What would be great is if Deidre is temporary and they convince Ron Johnson to come back. He was great at this role. Apple would be lucky to get him back.
Yes - Ron was outstanding. He would’ve saved JCPenney with more time...and a better interim plan.
Johnson was saddle with a brain-dead Board. JCP will be the next retailer to file for Chapter 7/11.
Johnson was the moron who changed pricing before he changed the stores (and with it the clientele). It was the same people shopping there but now without the coupons/sales and very confusing pricing structure. Anyone with half a brain could’ve seen that was a disaster waiting to happen.
The pricing structure was not confusing at all, in fact if I remember right it was very simple at $20, $30 or $40 per item. He got rid of the constant coupons and timing of sales, etc. It seemed like a great idea, but apparently people like buying $40 items with a 50% off coupon rather than just paying $20 for the item.
Yeah, this was perplexing. I don’t shop at JCP tho.
This is a pretty well known phenomenon. A friend of mine ran a business where he would get complaints about prices, so he raised the price 20% and offered 20% off coupons and stopped hearing complaints. Go figure.
The head of retail has nothing to do with the price of iPhones or how Macs are designed.
It does when the money spent on her and her dumb ideas could have been much better spent.
What dumb ideas do you attribute to her? Who would you have wanted hired instead?
A man, clearly.
@6502: "I never said there aren't women employees at Apple. Angela is the token
woman they drag out the most to say "look, we have women in leadership
at Apple". She's accomplished nothing of significance at Apple, yet
brings in a massive salary and pays retail employees crap. The only
other one they drag out is Lisa Jackson who says the same thing every
time on how environmentally friendly their products are. Yeah, we get
it. And wow, Apple has a female head of HR; I've rarely seen a company
that doesn't have a female head of HR."
Apple just "drags out" women who have no skills or credentials and accomplish nothing, according to this guy.
I get back to this being so SUDDEN. No rumors, no hints, no nothing. Say what you will about the web, but things like this always seem to start leaking onto Reddit, Twitter, or the other tech press a few days or weeks before they come to light. This just came out of the blue.
Plus putting the head of HR in there seems to me to be an "Oh crap we have to get someone in that position. Who's available for the next little while until we can find someone better," choice. This all strikes me as a surprise. Either she dropped a bombshell at today's board meeting, or there's some skeleton in her closet that's about to surface, or they discovered something she was doing that wasn't copacetic.
Nothing about this seems planned.
Couldn't agree more. This tweet made it seem like she would be around longer
Not a fan of the direction she has taken the stores. No more Genius Bar, an iconic feature. Loud and chaotic ambiance. No “place” to get service, just people in T-shirts lurking around with nothing to indicate what their specific function is. No more “countdown” list on a big video screen to give you some idea of how long before it’s your turn. As far as the town square concept? Get serious, nobody goes there to socialize. Get in and get out before you go deaf.
What would be great is if Deidre is temporary and they convince Ron Johnson to come back. He was great at this role. Apple would be lucky to get him back.
Yes - Ron was outstanding. He would’ve saved JCPenney with more time...and a better interim plan.
Johnson was saddle with a brain-dead Board. JCP will be the next retailer to file for Chapter 7/11.
Johnson was the moron who changed pricing before he changed the stores (and with it the clientele). It was the same people shopping there but now without the coupons/sales and very confusing pricing structure. Anyone with half a brain could’ve seen that was a disaster waiting to happen.
The pricing structure was not confusing at all, in fact if I remember right it was very simple at $20, $30 or $40 per item. He got rid of the constant coupons and timing of sales, etc. It seemed like a great idea, but apparently people like buying $40 items with a 50% off coupon rather than just paying $20 for the item.
Yeah, this was perplexing. I don’t shop at JCP tho.
This is a pretty well known phenomenon. A friend of mine ran a business where he would get complaints about prices, so he raised the price 20% and offered 20% off coupons and stopped hearing complaints. Go figure.
The coupon would need to be 16.66% to bring the price back to where it originally was.
What would be great is if Deidre is temporary and they convince Ron Johnson to come back. He was great at this role. Apple would be lucky to get him back.
Yes - Ron was outstanding. He would’ve saved JCPenney with more time...and a better interim plan.
