Strategic Leadership
In a previous post I documented Apple's meteoric rise in revenue with its stock skyrocketing from just over $12 a share to more than $318 a share in less than eight years...
5,000 percent return on your investment in less than eight years!
2010 is destined to be another phenomenal year for Steve Jobs and California-based Apple.
Reaching a low of $12.72 on April 17, 2003, Apple stock split 2:1 on February 28, 2005 with each share closing at $318.27 on November 4, 2010, the last trading day before the writing of this post. If you invested $1,272 in Apple (100 shares) on April 17, 2003 that investment would have brought $63,654 on November 4, 2010. An unbelievable 5,000 percent increase in less than eight years! (Read more to understand the issues underlying this current post...)
Is Apple stock on the way to a $1000?
Apple stock continues its amazing climb upward, passing $340 a share, causing some to wonder if it's on the way to a $1,000.
Insane idea? With sales up 70% for the most recent quarter, jumping to $26.74 billion from $15.683 billion a year ago and profit climbing to $6.43 a share up from $3.67 last year, today's quarterly results give no indication that this phenomenon is anywhere near slowing down.
WSJ reports: "Eighteen months ago I questioned whether Apple stock could keep up its amazing momentum: "Over the past five years the stock has gained an average of 56% a year, an extraordinary achievement." Only time will tell. But if Apple stock were somehow able to continue booming at the same astonishing rate of the past 18 months, it would hit $500 by October and $1,000 by February 2013.
Ridiculous? Absurd? Impossible? You make the call. You often see musings like this right at the peak of a stock's fortune. Wouldn't that be ironic? But the options market is already taking bets that Apple will top $500 in the next couple of years. The $500 call options, good till January 2013, cost $20 per share." (Read the entire report...)
The above report was delivered prior to Job's just-announced leave of absence for health reasons.
Can Apple get there without Steve Jobs?
In my previous post (November 6, 2010), I accounted how, just prior to achieving its first $Billion in revenue (the first personal computer company to do so), Apple's board, not confident Jobs could keep the momentum going, replaced him with another CEO. After several years of up and down revenue, Apple turned in a $Billion loss resulting in Apple's board putting the company up for sale. During that roller-coaster ride, accompanied by a revolving door of new CEOs, it became apparent that three critical factors were responsible for Apple's success — the company was successful only when all three were in play.
One of the three essential factors is Steve Jobs. Originally, Apple's board was convinced that the company wouldn't continue growing with Jobs at the helm. Later, almost too late, Apple's board realized that the company couldn't survive without him.
- Apple CEO John Scully states: "I'm actually convinced that if Steve hadn't come back when he did — if they had waited another six months — Apple would have been history. It would have been gone, absolutely gone."
Today we learned that Jobs has once again asked for a leave of absence for health reasons. He will retain leadership of the company as CEO, but has turned over day-to-day operations to COO Tim Cook.
In the previous post (November 6, 2010), I posed the following question and critical observations:
- Since Jobs is an essential factor in Apple's success, the question on many people's mind is how Apple will function without him? The company came close to dealing with that question last year (referring to 2009). Apple's boom to bust cycles during the 80's and 90's show how critical that answer is to Apple's long-term performance.
I see Jobs as a unique, strategic innovation catalyst — a role that will be extremely difficult to fill if he doesn't return.
What was posed as a theoretical question in a previous post is now a reality. How will Apple function without Steve Jobs — not just in the near-term but, more importantly, in the long-term?
Postscript
The issues addressed in this blog, as well as the supporting examples, are targeted to the leadership of public companies on the way to a $Billion in revenue. These issues, though, are also critical to the strategic success of all profit and non-profit organizations from early stage to mature.
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David Seregow, Ed. D. is Founder and President of Attaine Performance Corporation, providing strategic guidance, collaboration, and coaching to high-potential companies. www.attaine.com Copyright 2010 David Seregow, Ed. D. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post, print, or email this entire posting if full attribution is included and the post is not edited.
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