Assignment:
1-Blackberry Technology
When Blackberry first came out in 2006 for the smart phone industry things looked bright for them. They were the first phone at the time with a full key on the main device. Many phones doing that time did not have that option and blackberry was the first to do it. This made Blackberry extremely different from other companies and it made people buy the phone. They were the kings for the smartphone industry four years ago. The first people they sold the phones to where businessmen. Email and other business related stuff could be easily done from the phone. Then they sold phones to normal people with the same features and everybody like them. But that all changes when the iphone and andriods came out.
When andriods and the iphone came the phone industry completely changed. They introduced many things but the most important was apps. They had aps for almost everything from emailing to messaging and for more things. Blackberry failed to recognize these things. They continued to work on the keyboard.
The main reason that Blackberry went Bankrupt and lost in the smartphone world was there lack of demand and the lack of expanding into new technology ideas. In many articles the authors write that the only thing Blackberry focused on was the key board and the way the phone looked. If you look at the iphone they changed many things from when the phone first came out. After every new phone the design and the things inside the phone such has apps and the camera were changed. Blackberry did not take this step. They ignored consumer appeal of putting appeals instead focused on their keyboards. Even if they had apps similar with the iphone they still were not has good has the one that the iphone had.
The second area where Blackberry failed was in the area of other invention. If you look at the apple and other major companies they have also developed tablets, listening devices and importantly computers. Blackberry has only developed phones and tablets. This is also a very significant area were Blackberry sales reputations dropped. If you look at Apples Biggest competitor Samsung they have everything that Apple has developed and they have even developed something's that are better than apple. With Samsung being having competition with apple that's why they are successful. They now if they want more buyer they have to one up apple.
Blackberry has not done anything to keep up with these competitors. They have only developed phones and tablet which nobody likes.
The way I think Blackberry can fix their issues are make up a plan of why Apple and other companies are successful? Try to do the same things they did. See the rights things they did and what are the wrong things they did and improve them. Start from scratch and improve your devices in a small way and hopefully will be back on the phone world.
2- Marketing of BlackBerry
As recently as 2009, Fortune magazine was naming BlackBerry as among the world's fastest growing companies. However, BlackBerry, previously called Research in Motion Limited (RIM), has not recorded impressive performances in the market. The company is in the technology industry, specifically the production of wireless handheld devices, including other services intended to serve consumers in that sector. The first device produced by BlackBerry was an email pager, released in the market in 1999. Four years later, the company produced a Smartphone BlackBerry, which gained considerable popularity in the market because it supported a wide range of features including push email, text messaging, Internet faxing, Web browsing, and mobile telephone, among other information services. BlackBerry's push email feature enabled it to gain a considerable market share in the industry as it had focused on making communication easier and convenient (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, 2012).
Why the Blackberry Market Went Down Recently
BlackBerry went down because it failed to keep up with other mobile phone companies such as Google and Apple. BlackBerry failed to develop or adapt its vision and strategy to suit the changing needs of the consumer in the market. First, after recording impressive performance in the market, particularly the corporate market, BlackBerry did not foresee that consumers, as opposed to business customers, would play a critical role in pushing the Smartphone revolution. Secondly, the emergence of the "app economy" blindsided BlackBerry as there was massive adoption of devised utilizing iPhone and Android software. Third, the company failed to anticipate that Smartphones would change significantly so that consumers could rely on them for both communication entertainment and entertainment purposes (Gustin, 2013). BlackBerry failed to respond to the changing needs of the consumer as it continued producing mobile devices with full keyboards while many consumers showing preference for touchscreens, which facilitated easier navigation and better viewing of videos. Moreover, BlackBerry was quite in releasing a touchscreen device, which was also seen as inferior to the iPhone. While BlackBerry thought of its devices as creative and e-mail-enabled, Google and Apple were busy working on powerful mobile computers and strived to ensure that Web browsing and sending e-mail as consumer-friendly as possible.