Johnson was saddle with a brain-dead Board. JCP will be the next retailer to file for Chapter 7/11.
Johnson was the moron who changed pricing before he changed the stores (and with it the clientele). It was the same people shopping there but now without the coupons/sales and very confusing pricing structure. Anyone with half a brain could’ve seen that was a disaster waiting to happen.
The pricing structure was not confusing at all, in fact if I remember right it was very simple at $20, $30 or $40 per item. He got rid of the constant coupons and timing of sales, etc. It seemed like a great idea, but apparently people like buying $40 items with a 50% off coupon rather than just paying $20 for the item.
You don’t change the pricing structure before you’ve re-modeled the stores and brought in new merchandise. I hate coupons and marking something up just to slap a 30% sign on it but that’s what the people shopping at JCP wanted.
The head of retail has nothing to do with the price of iPhones or how Macs are designed.
It does when the money spent on her and her dumb ideas could have been much better spent.
What dumb ideas do you attribute to her? Who would you have wanted hired instead?
A man, clearly.
@6502: "I never said there aren't women employees at Apple. Angela is the token
woman they drag out the most to say "look, we have women in leadership
at Apple". She's accomplished nothing of significance at Apple, yet
brings in a massive salary and pays retail employees crap. The only
other one they drag out is Lisa Jackson who says the same thing every
time on how environmentally friendly their products are. Yeah, we get
it. And wow, Apple has a female head of HR; I've rarely seen a company
that doesn't have a female head of HR."
Apple just "drags out" women who have no skills or credentials and accomplish nothing, according to this guy.
What I said was accurate, not my fault you see everything as sexist or racist.
Retail management has zero to do with the price points of top-tier iphone models. It’s why you also don’t give her credit for the low tier price prices, like the $329 iPad.
Technically 5 years is not a failed hire. One year, absolutely. But in every fortune company I’ve worked for, 5 years is not short. We’re not executives, but still it’s not technically a fail.
Not necessarily true. She could have pushed for high prices to make the products and stores look even more premium. For god sakes, she sold a plain hoodie for $390 at burberry (likely made in china).
Considering Cook, Ive, Craig, Eddie, etc... have spent decades at Apple, 5 years is a failure.
The head of retail has nothing to do with the price of iPhones or how Macs are designed.
It does when the money spent on her and her dumb ideas could have been much better spent.
What dumb ideas do you attribute to her? Who would you have wanted hired instead?
The idea that turned apple stores into the DMV like a previous poster said. Or the idea that apple stores are simply places people are just going to want to hang out (what a joke). Or the idea that apple stores should be placed in the highest rent district possible.
I would like to see how bad it would be if the VP of retail was paid just $10M instead of the $100's of millions Angela got.
Retail management has zero to do with the price points of top-tier iphone models. It’s why you also don’t give her credit for the low tier price prices, like the $329 iPad.
Technically 5 years is not a failed hire. One year, absolutely. But in every fortune company I’ve worked for, 5 years is not short. We’re not executives, but still it’s not technically a fail.
Not necessarily true. She could have pushed for high prices to make the products and stores look even more premium. For god sakes, she sold a plain hoodie for $390 at burberry (likely made in china).
Considering Cook, Ive, Craig, Eddie, etc... have spent decades at Apple, 5 years is a failure.
No the rest of the executive team is the exception not the norm.
The head of retail has nothing to do with the price of iPhones or how Macs are designed.
It does when the money spent on her and her dumb ideas could have been much better spent.
What dumb ideas do you attribute to her? Who would you have wanted hired instead?
The idea that turned apple stores into the DMV like a previous poster said. Or the idea that apple stores are simply places people are just going to want to hang out (what a joke). Or the idea that apple stores should be placed in the highest rent district possible.
I would like to see how bad it would be if the VP of retail was paid just $10M instead of the $100's of millions Angela got.
When were Apple stores is not in the highest rent district possible? Seems to me all of the complaints boil down to: she got rid of the Genius Bar. But the people complaining about that are probably the same ones whining that the lid of their laptop doesn’t have a glowing Apple logo anymore.
The head of retail has nothing to do with the price of iPhones or how Macs are designed.
It does when the money spent on her and her dumb ideas could have been much better spent.
