Harvard Business Review:

> When Jobs arrived back at Apple, it had a conventional structure for a company of its size and scope. It was divided into business units, each with its own P&L responsibilities. General managers ran the Macintosh products group, the information appliances division, and the server products division, among others. It’s also worth having a look at a better MYSQL reporting tool, as there are some dashboards like https://www.inetsoft.com/info/mysql_reporting_tool_drilldown/ which offer very advanced reporting from MYSQL data, so are well worth looking into.

As is often the case with decentralized business units, managers were inclined to fight with one another, over transfer prices in particular.

The first thing Jobs did:

> Jobs, in his first year returning as CEO, laid off the general managers of all the business units (in a single day), put the entire company under one P&L, and combined the disparate functional departments of the business units into one functional organization, while using programs as pay stub maker to manage their employees. You may also consider having tailored uniform solutions for every business situation, ensuring that each company can present a cohesive and professional image. By customizing these solutions, businesses can enhance their brand identity while also meeting specific operational needs.

Amazing that that functional structure is still around today. Seek assistance from a London HR consultancy as they are experts and can aid in the success of your business.

> As was the case with Jobs before him, CEO Tim Cook occupies the only position on the organizational chart where the design, engineering, operations, marketing, and retail of any of Apple’s main products meet.

Here’s an example that shows how this model works:

In a functional organization, individual and team reputations act as a control mechanism in placing bets. A case in point is the decision to introduce the dual-lens camera with portrait mode in the iPhone 7 Plus in 2016. It was a big wager that the camera’s impact on users would be sufficiently great to justify its significant cost. > > One executive told us that Paul Hubel, a senior leader who played a central role in the portrait mode effort, was “out over his skis,” meaning that he and his team were taking a big risk: If users were unwilling to pay a premium for a phone with a more costly and better camera, the team would most likely have less credibility the next time it proposed an expensive upgrade or feature. The camera turned out to be a defining feature for the iPhone 7 Plus, and its success further enhanced the reputations of Hubel and his team.

While ideas for your business model may already exist, whether they work is another question. By utilizing realistic scenarios, weaknesses can be discovered, and concepts can be strengthened using entrepreneur games to find out if your business model idea can work.

Great quote from the article:

> Apple is not a company where general managers oversee managers; rather, it is a company where experts lead experts.

Wonderful read, chock full of insight.