【CXO风采】苹果新任设计掌门人：COO首席营销官Jeff Williams的上位之路

在苹果工作了20年，Jeff Williams已经从一位采购主管晋升到了苹果所有运营业务的负责人。

现在，他又有了一项新职责：打造让苹果风靡世界的标志性设备。对于他以及需要新畅销产品的苹果来说，这都是一个重大考验。

威廉姆斯自2015年以来开始担任苹果COO（首席营销官），一直被视为未来的潜在CEO接班人。上周，当苹果宣布了公司多年来的最重要高管调整——艾维今年离职——让威廉姆斯接管软件和硬件设计时，外界越来越感觉到他显然就是苹果CEO蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)的接班人。

与此同时，威廉姆斯在识别正确项目，驳回错误项目，推动软件和工业设计师前进的能力，将对苹果的成功大有帮助。

自从史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)在上世纪90年代在艾维的协助下带领苹果走向复兴后，设计一直是苹果的核心理念。威廉姆斯掌管设计团队标志着苹果背离了传统：从来没有一款核心产品开发由运营部门晋升而来的高管直接管理。运营高管一直负责规划、采购和物流。

一、参与设计程度超库克

苹果并未让威廉姆斯置评，但是与他共事过的同事透露，在产品开发过程中，威廉姆斯要比库克参与得更多。他们称，威廉姆斯展现出了对于产品外观和体验的兴趣，协助引领Apple Watch从一款聚焦时尚、健身的iPhone配件转变成了拥有无线连接和更多健康功能的智能手表，这是他的重点任务之一。

不过知情人士称，威廉姆斯本质上依旧是一位运营高管，他在物流和规划方面的技能让更像一位实施者，而不是发明家。“他看到的是我们现在的位置，而不是多年后我们需要所处的位置。”一位前同事称，他还称赞了威廉姆斯的领导力、多才多艺以及渊博的记忆力。

苹果已经开始想法强调威廉姆斯在产品开发上的参与，包括研发，以及他对新产品上市背后商业策略的贡献。他在苹果网站的简介已在近期被修改为：“他与设计团队密切合作，领导了Apple Watch的开发，并监督Apple Watch工程团队”。直到上月底，这个简介还是：“他还监督了Apple Watch的开发”。苹果拒绝就这一调整置评。

二、外部人难以取代艾维

一些密切关注苹果的观察人士称，考虑到苹果管理团队以外人士在取代艾维上面临的难度，威廉姆斯接手这一新职责在情理之中。知情人士称，在这一职位上，威廉姆斯需要引领一支团队，协助将产品概念化，把这些创意转变成优雅，能够工作的外外观造型，并与软件、硬件以及运营部门合作。

“找到真正能够取代艾维的人几乎是不可能的事，”研究公司TECHnalysis科技分析师鲍勃·欧唐诺(Bob O’Donnell)表示，“他们正在做的事情仿佛就是在说，‘让我们重新分配设计职责，让其他人监督几位年轻设计师给他们回旋的余地’。是时候补充新鲜血液了，过去几款iPhone看起来太像了。”

实际上，苹果在寻找新成功产品上面临的压力越来越大。iPhone销量正在下滑，苹果在Apple Watch、AirPods无线耳机等新产品上的优势还无法弥补手机销量缺口。在最新一个季度，苹果可穿戴设备、家居以及配件部门的总销售额为51亿美元，其中还包括Apple TV、iPod以及Beats产品，但是iPhone收入较上年同期下滑了65亿美元。

三、苹果可穿戴部门难弥补iPhone销量下滑

Apple Music和其他服务正在快速增长，但是苹果需要持续不断的硬件销量来保证服务业务用户的增长。

“手机业务已经触顶，下一个愿景是什么？”资产管理公司Ensemble Capital总裁肖恩·斯坦纳德-斯托克顿(Sean Stannard-Stockton)表示，该公司在十年时间内一直把苹果作为第一大持仓股，但是从2018年底开始抛售苹果股票，“你本来把希望放在了艾维身上，说‘他是乔布斯附体’。现在艾维要走了，我想知道他们是否具备了创造未来的能力。”