Strategies That Blackberry Might Use To Improve Its Sales
Blackberry could employ a number of strategies to boost its sales and ensure both viability and profitability in the mobile market industry. One strategy that could help the company to increase its sales is the creation of more awareness among the youth as the company had previously targeted the corporate customers. The youth market is quite large and could help boost the company's sales significantly. Secondly, Blackberry should launch an aggressive campaign strategy the position Blackberry as the Smartphone of choice among the young professionals and the youth as this constitutes a large market and this strategy would also help the company to reclaim its market share in the industry. Blackberry may use various internet marketing options to increase its online presence alongside conventional marketing and promotional methods (Hill & Jones, 2012). Thirdly, the company should focus on other areas/capabilities other than dwelling on emailing capabilities, which other mobile companies have managed to offer as well. This move is likely to improve its appeal as customers are likely to purchase the product if it offers more and highly innovative features. Blackberry should also focus on producing high-tech, but affordable devices for consumers at the low end market, which is also a large market that desperately craves for highly innovative, but affordable devices. To achieve this objective, the company may adopt some of its existing phones to low end markets, which would help to fight its competitors who have also produced highly innovative products to meet the needs of this market. Increasing sales also requires that the Blackberry adopts the use of newer technologies that support touchscreen applications because consumers now seem to prefer touchscreens devices as opposed to those that use keypads. More significantly, Blackberry should modify the look of its product to make it more appealing to consumers. This may also require the company to launch its products in a wide range of colors and designs to offer consumers more choice.
Issues That Blackberry is Currently Facing in the Market
Blackberry is currently facing a number of issues that are inhibiting the company from making a turnaround. First, the company's share prices have fallen significantly, which severely affects its performance in the market as it taints the company's image and that of its products. Secondly, the company is struggling to maintain a profitable level of operation as its sales have been reducing significantly since 2011(Gustin, 2013). The company does not also have the capacity to invest significantly in research and development activities compared to its competitors because its revenue has reduced considerably in the past few years. In 2013, the company had plans to be purchased by a group that is led by Fairfax Financial, a Canadian holding company. Poor performance forced the two CEOs of the company, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, to step down.
Significant Factors That Led to This Situation
Blackberry got into this situation because it failed to adopt its vision and strategy to the changing needs of the consumer. Consequently, Apple and Google, who were busy working on highly innovative technologies, outperformed Blackberry because they offered consumers what they wanted. These two companies have recorded impressive financial performances in the recent years and have managed to surpass Blackberry's performance as well as take up a significant proportion of its market share. The company also got into this situation because it neglected the ordinary consumer while focusing a significant amount of attention to corporate consumers (Gustin, 2013).
3. Business Management
In Management, there are some basic elements that construct a good business organization and they must be considered such as: Adaptation, Innovation, Making decision, organization, business focus and revision. BlackBerry was once named Research in Motion (RIM) is a success company during the 1999-2010, but since the middle of 2011, it continues to fail on those key elements and causes the company slide down to the nearly extinct from the market.
BlackBerry or RIM was founded in Waterloo by 2 engineer students in 1984 and succeed by Lazaridis (co-founder) and Balsillie (joining later). By 1999, it was the 1st company to make revolution on smartphone with BlackBerry device to push e-mail. The company was also voted as a fastest growing company by revenue of billions of dollars by Wall Street. However, while it enjoys of the glory, the market of smartphone starts changing since 2005.
Each business is success and survived based on many key elements of management as said above, and BlackBerry had failed mostly on
6 elements of:
Adaptation
Adaptation makes company to be able to survive with the changes of everything of business environment: The market, consumers, technology. It also makes the company to catch up and to adapt with the changes.
When the first iPhone was designed, it came with touchscreen, fragile if it was drop from 5 feed, and its batteries could not last longer than 2 hours. By late 2009, it was clear that the iPhone and Android had redefined the smartphone, and that RIM needed to adapt.
However, the company failed to make the correct adaptations on the new strategy and vision based on 3 things of:
- Anticipate the global consumers about smartphone
- Unable to visualize the application for smartphone
- Unable to visualize the device will become a mobile entertainment hubs for consumers
It was out-competed and it failed to adapt to new strategic realities. The suggestion for BlackBerry is even being a big and hugely profitable company, it doesn't mean you don't have to adapt. Surviving beyond the changing and making the (right) choice doesn't exempt you from having to adapt, and so adaptation is a key for the company to survive at any time.
Focus on core business
The core business is the essential bread and butter of a company to survive, and so it must pay attention and taking care of the core, and in a volatile market, don't lose the focus on its core.
Focusing on the growth of the business, and providing good services to customers were still the problems at BlackBerry. According to the article by Don Reisinger on eweek.com, BlackBerry has the potential growth in communication market, a network business that can cover the business in the few years ahead, but the problem was the company did not find a way to take care of its customers, which were the current business and government customers. These customers still generated the good profit for the company, but the company shifted the focus to consumers, and produced all-touch-screen devices, but these devices failed to meet the consumers' expectations.
This just caused more lost for BlackBerry.
