On Thursday, “Apple Retail chief John Browett emailed Apple Retail Store leadership with a mea culpa,” Jim Tanous writes for The Mac Observer. “From the Dow Jones Newswire: ‘In a communication with store leadership teams, senior vice president of retail, John Browett… said that the company had been trying a new staffing formula for its retail stores, leading some employees to see their hourly shifts cut and retail locations to be understaffed. He instructed leadership teams to tell employees, ‘We messed up,’ according to two people who were aware of the communication, which also stressed that while shift schedules were affected, no one was laid off. He also wanted employees to know that [Apple Retail] was hiring new staff, these people said.'”
MacDailyNews Take: There is no “we” about it. You messed up, Dixons-Boy. You. Own it or you’ll get no respect, ever.
Apple Retail Stores are the public face of Apple. Apple Retail Stores are responsible in large part for Apple’s success, perhaps even more than even Tim Cook realizes – or he would have made damn sure that a person who fully understood how Steve Jobs’ Apple works was hired to replace Ron Johnson. Cook should have hired Johnson’s replacement from within Apple Retail. Major mistake.
• Cease all recruiting and hiring events
• Make no promotions
• Immediately lay off newly-hired employees who are still on probation
• Reduce available hours for part-time employees
• Reduce or eliminate available overtime
• Lay off or fire employees who can only work more than 32 hours a week and not part-time
Tanous writes, “Apple Retail jobs are stressful, demanding, and require significant technical knowledge in addition to a whole lot of compassion, understanding, and a willingness to take vicious abuse. The kind of people who meet these criteria simply don’t come cheap and Apple needs to divert more money and resources, not less, to this critical group of employees… Mr. Browett needs to wake up and get his act together: he’s not at Dixons anymore.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tim Cook’s biggest hire to date. It makes us worry. Cook needs to own his mistake, too.
This isn’t about minor “mistakes.” This is about an outside virus that threatens to irrevocably damage Apple’s DNA; invited in by Cook to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, no less.
Browett’s type of “thinking” will kill Apple faster than 10 lines of beige Performas.
If Cook can’t see that clearly, he needs to go, too.
Concerned Apple shareholders might want to email CEO Tim Cook directly and ask him what exactly he’s doing to fix this Browett problem: tcook@apple.com
MacDailyNews Note: 9:30am EDT: We have just put up a new poll in the left-hand column of the main website: “Should Apple CEO Tim Cook fire Sr. VP of Retail John Browett?”
Related articles:
Dear Tim Cook: Apple’s retail focus should be on delighting customers, not generating cash – August 16, 2012
Apple Retail Store chief Browett: ‘We messed up’ with Dixons-eque staffing gamble; refutes layoffs – August 16, 2012
Apple retail chief Browett to get $56 million golden hello – May 27, 2012
Apple grants 100,000 shares to new retail head John Browett – April 25, 2012
Tim Cook emails UK customer: John Browett’s role isn’t to bring Dixons to Apple Retail – February 1, 2012
Eyebrows raised over Apple’s hiring of Dixons CEO to run Apple Retail Stores – January 31, 2012
Apple hires Dixons CEO John Browett as new retail chief – January 31, 2012
Apple Inc.: The most profitable retailer in America – August 15, 2012
Apple’s retail juggernaut is magical and revolutionary in its own right – May 25, 2011
Apple Retail Stores hit 10th anniversary (with video of Steve Jobs’ tour of 1st store) – May 18, 2011
Apple Store: ‘The best damn retail experience in America!’ – December 2, 2010
Apple’s retail stores generate huge sales – December 27, 2007
Piper Jaffray finds ‘gravitational pull’ at Apple Retail Stores – November 26, 2007
Apple thinks different with cash register-less retail stores that bring in billions – November 23, 2007
Apple makes retail seem ridiculously easy – May 29, 2007
How Apple’s Steve Jobs is revolutionizing Manhattan retail – May 08, 2007
Fortune: Apple Inc. is America’s best retailer – March 08, 2007
How Apple Retail Stores beat Best Buy, Neiman Marcus, and Tiffany – December 19, 2006
If that message from Browett is true, this guy needs firing, right now.
If Tim Cook supports him, then Tim’s not the guy I thought he was, and serious questions need to be asked about why he was hired.
With the hiring of this old school MBA-tard, Apple has now officially jumped the shark. So sad.
