Dominic Houlder is Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. Dominic has been using this case every year since 1995, teaching it a total of about 50 times to date.

My colleagues at London Business School (LBS) have been following Apple since the mid-1980s. In the early 1990s, Executive Education at LBS ran a custom leadership programme for Apple Europe and many of the issues featured in Yoffie’s 1992 case were live at the time: I believe that his case featured on the Apple programme soon after its publication. Since then, the case has been a core element of our introductory course Understanding General Management, which runs across all of our post-experience degree programmes and which I helped design.

Cliffhanger moment

The case features Apple at a cliffhanger moment in its evolution and allows for a rich debate between proponents of outside-in versus inside-out approaches to strategy. It highlights the crucial issue of timing in determining a general manager’s (Sculley’s) freedom of action. Unusually, it allows a cross-disciplinary approach to teaching by integrating strategy, organisational behaviour, marketing and accounting. The issues in the case are perennial, and continue to be pertinent to the situation of Apple today – and others wrestling with the scope of their ecosystems.

Interesting reactions

The most interesting reactions I get are from my Executive MBA students who confront comparable issues today. Current twists and turns in Apple’s fortunes greatly influence the debate about Apple’s choices in 1992.

I strongly recommend the case: it works well because it brings together the business challenge and personal challenge facing a leader such as John Sculley. The accompanying video of Sculley in class at Harvard Business School is an essential element of the teaching plan.