Joe O’Sullivan

Strategic Concepts & Mechanics

Signature MoveThirteen-Hour Meeting as Onboarding Ritual

Relationship LeverageFoxconn's Loss-Leader-to-Lock-In Playbook

Risk DoctrineTacit Knowledge as Accidental Export

Competitive AdvantageApple Squeeze: Invaluable Experience Over Margin

Identity & CultureVerbal Jujitsu Procurement Culture

Signature MoveDesign the Impossible Then Manufacture the Impossible

Signature MoveFifty Business Class Seats Daily to Shenzhen

Operating PrincipleZero Inventory as Theological Doctrine

Strategic PatternUnconstrained Design Not Cost Arbitrage

Cornerstone MoveSecret $275 Billion Kowtow to Keep the Machine Running

Signature MoveSilk Tie Competitions to Train Negotiators

Cornerstone MoveScrew It, iTunes for Windows

Cornerstone MoveBuy the Machines, Own the Factory Floor Without Owning a Factory

Signature MoveDrive Off the Cliff to Prove the Brakes Don't Work

Cornerstone MoveTrain Everyone Then Pit Them Against Each Other

Risk DoctrineRule By Law as Corporate Leash

Decision FrameworkBig Potato Small Potato: Positional Power Over Fairness

Primary Evidence

"As Apple established more of a presence in the country, Joe O’Sullivan from operations moved to Tokyo in 1993 to head up supplier quality—meaning he was to oversee production and ensure it was up to snuff. “I was in Japan about five minutes, and it was like, ‘Apple can teach the Japanese nothing,’ ” he says."

Source:Apple in China

"Joe O’Sullivan, in Operations, calls the iTunes-for-PC move “the single biggest strategic decision that has enabled the company to be what it is today.”"

Source:Apple in China

"A practical compromise was reached. Apple took care of the guts inside the computer—basically the same circuit boards that were in its G3 desktop—but it would rely on a supplier to build the CRT. Then units would be sent to an Apple site for final assembly, test, and pack out, or FATP. That way, Apple had the last look before any computer was shipped, giving Jobs the level of control he desired. “Steve was adamant that we would manufacture the iMac internally,” says Joe O’Sullivan, who was by then leading operations in Singapore. Jobs asked O’Sullivan to kill the partnership with SCI in Colorado, a cancellation that cost Apple $5 million and infuriated SCI. Instead, Jobs asked O’Sullivan to turn Singapore into a pilot plant for iMac manufacturing. “It was our best, our cheapest manufacturing plant,” the Irishman says. “And I was running it. So he had a throat to grasp.”"

Source:Apple in China

Appears In Volumes

Apple in China