Apple released a statement on August 24th announcing Steve Jobs has stepped down for health reasons as the CEO of Apple. He will be replaced by COO Tim Cook, whom he recommended should succeed him. The very different backgrounds and approaches of Jobs and Cook demonstrate the crucial nature of forecasting how a change at the top will impact business performance.

As we all know, Steve Jobs is incredibly innovative and creative as demonstrated by the many technological innovations he has introduced. He is the chief Apple brand evangelist and has routinely introduced disruptive innovations which dictate the market and changed the way technology is consumed.

Tim Cook has a very accomplished operations background and has proven to be immensely successful running the day-to-day operations of Apple. However, as Apple’s CEO, the contrasting approaches solicit questions:

• How will the gap between Jobs’ innovation focus and Cook’s operations focus impact top and bottom line revenue?
• Will the changes to corporate culture impact revenue?
• Will Apple continue to compete by out-innovating the competition or compete on process and efficiencies?

One decision could change the entire company as we know it. Wall Street, the entire technology industry and Macs everywhere can’t wait to find out.

Mike Kennedy is a Technical Evangelist at Talent Analytics Corp. He can be reached via mike@talentanalytics.com.