“Follow the water” – When Apple “enduranced” to succeed

Tram Ho

In the marketplace, there is always a fairy tale about “the leader”, brands that create the market themselves to dominate, such as Miller Lite and the light beer market, GoPro and action cameras, or in Vietnam it is Lazada with E-Commerce.

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However, the percentage of “first movers” continuing to exist and dominate the market is not as high as people think, because resounding and sustainable success often comes to “next runners”.

Advantages and disadvantages of the first mover

A leader is a brand that gains a competitive advantage when it comes to bringing a new product or service to market. The leading brands often have high customer awareness and loyalty rates, plus other advantages such as:

– Gain economies of scale with longer R&D periods.

– Actively manage resources and set market prices for new products.

– And most importantly, when the leader always has a high market share in the first period, because when customers are used to using the products/services of the first, the cost to replace will be quite expensive. For example, corporations will not want to switch from Windows operating system to Linux or iOS, because it will cost a lot of costs to change the system, train employees …

Another good example is Netflix when it launched its movie streaming platform in 2007. Today, despite competition from Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO and others, Netflix still retains a large market share for its own. me.

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Netflix still accounts for nearly 35% of the European market in 2020 despite a lot of competition

However, being first to the market is never a guarantee of success, as every strategic decision involves risks.

For example, the world’s first “social network” – Friendster. Despite being in the front and attracting a lot of attention, Friendster’s infrastructure quickly became overloaded, not only that, Friendster also attracted large venture capital early on, putting the board of directors under pressure to develop. , ignoring the investment in technology.

Not long after, users quickly switched to Facebook and MySpace with a better experience. And as of now, only Facebook has become a tech giant.

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Despite the early start, Friendster and MySpace were quickly overtaken by the “followers” of Facebook

The late advantage of the giant Apple

In addition to the benefits, the first mover is always “heading the wave” against the risks of the market, always ready to pay the “path fee”, under heavy and intense pressure from the latecomers.

Therefore, the view of “later advantage” appears, when “copy” models can approach the first, looking at the good things to learn and the bad things to avoid.

And the latecomer will still wait patiently, and in the right moment with enough pressure, a spectacular usurpation will take place.

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Even though they appear later, the latecomers still have a lot of advantages

Therefore, “smart follower” is a strategy with a high success rate. Look at Apple, one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world.

The NYU Professor of Marketing explains Apple’s “later advantage” as follows: “In terms of profits, the first often doesn’t bring as much as the late. The first innovators, the first. , often do not bring satisfactory results for shareholders.”

Apple products are almost always behind the “pioneer product”. After all, Apple is not a true leader. Like the iPod after the Walkman, the iPhone after the touch-screen phones from Nokia and Motorola, and the iPad certainly behind the HP tablet.

Instead, Apple always invests time to consider, improve, and only really “goes” when it comes to making sure its products are truly user-friendly.

Take, for example, the early 2000s, when BlackBerry dominated both the smartphone market and technology. But the iPhones born after a dozen years quickly made their “elder” bankrupt.

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With the “late” introduction of the iPhone, Apple completely changed the game, leaving the elder BlackBerry behind

Apple remains committed to “creating the best products that truly enrich people’s lives”. CEO Tim Cook insists the company doesn’t care if the product comes out sooner or later, as long as “we still deliver the best, we never feel embarrassed.”

The first movers can get a lot of glory, but they rarely own all of the success. Because of that, Apple has now become comfortable with being “second person”.

Instead of rushing to bring a new product or idea to market, Apple calmly studies what’s going on, refines its approach, and doesn’t waste time correcting mistakes.

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Source : Genk