Q1) Why was Dubinsky initially so successful at Apple?

As a Boss:-

a) She is very direct, says what she thinks, fights for her issues

b) Presents an image of confidence.

c) Doesn’t let peer pressure sway her mind

d) Not intimidated by top management

As employee/subordinate

a) Always has company’s interests at heart

b) Always supports a company decision even if she doesn’t support it which is very important for a “support organisation”.

c) Extremely intelligent, has a great sense of humour, has good risk taking abilities.

d) Her boss valued her clear, precise thinking, her presentation skills and voice command and the power of her presence.

e) Understood what Apple could do about executing the plethora of ideas that came from the product divisions down to the marketing funnel.

f) She used to gather ideas from the field for suggested improvements in the syatem.

Q2) Why did she respond the way she did to the JIT proposal?

a) In a firm that devoted most of its energy on new product development, she and her boss were proud that distribution had never caused a delay in product delivery.

b) JIT was supposed to reduce inventory but as an off-the-shelf business, Apple had to have inventory and moreover dealers could not afford to stock inventory.

c) High operational costs which resulted in reduction in profits was result of inaccurate forecasting and not the distribution system.

d) Inspite of the fact that she was responsible for the distribution system, her inputs were not taken while deciding the new distribution strategy.

e) New proposal failed to consider more than 50% of the products manufactured off-shore.

f) New proposal didn’t have provisions for customer complaints and product