Google vs. Apple

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2012 im Fachbereich BWL - Unternehmensforschung, Operations Research, Note: 1,3, Hochschule Fresenius; Köln, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: He is creative, innovative and brilliant: what would Apple be without Steve Jobs? And how did a small computer builder create such a successful company and revolutionise the whole computer, mobile phone, music and film industry? Steve Jobs is Apple and Apple is Steve Jobs. - What makes him unique and indispensable to the company? The question arises as to whether Apple can exist and be successful without its CEO - Is Apple merely an exceptional case or is it a given that a CEO is a company's main resource? This assignment entitled 'Google vs. Apple - Jobs is the main resource of Apple and the reason why the company wants to be more successful in the future than Google' focuses on the company Apple and the importance of its CEO Steve Jobs. To answer the questions above, this assignment compares Steve Jobs to another CEO, Eric Schmidt, and in doing so highlights why Steve Jobs is ranked No.1 among the 25 most powerful business managers in the world by Fortune magazine, ahead of successful managers like Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt. ( Spiegel Online a, 2007) To answer the questions and present the thesis, this assignment is structured into 3 chapters: the second chapter describes the history of Apple, with a special presentation about Steve Jobs and his Apple activities. In 2.2 I present some of Apples main success factors. Apple's successful history is all down to Steve Jobs. Linked to that, 2.3 focuses in detail on the main success factors of Apple by describing Steve Jobs and his management style. 2.4 then compares the importance of Steve Jobs as the CEO of Apple to Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. The conclusion sums up the topic and demonstrates why Steve Jobs is the main resource of the company and the reason for Apple's success in the past. It will also show why he is the reason that Apple wants to be more successful in the future than its competitor Google. So the conclusion points out why Google's CEO is less important than Apple's, and as a result I want to generalise whether a CEO is indispensable to a company or not.