Another Exciting Chapter

Over the past few years at Apple Retail, we’ve been working to amplify our positive impact, and these last twelve months have been especially rewarding as our full vision has now come together.

So, we challenged ourselves to capture everything we’ve done, why we’ve done it, and how we’re thinking about the future. Last week, I shared this to our Retail team in a letter called “Another Exciting Chapter.” Today, I wanted to share part of it with you since I’m so proud of everything the team has accomplished…

Apple Retail is where people connect with Apple—human to human. Our 65,000 team members, across nearly 500 locations around the world, welcome close to 500 million people annually.

Our purpose is to enrich lives. That’s why Apple Retail has always been about more than selling products.

Our employees bring Apple to life each day, for each person they meet. They’re hired because they have deep empathy, positive energy, and the gift to help others shine. It’s their passion and enthusiasm that make our stores vibrant and engaging—that transform physical spaces into gathering places.

All of this comes from living out our credo—the core values that have united and underpinned our culture from the opening of our very first store.

The credo is the foundation that empowers us to aim even higher in our quest to enrich lives. Three years ago, we challenged ourselves to re-envision how we could leverage this solid foundation to make an even greater positive impact.

From the start we were mindful of two things. First, retailers make an essential contribution to the health of every community. Second, technology has the power to both build up and break down humanity. We felt we had both the opportunity and the responsibility to do more.

We crowdsourced our team to understand how Apple Retail could make a bigger difference in their communities. They shared that while people are more digitally connected than ever, many feel more isolated and alone. That while the digital economy is rapidly enabling innovation, it is also creating an acute need for individuals, educators, and entrepreneurs to rapidly re-skill. And, that while technology is creating new avenues for expression, millions haven’t yet had the chance to develop their own creative gifts.

Even though we had a strong platform in place, we saw an opportunity to reinvent every aspect of our business model—the in-store experience that we call Retail’s “software,” the physical infrastructure, our “hardware,” and the way our people bring it all to life.

How could our stores, Apple’s largest product, do more to enrich lives? This became our dream—that our stores would become vital hubs where everyone could connect, learn, and create.

Part of the answer emerged as Today at Apple—free sessions, open to everyone, on topics ranging from the basics to creative passions. While it’s early days, we believe Today at Apple could be the most powerful platform we’ve ever built for enriching lives.

We added five new features to our spaces to take this experience even further. And we also modernized our retail organization to align our employees’ gifts to the experience we wanted them to create by adding new positions like the Creative Pro.

In doing all of this, we’ve realized we need a new set of measurements. How effective are the commitments we’re making in our experience, and our people? How do we raise our “human return on investment”?

As a first step, in January 2018, we’ll start collecting this type of feedback from everyone who attends a Today at Apple session. We’ll focus both on their immediate experience and on their perceptions about the long-term value. We want to be as rigorous in measuring our human impact as we are in every other part of our business.

More than ever before, we’re now committed to encouraging human connection, inspiring learning, and unlocking creativity. This is what human responsibility means to us—and maybe the larger we become the greater our responsibility?

We know there is so much to do, and that no company, however big, can do it alone. As we move forward, we’ll continue to welcome opportunities to share what we’re learning with those on a similar path, and will learn from them in return.

Our dream is only possible because of our deeply dedicated, passionate team. They’re Apple’s greatest differentiator making a personal connection in communities around the world, humanizing technology. They’ve always believed enriching lives is our highest calling and our deepest obligation.

While we’re proud of our progress—and I’m so proud of our team—our journey has only just started. And as we reflect on an incredible year, we can’t wait for all that’s to come…

Happy New Year.