I gotta say I’m losing faith in Tim Cook. Adding dividends, this hire, the 4S debacle where the hardware was the same but they didn’t leak that fact so people flipped, the changes on campus with the focus on charities, software coming out that is bizarre and hard to use (iPhoto on ios)… Everywhere I look I see choices steve wouldn’t have made and which seem to go against the ethos of Apple as developed over the past 15 years.
Give it to Forstall. That’s what I say. Give it over soon before things go too far out of whack. The last thing we need is our own clown in charge.
Fsck you John Browett. Either man up and understand money is a by-product of an ALL ENCOMPASSING experience, or pack your bags and come back to the UK.
Idiot.
What has always struck me as odd, is that Ron Johnson would go to a company like JC Penny. Maybe he likes the idea of trying to save a sinking ship. I’ve seen talented people always looking for bigger challenges. Now, I’m beginning to wonder if he no longer felt comfortable with new internal attitudes at Apple and decided to jump ship when he had a good opportunity.
Seemingly mundane issues like cord flexibility and packaging design really do matter and is one of the reasons people can justify spending a premium for Apple’s products. Without the details, they are just another overpriced computer.
I guess Jonathan Ive is now the one to watch. I can’t imagine he’d stay if his designs were being compromised to save a few pennies. If he leaves, as an Apple shareholder, I’d say it may be time to sound the alarm and head for the exits.
He’s a total idiot!
Who the hell hired him, he just don’t understand the apple retail experience at all.
Blimey if Steve jobs was alive he would have sacked him for that fuck up.
What a clown!
The problem with the apple retail experience is that there is no problem.
This guy screwing things up in their retail stores IS THE PROBLEM.
Don’t mess with stuff that works!
The apple retail experience is near perfect, why retune a racing car engine wen the car is winning most of the races???
He seriously isn’t the right guy for the job and he certainly does not understand the apple way and brand values.
Phil Schiller should give this guy a lecture about what apple is about and what it represents to its customers.
Im a brand consultant by profession, give me the guys number and hell il teach him what apple’s brand represents.
‘The apple retail experience is near perfect, why retune a racing car engine wen the car is winning most of the races???
He seriously isn’t the right guy for the job and he certainly does not understand the apple way and brand values.
Phil Schiller should give this guy a lecture about what apple is about and what it represents to its customers.
Im a brand consultant by profession, give me the guys number and hell il teach him what apple’s brand represents.’
Apple – when – Apple – I’m – guy’s – I’ll – Apple’s … you’re a professional what? Riiiigghhttt!
Stack them high sell them cheap is the Dixon’s credo supported by a poorly trained staff who do not understand or care about their products. How could Tim Cook employ this no hoper? The Apple store is a temple to design and taste where the staff provide intelligent support and are not there to ram sales. Beautiful products sell themselves…ask the genious Jony Ive who is a Brit who gets it. Actually, with Steve Jobs he invented it! Browett has the philosophy of a market stall trader. A completely inapproproriate appointment Mr Cook. He has to go. From a Brit who cares!
I don’t have much confidence in Tim Cook either. He hired this guy, as well as made OSX more difficult to use and hasn’t introduced anything to stir people’s imaginations. Apple is dying from many different directions, not just John Browett. Browett just happens to have destroyed the most visible and consumer sensitive area of the company.
If Apple ran the stores like a WalMart, they wouldn’t be who they are. Cook, Browett and all of their greedy minions will sap everything they can and then just jump ship. Nothing new: Welcome to America!
Dump this bozo 🙂
For the first time in a decade of visiting Apple stores, a “Genius” tried to help me recently and didn’t seem to have the slightest understanding of OS X. It was shocking to see him flailing helplessly for 20 minutes searching in utterly irrelevant System Preferences panes for something that just might solve my Mac’s problem. All the while, he refused to ask another Genius for help, probably because his job was already on thin ice. In the end, he did something that he stated would not help but that actually fixed the issue. In the past, I’ve always been impressed with the competence of the Genius staff. This time, my jaw was on the floor in shock. NOT GOOD!
For the first time in a decade of visiting Apple stores, a “Genius” tried to help me recently and didn’t seem to have the slightest understanding of OS X.
EXACTLY. A friend of mine ran into a shit-from-hell ‘Genius’ at the local Apple store who screwed up so badly that she was convinced she had a lemon MacBook Pro.
Therefore, I went WITH her to make sure she got straight answers from someone with a brain in their head. I figured out by sitting down and talking with her for 5 minutes that ALL she had were issues with networking. The DUMBSHIT ‘Genius’ had been INCAPABLE of figuring this out. WTF?!