Doesn’t apply in context of a business that has so much excess cash. Only if her salary actually pinched the company’s ability to design Macs or do other things we might have preferred they do would your comment apply. But, I get your point.
I guess it makes sense that Ms. Ahrendts would leave in April. She has about 105,000 time-based RSUs due to vest on April 1st.
But she's also giving up a lot of unvested RSUs. She has another 200,000 or so unvested time-based RSUs and perhaps 350,000 unvested performance-based RSUs.
She can't spend what she already has, so waiting around to get more is simply gorging on resources that are useless to her IMHO, wealth only for wealth's sake.
Warren Buffet found a way to spend $80 billion, on humanitarian philanthropy.
And sales would never go up in the presence of such anecdotes I resume below:
Customer goes to the Apple Store and says that she wants to buy Watch 4, by stating the specs. The most common model, €459, nothing to create confusion.
Instead of bringing the box and proceeding to checkout, the personnel simply push the customer to wait in line for... presentation !!!
wtf... WTF ???!!!
Customer patiently waits, then tries again to explain that she doesn’t need a Watch presentation because she already wears one as seen on her wrist and she just wants to buy the product and walk by... The situation resolves with happy ending after an elder woman accompanying her finally starts yelling and exposes all of her dispute experience.
Happens in a metropolitan European Apple Store.
That patronizing attitude against the customer reveals how wrong a culture has been implemented in recent years on Apple retail.
She literally took a job you can’t screw up and screwed it up. Apple Stores were great. Now they’re intolerable - chaotic and disorganized. But mainly they’re leaderless and employees don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.
Overpaid but glad she's leaving. She seemed very bright, but the reality is she turned the best retail experience ever into the DMV and basically added nothing but logistical complication. The threat of her possibly becoming CEO has me breathing a sigh of relief as she was not a good fit.
The new head of people and retail seems like an AWFUL idea as she is basically head of HR, and now magically a master of retail?
What would be great is if Deidre is temporary and they convince Ron Johnson to come back. He was great at this role. Apple would be lucky to get him back.
She turned the best retail experience into the DMV? How so?
And what was great about Ron Johnson other than he ran Apple retail when it was a much smaller company?
Um he CREATED apple retail. When everyone said it would never work. Go google the articles of it's doom. He pulled it out of his mind and made it what it was. The highest $ per square foot retail ever. So yea, there's that teeny tiny creation thing.
As for DMV, go to a store today. You're a pinball. She added logistical complication and ruined and poisoned the retail experience. Before, you'd go to the genius bar and deal with your issues.
Now you show up, you try to find where to check in, there is no genius bar. You ask one employee, they say, um no, im not the check in person, go over there, thats where the check in person is. You go over there and say I'd like to check in. Oh I'm not the check in person, but they are right there. Then you check in and they send you to table X,Y over there. Some people go to the wrong table. The geniuses come looking for where you should be, but the person is in the wrong spot, and now the genius goes to 2 or 3 tables finding the right person. In the mean time, people who have problems are interspersed throughout the store with their poison "my iDevice doesnt work" griping, poisoning the buying experience around others.
Before, you just went to the bar, you and your problems were isolated and didnt poison others' purchasing experience, and you didnt pinball through the miserable DMV experience. I used to love just stopping by at apple stores when Ron was in charge. I cringe if I have to go there now. So that's how it's the DMV. https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-stores-suffer-from-customer-complaints-long-wait-time-2018-3/
You pretty much nailed it. Human pinball in a dystopian retail experiment gone horribly wrong. She. Is. The. Worst.
She was phenomenal with Burberry. As far as 75 million just to start working for Apple? I don’t know about that.
She seems like a nice person and all and probably a good manager? But she didn’t really improve anything as far as Apple’s retail efforts.
The Watch launch was a DISASTER. That was her rewriting the system and trying to fix what wasn’t broken. It just broke what was already fixed.
Turning Apple stores from high tech museums into JC Penny mall store lookalikes? Not good. The old store was amazing when it launched. You couldn’t NOT walk in and spend time there. It was like a high tech art museum with pieces you could take home with you. Sure, it was getting somewhat dated some 15 years into the old design, but it was a timeless design. The remodel could have really become something special, but instead, she opted for what all the other mall stores look like. Kind of a downgrade in some ways.
