Donna Dubinsky at Apple

Donna Dubinsky and Apple Computer, Inc. (A)

1. Why was Dubinsky initially so successful at Apple?

• Donna was a bright lady who loved challenges. As she continued to prove herself capable of efficiently handling any responsibilities, her responsibilities grew. She continuously proved herself, which led her to ascend the stairs of success so fast. She grabbed every opportunity thrown to her and delivered more than any one’s expectations. She had a few very unique qualities which paved her way to success. Some of them are as follow :-

1. Spine to stand by her opinion, even against senior management.
2. Whole heartedly supporting company’s decision, even in the case when she does not agree with it.
3. She is very good at taking risks.
4. She never really cares for her profit, but she can fight with anybody for “her people”.

1. Why did she respond the way she did to the Just-In-Time (JIT) proposal? Please try to see the situation from her point of view – intellectually, organizationally and emotionally.

• Donna worked closely on the distribution system of Apple and had more knowledge of the system than anyone else in the organization.
• She knew that the new strategy of eliminating the distribution centers and

making it “demand-oriented”  from being “supply-driven” would not work for the organization as it removes the buffer which she believed to be crucial for the business.

• The new strategy did not take into account the customer’s complaints and returns, which was against one on the values of Apple to be have empathy for customers.
• Suppliers had to split customer’s requests between two of Apple’s divisions and their perspective management, adding to their inconvenience.
• The inefficiency in distribution system, as pointed out by those supporting new strategy, was not due to inefficiency in warehousing and physical distribution, but just in forecasting.
• Donna believed that the new strategy was radical, which when failed, will lead to the organization to shut down and she could not let that happen when she already knew it and felt strongly about it. It was not in her character to not fight for what she strongly believed in, let the organization fail and calmly walk away from it.

1. What in your view could she have done differently? Please be specific.

• She could have been very clear in expressing her ideas to the upper management.
• She could have supported her claims with facts and figures.
• Rather than simply counter-pointing the management representing the new strategy, she should have clearly outlined the issues.
• She sould have not only highlighted the problems, as she already did, but she should also have come up with brilliant solutions to all those problems.
• She could have suggested a new model for distribution, which neither had inefficiencies of the old system nor the radicalness of the new proposal.
• Rather than being emotional about the system that she had been working on, she could have been more acceptable towards its inefficiencies and make a strategy to remove them.
• Lastly, when she already had put all her ideas and efforts together; she could have the backbone to strongly present her new model, which she finally decided to do.
• She should not have had the idea of walking away from the issue by switching jobs. Given her character, she would have felt guilty of not doing her best, to save the organization from a disaster.

1. Examine whatever other issues you find relevant in the case.

• Lack of decision making freedom for middle management: I found that there was a big loophole in the management system of an organization of reputation as good as Apple. Though it had many high caliber employees in the middle management, and they were involved in all decision making processes, the final decision used to be what senior management thought to be correct. For example, in the discussions on the new strategy for distribution, the points presented by Campbell had many loopholes which were pointed by Donna, but they were ignored to reach on a conclusion, as decided by the senior management.
• Replicating competitor’s strategy without cost-benefit analysis : When Jobs had a dinner with Fred Smith, CEO of Federal Express, he realized that their closest competitor used “Just-in-Time “strategy for distribution, and decided to adopt the same for Apple. He forgot to consider various facts that makes Apple different from IBM. Apple’s 50% products are manufactured off-site, and there has to be a buffer for returns and customer’s complains, given the value of Apple being customer centric.
• Sudden change in decisions without informing junior stakeholders : In the meeting to discuss new strategy, Donna was preparing presentation and had spent a lot of effort on that. But just a day before, Coleman decided to give the presentation to Sculley, instead of Donna giving presentation to Weaver. This clearly depicted the toll that inside weaknesses and conflicts in opinion had taken on the integrity and team spirit of the organization. Not to mention, another stepping away from the values of Apple.
• Lack of respect for individual performance: As per one of Apple’s values, each employee can and must make a difference; for in the final analysis, INDIVIDUALS determine the character and strength of Apple. But in this case, in spite of Donna repeatedly pushing her ideas and disagreement from the proposed strategy, Senior management is not letting her propose her ideas and solution to the problem. I strongly feel that any organization cannot grow without valuing each of their employees and giving an opportunity to present their ideas. Not only this, her ideas should be given full credit and should be considered while arriving at any decision or conclusion.