除了多年来沉浸在乔布斯所建立的产品文化外，威廉姆斯还将有两位副手来帮助他领导设计部门。上周，苹果任命艾维之前的第一副手埃文斯·汉基(Evans Hankey)为公司传奇工业设计工作室的副总裁。汉基是斯坦福大学的工业设计毕业生，在12年前加盟苹果工业设计团队，已管理设计工作室多年，已经是一系列产品设计专利的共同发明人。

威廉姆斯今年56岁，还将监督人机界面设计副总裁阿兰·迪耶(Alan Dye)领导的软件设计师团队。作为在2006年加入苹果营销和通信团队的一名平面设计师，迪耶在过去五年多时间内基本上在领导软件设计师团队。苹果发言人拒绝让汉基和迪耶置评。

威廉姆斯在北卡罗来纳州立大学获得了机械工程学士学位，与库克的背景很相似。两人都拿到了杜克大学工商管理硕士学位，都曾在IBM工作过。IBM曾经是苹果的主要对手。在2011年取代乔布斯成为苹果CEO之前，库克也曾担任苹果COO。

四、逐步深入苹果产品开发

过去十几年，威廉姆斯在产品开发上的参与越来越多。一位设计团队成员称，在“iPod之父”托尼·法德尔(Tony FaDELL)在2008年离开苹果后，乔布斯把威廉姆斯纳入了领导团队，与艾维一起负责开发iPhone 4。

据他回忆，当时一些工程师和设计师在质疑，这么一位IBM供应链高管怎么能够取代法德尔呢？但是，威廉姆斯用行动让质疑者闭嘴。

iPhone 4采用的是玻璃后盖，而不是之前机型使用的塑料。在一次热能工程会议上，威廉姆斯向工程师们询问新材料对设备性能的影响。他还拿到了原型机来评估他的感觉。“像他这么一位谈判专家，擅长制作电子表格的人，此举令人印象深刻，但他却感觉很自然。”这位人士称。

创新战略(Creative Strategies)公司科技分析师卡罗琳娜·米拉内西(Carolina Milanesi)表示，威廉姆斯的运营背景将是他在新职位上的一笔资产。“你需要在理论和现实之间找到平衡，”她表示，“如果所有人都从设计角度出发，可能就无法开发出最好的产品了。”

翻译：

In his 20 years at Apple, Williams has risen from a purchasing executive to head all of Apple’s operations.

Now he has a new responsibility: building the iconic device that made Apple popular around the world. This is a big test for him and for Apple, which needs new blockbuster products.

Williams has been Apple’s COO since 2015 and has long been seen as a potential future CEO. Last week, when Apple announced its most significant executive shake-up in years — Mr. Ive left this year — that Mr. Williams would take over software and hardware design, there was a growing sense that he was the apparent successor to Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive.

At the same time, Mr. Williams’s ability to identify the right projects and dismiss the wrong ones, pushing software and industrial designers forward, will go a long way toward Apple’s success.

Design has been at the heart of Apple’s philosophy since Steve Jobs, with Mr. Ive’s help, led the company’s Renaissance in the 1990s. Mr Williams’s stewardship of the design team marks a departure from tradition: no core product development has ever been directly managed by an executive who rose through the ranks of the operations department. Operations executives have been in charge of planning, procurement and logistics.

More involved in design than Cook

Apple did not make Mr Williams available for comment, but colleagues who have worked with him say he has been more involved in the product development process than Mr Cook. They say Mr. Williams has shown an interest in the look and feel of products, helping to steer the Apple Watch from a fashion-focused, fitness-focused iPhone accessory to a smartwatch with wireless connectivity and more health features, one of his priorities.

But people familiar with the matter say Mr Williams remains an operations executive at heart, whose logistics and planning skills make him more of a doer than an inventor. “He sees where we are now, not where we need to be years from now.” He also praised Mr. Williams for his leadership, versatility and profound memory, according to a former colleague.