So many layers added onto what was once simple and made it a bit more complex.
Hopefully Apple gets back to making complex things simple and not the other way around.
Overpaid but glad she's leaving. She seemed very bright, but the reality is she turned the best retail experience ever into the DMV and basically added nothing but logistical complication. The threat of her possibly becoming CEO has me breathing a sigh of relief as she was not a good fit.
The new head of people and retail seems like an AWFUL idea as she is basically head of HR, and now magically a master of retail?
What would be great is if Deidre is temporary and they convince Ron Johnson to come back. He was great at this role. Apple would be lucky to get him back.
She turned the best retail experience into the DMV? How so?
And what was great about Ron Johnson other than he ran Apple retail when it was a much smaller company?
Um he CREATED apple retail. When everyone said it would never work. Go google the articles of it's doom. He pulled it out of his mind and made it what it was. The highest $ per square foot retail ever. So yea, there's that teeny tiny creation thing.
As for DMV, go to a store today. You're a pinball. She added logistical complication and ruined and poisoned the retail experience. Before, you'd go to the genius bar and deal with your issues.
Now you show up, you try to find where to check in, there is no genius bar. You ask one employee, they say, um no, im not the check in person, go over there, thats where the check in person is. You go over there and say I'd like to check in. Oh I'm not the check in person, but they are right there. Then you check in and they send you to table X,Y over there. Some people go to the wrong table. The geniuses come looking for where you should be, but the person is in the wrong spot, and now the genius goes to 2 or 3 tables finding the right person. In the mean time, people who have problems are interspersed throughout the store with their poison "my iDevice doesnt work" griping, poisoning the buying experience around others.
Before, you just went to the bar, you and your problems were isolated and didnt poison others' purchasing experience, and you didnt pinball through the miserable DMV experience. I used to love just stopping by at apple stores when Ron was in charge. I cringe if I have to go there now. So that's how it's the DMV. https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-stores-suffer-from-customer-complaints-long-wait-time-2018-3/
I don’t know what store you go to. That’s never been my experience.
It has been my experience in numerous Apple Stores in the last three or four years. Dystopian retail experiment gone horribly wrong. The organic hope you bump into someone who cares to help you thing isn’t fun.
Comments
Considering Cook, Ive, Craig, Eddie, etc... have spent decades at Apple, 5 years is a failure.
I would like to see how bad it would be if the VP of retail was paid just $10M instead of the $100's of millions Angela got.
When were Apple stores is not in the highest rent district possible? Seems to me all of the complaints boil down to: she got rid of the Genius Bar. But the people complaining about that are probably the same ones whining that the lid of their laptop doesn’t have a glowing Apple logo anymore.
And sales would never go up in the presence of such anecdotes I resume below:
Customer goes to the Apple Store and says that she wants to buy Watch 4, by stating the specs. The most common model, €459, nothing to create confusion.
Instead of bringing the box and proceeding to checkout, the personnel simply push the customer to wait in line for... presentation !!!
wtf... WTF ???!!!
Customer patiently waits, then tries again to explain that she doesn’t need a Watch presentation because she already wears one as seen on her wrist and she just wants to buy the product and walk by... The situation resolves with happy ending after an elder woman accompanying her finally starts yelling and exposes all of her dispute experience.
Happens in a metropolitan European Apple Store.
That patronizing attitude against the customer reveals how wrong a culture has been implemented in recent years on Apple retail.
She seems like a nice person and all and probably a good manager? But she didn’t really improve anything as far as Apple’s retail efforts.
The Watch launch was a DISASTER. That was her rewriting the system and trying to fix what wasn’t broken. It just broke what was already fixed.
Turning Apple stores from high tech museums into JC Penny mall store lookalikes? Not good. The old store was amazing when it launched. You couldn’t NOT walk in and spend time there. It was like a high tech art museum with pieces you could take home with you. Sure, it was getting somewhat dated some 15 years into the old design, but it was a timeless design. The remodel could have really become something special, but instead, she opted for what all the other mall stores look like. Kind of a downgrade in some ways.
So many layers added onto what was once simple and made it a bit more complex.
Hopefully Apple gets back to making complex things simple and not the other way around.