Similarly, BlackBerry already had good services of BB Messenger, WhatsApp and iMessage, but it failed to recognize them and so there was no focus on continue support nor enhanced these applications.
The suggestion for BlackBerry is the company have to target the right consumers; it must win back enterprises customers and must invest in the right products and other services. Also it must improve the technology, user interface and web-browsing capabilities, and applications. It is not just about communication but also about consuming media.
Innovation
Innovation feeds the organization on new changes, which in turn help the organization to make a better adaptation and even survive.
BlackBerry failed to make innovation strategy; it failed to make change to adapt with the new trend of the market. Even BlackBerry tried to improve on its core business: the performance, the product and build a stronger ecosystem. It still failed to make the phase change to a new type of company.
In fact, the executives at BlackBerry did not recognize the iPhone would threat its market. Then later, they recognized that the market for smartphone was not limited within business and corporate customers any more but it was consumers wide, but it was a bit late for BlackBerry to catch up with the market. The smart phone was already dominated by Apple and Microsoft.
By management perception, innovation and sharp on the market catching will determine the success or failure of the organization, and BlackBerry did not have that keen perception when Apple rolling out the iPhone. It was not aware of the threat and worse the executives did not make the right choice to catch the right moment of the market.
In fact, not like Apple, always keeping innovations to survive, but BlackBerry just satisfied with its past success and did not prepared for the change on the market, which constant changing in a very short time, but BlackBerry did not switch fast enough to catch the market.
The suggestion for BlackBerry is to keep innovation and not to complacency with its current success and forget the volatile market is continue changing in fast speed.
Making strategy decision
Making the right decisions speed up and catch up with the market, and consumers' demands.
BlackBerry executive team cannot make the decision when it came to the right moment of solving the problems. For example, at the roll out of tablet, they could not determine the intended audience for the tablet, neither co-CEO (Lazaridis nor Balsillie) could make a unite decision on what type of customers to market the tablet, and eventually the tablets were sold without aiming to neither consumers nor business users.
Also, the decision to run the business such as to launch a new service of Black Berry Messenger, was conflicted among the executive directors that cost the company fortune to escape the current problem of financial issues and competition on the market; this also cost the company losing the co-CEO of the board, Mr. Balsillie, he decided to leave the RIM.
Another management problem with BlackBerry was the making the right decisions. When the company had to make the choice between building the new device, BlackBerry 10, from the scratch based on new operating system, QNX, or to move some application from the old Java-based over? They were tough decisions and the company dragged on a year to make. It was too long while the market and demands from consumers would not wait for this.
Strategic options management is the new core competency because it allowed the organization to seek new ways of acquiring or satisfying customers. The suggestion for BlackBerry is to make the right decisions to catch up with the market.
Revision
Ensure the decision and change is adaptable and up to date.
Even after the company recognized the consumers' preferences of touchscreen smartphone, but it insisted to continue producing phones with keyboard; also the vision at BlackBerry was their smartphone as fancy, e-mail-enabled mobile phones while its competitors were on the way making them to become a full computer. Since the failures the company continued, they caused the co-CEO Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis to step down. The new CEO, Mr. Thorsten Heins stepped up, but he could not revise the company either.
The suggestion for BlackBerry is revising the strategy often, seeking out advantage in new niches, redesign the operation to focus and to embrace more on the core business and on what is good and working, but don't try to improve any operation that is weak, or does not work anymore.
Organization
A unique organization will keep it moving forward and enable all innovations.
BlackBerry had multiple vice-presidents and this caused the disagreement in consensus in turn to stall the innovation, obviously when a proposal was widely agreed on board, then the work is moving ahead.
Operation was in duo responsibility and this created the problem of when the work failed, no one was responsible for it. Similarly, the senior executives could not make their own decision but always needed consent from the 2 founders.
This co-CEO was a problem in management for BlackBerry that caused the split of the company and in the related chain; it caused the problems of customer feedbacks could not reach to the top executive level either. This also caused the company was not operated as a team but divided and no one was accountable for any problem aroused.
In summary, there were many issues of co-CEO structure that could not unique a decision for the company, deadline failed behind schedule, no aiming on what kind of customers for the new products (tablets), inconsistent in technology desire that created more problems in future, and disagreement on media advertisement, and security/freebee of internet access on tablet that caused some lost in revenue and unhappy relationship for the carriers with BlackBerry.
The suggestion for BlackBerry is to find a potential CEO to rebuild the company and to stay focus on the core business as serving Phone Company and continue to provide the services to the steady customers in business and government sectors rather, in that way, at least these customers can secure a steady profit for BlackBerry.