Blackberry is a Canadian-based company that was once a market leader in mobility solutions. However, its products have faced significant challenges from the leading industry players like Samsung, Sony, and iPhone among many others.
The company has, however, refused to face out, introducing different kinds of new strategies and relying on its core strengths to remain existing in the market. Most of the strategies it has launched previously have failed due to the rigid and closed operating system it has been using. However, the company finally gave in to pressure and embraced both android and windows platforms in 2016.
The company has therefore combined the customer needs in the market with their strong reputation of ambient security to offer the enthusiasts with mobility solutions that can be very competitive in the market. How successful the ambitious strategy would remain a major area of interest, but various informing elements like the risks, challenges, and opportunities surrounding the new strategies are evident in the market.
This paper explores the cases of the telephone company new strategies released in 2016 to embrace its key strengths, and the market needs to develop solutions that are believed to be game changers. The risks factors and the opportunities are also discussed in the paper. These are followed by strong recommendations that the company can assimilate for successful strategic implementations.
Content
1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction
3. The Company Background
4. Reasons For This Business Strategy Case
5. Potential Issues That Compromise Strategic Objectives
6. The Value Of The Introduced Strategic Changes
7. Impacts Of The Strategy In The Industry
8. Recommendations
9. References
1. Executive Summary
Blackberry is a Canadian-based company that was once a market leader in mobility solutions. However, its products have faced significant challenges from the leading industry players like Samsung, Sony, and iPhone among many others. The company has however refused to face out, introducing different kinds of new strategies and relying on its core strengths to remain existing in the market. Most of the strategies it has launched previously have failed due to the rigid and closed operating system it has been using. However, the company finally gave in to pressure and embraced both android and windows platforms in 2016. The company has therefore combined the customer needs in the market with their strong reputation of ambient security to offer the enthusiasts with mobility solutions that can be very competitive in the market. How successful the ambitious strategy would remain a major area of interest, but various informing elements like the risks, challenges, and opportunities surrounding the new strategies are evident in the market. This paper explores the cases of the telephone company new strategies released in 2016 to embrace its key strengths, and the market needs to develop solutions that are believed to be game changers. The risks factors and the opportunities are also discussed in the paper. These are followed by strong recommendations that the company can assimilate for successful strategic implementations.
2. Introduction
The mobility industry remains competitive and dynamic. Hover, there is no company that has maintained stability in the face of challenges like Blackberry. The company was once a market leader alongside Nokia, Motorola and the Siemens phones division but all the major early industry players have faced irrelevance. However, Blackberry has remained strong in the market owing to its unique platforms comprising of standalone software, chat, mail and security systems. Research in Motion is relaunching its mobile-based solutions that are likely to take the market by platform. This paper focuses on the blackberry business model released in the year 2016 under John Chen.
3. The Company Background
Blackberry is a 32 years old Ontario-based company that deals in the development, distribution, and usage of the mobile based solutions. Initially, it was called Research in Motion, but the popularity of the mobility division that was initiated in the year 2003 changed the general outlook of the company, and thus it became popularly known as Blackberry.
The company introduced the thumbing keyboard that resonated well with the customer in many respects. It experienced an exponential growth that lead to the company being a household name. Most of the phones the company produced than had handy features like the email services, the text messaging application including the famous Blackberry Messaging (BBM) platform. Moreover, the feature phones also had useful internet and web browsing capability as well as the telephone solutions in a single device (Zahavi & Zahavi, 2003).
The company has been facing competitive market from the industry new entrants like Samsung, Apple Inc., and many other Asian-based companies. This has seen the market share of Blackberry drop significantly with the company facing eminent extinction. The challenges that the company has faced in the mobility market is reminiscent of what befall the industry early players like Nokia, Motorola and Siemens mobile division all of which have become non-significant industry players. However, RIM has stuck lurking in the market and had initiated some business re-engineering platforms, some of which have failed and others have gained traction in creating operational success (Crewley, 2010). The latest strategies however looks viable.
The company has a strong reputation of mobile device and corporate applications security gained from the beginning of its operations that many of its leading competitors like iPhone and Samsung cannot attain. However, the product portfolio from the company has seen stiff competitive market spearheaded by the Android-based phones, and the iOS-based phones. Blackberry is believed to be the most secure phone for the end users.
