No, this is not going to be a rant about their supposed lack of innovation.
How they seem to be obsessed creating products based on their eco-system, which means everything ends up being a derivative of the iPhone.
Nor will I talk about how Kickstarter seemingly is the place to go to witness glimpses of the future rather than Apple.com.
I’m not going to mention any of that because:
1. Too many unqualified people have said these sorts of thing already.
2. Apple are still doing incredibly well, thank-you-very-much.
3. Most companies would sell their grandmother in the blink of an eye to be as innovative & as successful as them.
4. I still buy their products in the bucketload.
5. My ex-colleague, Baz, is there and he’s ridiculously smart and he wouldn’t let things go on like that if they were truly that bad.
[Did you like how I used the Sir Martin Sorrell technique of saying what you’re not going to say so you can say it?]
No … what I’m going to do is explain why Apple are [allegedly] losing their momentum because of something entirely different.
Bad choice of partners.
Yes, I’ve said it … Apple’s taste in partners is going downhill.
OK … OK … I know they never let these things go too far down the road to end up hurting them, but the time, effort and cost that occurs because of choosing the wrong partner must have some negative commercial implications at some point.
What the hell am I going on about?
Well a few days ago I received an email from a recruitment company called Multimage.
This is what it said:
__________________________________________________________________________
Hi Rob
This is XXXXXX from Multimage, a headhunter.
Our company is expertise in sourcing high quality personnel for large multination corporation to fill in their executive and managerial positions.
This position from: Apple, based in Beijing, China.
Waiting your feedback and CV.
Any question let me know.
__________________________________________________________________________
Now putting aside the terrible grammar [which I sort-of can accept because they’re based in China], the obvious ‘cut & paste’ element of the note and the overall clinical coldness of the correspondence, it gets worse.
Much, much worse.
How?
Because the actual job they wanted to fill was for a ‘Cross Functional Producer’.
WHAT THE FUCK IS A CROSS FUNCTIONAL PRODUCER!!!
At what point did this person think I would be appropriate?
I don’t even know what a cross functional producer is or does.
In addition, when I looked at the ‘job requirements’, it said this:
+ Bachelors degree, MBA a plus.
+ Ability to work both at a strategic and executional level, often within the same hour.
+ Fluency in Mandarin and English is required, both spoken and written.
Fucking hell.
Apart from the fact I don’t have many O levels, let alone a degree and my level of English proficiency is only mildly better than my Mandarin, who the fuck ‘sells’ a job by saying you have to be strategic and executional – often within the same hour.
What the hell is going on at Apple?
Are they actually complicit in this sort of rubbish or simply a victim of choosing a bad recruitment firm?
Given the fact Apple are micro-managers of the highest order, I can only assume they approved this rubbish.
Terrifying.
But all that aside – which is almost impossible to do – the recruitment firm in question needs to take a long hard look at itself.
I don’t just mean for the bad impression they are giving about themselves [let alone their client], but for the utterly terrible process they have seemingly adopted to identify possible candidates … a process that clients are paying for because they’re under the impression this recruitment firm is ‘diligent and professional’ in their quest to identify the best possible talent for whatever specialised role they’re endeavouring to fill.
Despicable.
Seriously, based on this first impression, I don’t think I’d respond to an email from Multimage even if they were talking about a job as Angelina Jolie & Megan Fox’s vibrator so for their sake, I hope this is an isolated incident that they can learn from because if it isn’t, the implications and ramifications are scary. Not just for them, but for every client and candidate they deal with.
Now while I’m sure Apple would never see anyone put forward by Multimage unless they had the right credentials, they need to stop their partners getting away with this sort of shit because to me – not only is it terrible business practice [both in terms of cash and efficiency] it makes me question the quality and standards they are currently living by.
Over to you Baz.