star will become a hard-working bee, and outwardly nothing will change for the huge colossus, which, even after the departure of Steve Jobs, is based on great secrecy and aloof relations with the public, or Angela Ahrendtsová will start transforming Apple in her own image, and nowhere is it written that she cannot move from stores to changing the image of the company as such.
If she really does have that much influence in her new role and is unstoppable, then some predict we could be looking at Apple's future CEO. However, such scenarios are still far from being fulfilled. Angela Ahrendts is now not coming to manage the entire company, or even the development of its products. Her number one task will be to consolidate Apple's retail and online sales activities, set a clear vision and bring Apple stores back to the top of the progress and user ratings charts after months of practical limbo.
and the fact that her name is not Ahrendtsová, but only Ahrendts, the bad habits of Czech journalists are pulling my ears and eyes
Interesting that you don't mind Cook, Cook, Jobs, etc. Tilting is natural.
you are confusing the terms tilting and tilting
I don't mind specifically adding ova to other people's names
besides, it bothers me on a server like this, which I don't consider a boulevard for the dull masses and where we know the gender or it can be written differently
clearly tilting / declination, however, what bothers you so much about ova?
this is not a bad habit, it is written like this everywhere. how else do you want to write it?
how else? well, what's her real name, it's true that it's not spelled everywhere, everywhere in the world write her name the way it really is, it doesn't bother me, because it's not her name, just like Hillary Clinton, etc., the reasons were invented by linguists , they just don't like me
Definitely not everywhere in the world, it depends a lot on the structure of the language. For example, in Lithuanian I also inflect male names, Stevas Jobsas and Timas Cookas :-)
It has its reasons.
http://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?id=700
I don't mind the bad habit of Czech journalists to write in Czech.
Fucking ass. about 30 years ago, I didn't see when Milos Skalaka introduced a disco on CST with the name: Samantha Foxova is playing today. and I still liked him a few years later, when he realized his mistake, that this "lady" was not named Samantha Fox, but Samantha Fox. Cili, if I interpret foreign names, then only if I write them grammatically correctly according to the country where the name originated. Samanta Fox is Samanata Fox, Laurene Jobs is not Laurene Jobs, god forbid hard work ;). I'm sorry, it's a different place. Except for the guild, everyone is screwed. please, let's fuck it too. If someone has something written on their identity card, let's transcribe it in the articles and not make it a story behind the Czech language, which has become stale after many centuries ;)
I understand that considering the number of grammatical errors you have made in your text, you must hate CJ very much. But I really have no idea why others (including the editors) should submit to it.
Be that as it may, the article is not in Czech, it is stale business corporate language of the 1st order.
(Burberry)… is "one of the most interconnected, creative and compassionate cultures in the world today, revolving around common values and linked by a common vision," - what did the poet mean by this outpouring? Common values and compassion in a company that sells overpriced rags to snobs?
Hmm. I once saw a videocast of Father Mára, where he said that when he started, he didn't know Czech either, but it wasn't important. It was important to convey my idea, and the article has it, even if there are deviations and to some the article may seem like "corporate language", maybe if I looked closely, I might find some rough stuff here and there...
We all evolve and so does the author. On the other hand, compared to our other news servers, our native language here is absolutely exemplary. In any case, I would rather welcome a discussion on the topic, I would solve the spelling directly with the author at his address, which can be found in contact.