4. Reasons For This Business Strategy Case
It is notable to explore how the company will perform in the market under the new strategic moves that the company has rolled out. According to the company, Blackberry has stopped the manufacture of the handset devices and will concentrate its efforts and strengths in the development of customer focused blackberry software (Frijlink, 2016). The work of the handset manufacturing will be outsourced to other third party agencies, and when the two are brought together under the blackberry smart-in-phone model, the management believes that it will have more customer value than the normal smartphone platforms.
According to the available industry data, one of the reasons why the company mobile iPhone market share leadership phased out in the advent of competition from Android, championed by the Samsung brand and iOS, championed by the iPhone brand is because of the BlackBerry Operating systems cross-platform rigidity (Pålsson, 2014). The software that the blackberry uses is robust, reliable and secure but very narrow that the customer does not get sufficient solution from it (Gilette et al., 2013). For instance, the only way in which two people can have an instantaneous chat through the BBM platform is when both have a blackberry. Comparatively, the chat on the Blackberry platform is a sharp contrast to the Samsung platform, as the Samsung user can manage to chat with any other user as long as they can access and install applications from AppStore or the PlayStore. The following table shows the platform market share for the phone operating systems:
Table 1: Mobile Phone Operating System Industry Market Share
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Source: (International Data Corporation, 2016)
5. Potential Issues That Compromise Strategic Objectives
When the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) believes that developing a Smart-In-Phone solution will solve the Blackberry woes, there are risk factors that the company must carefully consider. For instance, most mobile phones use Android-based platforms, with a significant number using iOS platforms. If Android already runs 86% of the market share, and more products including Televisions, cars, game consoles, fridges and most electronics are gearing towards embracing Android-based applications, the focus on the blackberry Smart-In-Phone concept may be another case of the business re-engineering flop (International Data Corporation, 2016). Developing the software solutions would be a bigger challenge than developing the handset solution. Many people believe that the best ideas for the Blackberry fortunes to be turned around is to embrace a platform that is Android and iOS compliant (Pålsson, 2014). This calls for the opening of the blackberry operating system for the users to enjoy a cross-platform experience. If the company could have concentrated the research and development team into developing handset solutions, they might have created a significant market leadership.
6. The Value Of The Introduced Strategic Changes
Blackberry has combined its key strengths in a bid to revitalize itself. It has made use of its positive reputation it has in the market, the secure model leadership and cost leadership to roll out mobility solutions that resonate with the market. In July 2016, the company announced its first evener Android-based smartphone, the DTEK50 phone, signaling bending to pressure and giving the customers products that they need. However, the mobile solution comes bundled with utility applications, productivity solutions, appealing aesthetics and most importantly, the armored security that assures the users of ultimate privacy.
The DTEK50 is a just forerunner in a set of elaborate mega changes that the company has lined up on its profile (Wee, 2016). The company has also released a Windows-based phone that will ride on the productivity of the Microsoft applications combined with the Blackberry’s security to give organizations and professionals with apt solutions not available in any other devices in the market. The Apple based iOS however, remains closed and cannot be applied to other mobile phones. The phone has a blackberry hub, a reminiscent of the AppStore that houses the applications that can be downloaded from the PlayStore and used in a cross-platform with people using other phone brands (Wee, 2016). In addition to the development of the personal phone solutions, the company is also mulling over the development of quality corporate digital solutions that will give utility and productivity tools secured under the renowned Blackberry security models.
7. Impacts Of The Strategy In The Industry
The solutions rolled out by blackberry new smart devices in the market are likely to cause a storm in the market. It is an opportune time when the mobility solution giants Samsung and apple’s smartphones have faced great slumps in the market. Samsung recalled its Galaxy Note 7 and is yet to reassure the customers that quality is a priority the company considers. Moreover, Apple Inc. through their iPhone has also slumped in the market severally creating a viable window of opportunity for blackberry to cash in with apt solutions. The advantage that the company has it that it has not faced a major slump in the market, and so most of the customers are likely to trust the new model of business.
The release of the first financial year's sales data after the company released its Windows and Android based phones are long awaited. However, indicators in the market point’s positive with many corporates reigniting their operations with the old mobility solutions provider based on their new solutions in the market. When it turns out to be positive sales figure for blackberry, it will surmount significant challenge to Samsung and iPhone in the market shortly.
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- Daniel Kamau (Autor), 2016, Blackberry's new business strategy. An analysis, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/358908
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