Thankfully, we ran into a terrific actual Genius (Thank you Daniel!) who knew what was going on and helped her understand. Now she trusts Apple again and likes here MBP. But she went out of her way to point out the DUMBSHIT fake ‘Genius’ who had messed her over. I will be talking with the manager at the Apple Store about it. NOT ACCEPTABLE.
MDN Says: Tim Cook’s biggest hire to date. It makes us worry. Cook needs to own his mistake, too.
Same here. This STINKS of Marketing-As-Management. You NEVER let marketing people run the company. It’s suicide, plain and simple. Don’t do this Apple. Live long and prosper instead please.
Fire Browett rather than let this unworthy garbage ever happen again. 😕
77.64% FOR firing Browett and rising…
Thanks MDN for the good take and providing tim cooks email, i will write to him about the dangers of browett after this. Very concerned about browett and his incompetence
This kind of thinking:
“Cease all recruiting and hiring events
• Make no promotions
• Immediately lay off newly-hired employees who are still on probation
• Reduce available hours for part-time employees
• Reduce or eliminate available overtime
• Lay off or fire employees who can only work more than 32 hours a week and not part-time
Will kill Apple. People who convert to Apple do so because they hear about the amazing experience and staff.
What will also kill apple is the deal they have signed with GM to put iPads (or iPad systems) inside very GM car to replace On Star. It’s going to hobble Apple with the same noose that is having around Microsoft’s neck – Legacy.
If Cook is going to hire a holes like Browett and make deals with GM, then ride the stock for what you can now, and start learning Ubuntu cause the good times are over.
Everyone makes mistakes. How’s Ron Johnson doing at Penney’s right now?…
(wrote to Tim Cook)
Sorry. If his actions so far are any indication, hiring this guy is the biggest mistake Apple has made for a long time.
Apple cannot be managed like some run-of-the-mill low price retailer — like… ummm… Dixons.
He needs to add his skills to what Apple IS… not try to remake it is his narrow-minded image.
Apple just paid for a very expensive learning lesson for this new “employee”, Mr Browett. They should keep him. Send him over to Apple university for a bit. Then have him work along side a long term Apple retail employee on the front lines. This should have been the first thing he did when he arrived. Apple retail is not some 2$ bargain bin shop. If you won’t the best customer service then you need to spend money on the front line and support those people. They are the most important people Apple has outside of the design department. Mr Cook, even in retail you don’t want the sales guy running the show.
really??? this guy is a complete idiot… yea, let’s lay a bunch of people off right before we release all these new products: iphone 5, new pad, apple television, new ios, new os, new macbooks, new iPods… yea… now is the time to HIRE jacka$$… just think, if they didn’t reverse kind genius’s idea how trapped the retail would be with all the customers who would have been unserved … oh ya.. let’s not even discuss the holiday season coming in a few months… this guy NEEDS to GO… and FAST…
More Jackassery from MDN. Why not fir e Tim Cook? Why not fire all the Apple executives. Obviously this retail guy is bringing down the entire enterprise with a few modest changes. Does he not know he was hired to leave things “exactly” as they were? Does he not know he is to check with MDN before making any changes? Obviously the entire thing would be solved if the worlds best direct marketer were brought in – Michael Dell.
Tim Cook is a genius when it comes to production or logistics issues. But he is not a product guy. And he will not become a product guy by repeating over and over again that he wants to make the best products in the world. That was Steve Jobs line. Who represents the overall customer view at the top of Apple? Anybody left? Anyone there who cares for all the minor and major details surrounding the customer experience and can make changes from the top?
What do you expect from an ivy leaguer? Wonder were sculley got his MBA. Birds of a feather….
The apple stores are fine.
Great shopping experience, no need to change anything.
If it ain’t broke dont try and fix it!
If the apple stores were underperforming then yes, try some new things on a localised small store level as a test bed for the whole retail network. And if it works then roll it out across the whole network.
This is basic retail strategy stuff. I know this and I ain’t a retail expert!
This guy doesn’t even know this stuff!
Sack this buffoon!
MDN has this right.
Cook brought the retail blunder in.
It’s Cooks major mistake and he needs to fire this clown now. If not Cook should step resign.
Steve Jobs made hiring mistakes, too. Remember Mark Papermaster? He was hired by Jobs and fired after 15 months of heading the iPhone/iPod division, filling Tony Fadell’s shoes.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/13/mark-papermaster-should-be-happier-at-cisco-than-he-was-at-apple/