Apple has sought to highlight Mr. Williams’s involvement in product development, including research and development, as well as his contributions to the business strategy behind bringing new products to market. His profile on Apple’s website was recently changed to read: “He worked closely with the design team, led the development of the Apple Watch, and oversaw the Apple Watch engineering team.” Until late last month, the profile was: “He also oversaw the development of the Apple Watch.” Apple declined to comment on the change.

It would be hard for an outsider to replace Ivey

Some close Apple watchers said Mr. Williams made sense to take on the new responsibility, given how difficult it was for someone outside Apple’s management team to replace Mr. Ive. In that role, Williams will need to lead a team that helps conceptualize products, turn those ideas into elegant, working exteriors-and work with software, hardware and operations, according to people familiar with the matter.

“It’s going to be almost impossible to find someone who can actually replace Ive,” said Bob O ‘Donnell, a technology analyst at research firm TECHnalysis. “What they’re doing is saying, ‘Let’s reassign design responsibilities and let someone else oversee a couple of young designers to give them leeway.’ It’s time for some new blood. The last few iphones have looked so much alike.”

In fact, Apple is under increasing pressure to find new and successful products. iPhone sales are falling, and Apple’s strength in new products like the Apple Watch and AirPods wireless earbuds hasn’t made up for the shortfall. In the latest quarter, Apple’s wearables, home and accessories division reported total sales of $5.1 billion, which also includes Apple TV, iPods and Beats, but iPhone revenue fell $6.5 billion from a year earlier.

Apple’s wearable division struggles to make up for falling iPhone sales

Apple Music and other services are growing fast, but Apple needs to keep selling hardware to keep users growing.

“The mobile business has peaked. What’s the next vision?” Sean Stannard-Stockton, the president of Ensemble Capital, an asset management firm that had held Apple as its No. 1 position for a decade, said that when it began selling Apple shares in late 2018, “You were pinning your hopes on Ive, Say, ‘He’s Steve Jobs.’ Now that Elway is leaving, I wonder if they have what it takes to build a future.”

In addition to being immersed in the product culture that Mr. Jobs built over the years, Mr. Williams will have two deputies to help him lead the design department. Last week, Apple named Evans Hankey, Mr. Ive’s former first lieutenant, as vice president of the company’s legendary industrial design studio. Hankey, a Stanford University industrial design graduate who joined Apple’s industrial design team 12 years ago, has run the design studio for years and is already a co-inventor on a number of product design patents.

Mr. Williams, 56, will also oversee a team of software designers led by Alan Dye, vice president of human-computer interface design. A graphic designer who joined Apple’s marketing and communications team in 2006, Mr. Diehl has largely led the software designers for more than five years. An Apple spokesman declined to make Mr. Hankey and Mr. Diehl available for comment.

Williams earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University, a background similar to Cook’s. Both earned master’s degrees in business administration from Duke University and both worked at IBM. IBM was once Apple’s main rival. Cook also served as Apple’s COO before replacing Jobs as CEO in 2011.

Step into Apple product development

Over the past decade, Williams has become increasingly involved in product development. After Tony FaDELL, the “father of the iPod,” left Apple in 2008, Mr. Jobs added Mr. Williams to the leadership team that worked with Mr. Ive on the iPhone 4, according to a member of the design team.

Some engineers and designers, he recalls, wondered how such an IBM supply-chain executive could replace Fadell. But Williams silenced the doubters with action.

The iPhone 4 has a glass back cover instead of the plastic used on previous models. At a thermal engineering conference, Williams asked engineers about the effect of the new material on the performance of the device. He was also given the prototype to assess his feelings. “It was impressive for someone like him who was a good negotiator, who was good with spreadsheets, but it felt natural to him.” “This person said.

Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, said Mr Williams’s operational background would be an asset in his new role. “You need to find a balance between theory and reality,” she says. “If everyone starts from a design point of view, you might not be able to build the best product.”

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