In 2010, Research In Motion (RIM) was a leader in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Founded by Canadian Businessman Mike Lazardis, born in Ontario, RIM quickly became a chief innovator and manufacturer within this sector. RIM was founded by Mr. Lazardis in 1984, after he dropped out of University two months before graduation (McGraw-Hill 2010). In the financial year of 2009, RIM generated revenues of approximately US$11 billion (McGraw-Hill 2010).
Since 2010, numerous changes took place at RIM in order to try and return to being the dominant leader in their market. There have been two CEO changes as firstly Thorsten Heins replaced then joint CEOs Mike Lazardis and Jim Balsillie in January 2012, only to be replaced himself less than two years later by John Chen in November 2013 (Blackberry Press November 2013). Senior positions such as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Marketing Officer as also seen changes during this time. This clearly shows the sign of an underperforming or even a declining business that needs such drastic changes to try and grow or even to stop the decline.
RIM also decided to change its trading name from Research in Motion to Blackberry in January 2013 by then CEO Thorsten Heins (Blackberry Press January 2013). This was a clear ploy in trying to maximize the launch of their new Blackberry 10 product.
The amount of employees once employed by Blackberry as also diminished due to the high amount of loss the company was earning. The biggest action of staff reduction came in September 2013 when they announced approximately 4,500 employees would be released (Blackberry Press September 2013).
Currently in today’s economy, Blackberry is no longer the force it once was. According to Statista, Blackberry revenues plummeted from a high of US$19.9 billion in 2011 to US$6.8 in 2014 (2015). That’s a reduction of 66% in 3 years which shows just how much Blackberry as declined in a short space of time. The emergence of Apple, co-founded by Steve Jobs was a major reason behind the fall of Blackberry. It would appear that Blackberry was not ready for such competition or they didn’t feel anyone would be able to challenge them in a market which they were dominating. Apple came out with new technologies such as touchscreen and voice recognition while Blackberry was very stagnant and had no major changes to their mobile technology. While Blackberry was trying to compete with Apple, Google acquired and further developed the Android technology in November 2007 (Google Company History). Android technology would prove to be the second challenge faced by Blackberry as now Android smartphones along with Apple smartphones have cornered the market.
With these new competitors, Blackberry was far too slow in getting up to speed with the new technology and only launched their first touchscreen only phone in 2008 while their outdated software was not changed until 2013 (Blackberry Press January 2013). This shows in my opinion poor leadership as well as lack of flexibility as the market share was already gone before they finally released a new technology to try and compete.
A big factor which also proved decisive was the emergence of a variety of messenger services. When Blackberry became popular, many persons got addicted to using Blackberry Messenger, which then was the most popular way to send instant messages around the world to your loved ones. Therefore, instant messaging was the unique factor, differentiating Blackberry from the competition. Now with so many different choices the consumer can make for messaging service including Whatsapp, Viber and Kik, Blackberry lost what might have been their final competitive edge. Customers can now choose not to use a Blackberry phone knowing that they can still send instant messages worldwide using these services. To further highlight the loss of this key competitive edge for Blackberry, Blackberry Messenger which was once solely for BlackBerry users, can now be obtained on a Windows phone since July 2014 (Blackberry Press July 2014). This service was available to Android and IPhone users from an earlier period and an updated version was even issued in February 2014 (Blackberry Press February 2014).
Even though they are facing severe competition, Blackberry can still re-emerge as one of the powerhouses of the mobile industry. The main reason that allows Blackberry the chance of turning it around is simply because of the industry they are in. Mobile technology has changed immensely over a relatively short space of time, with cellphones moving from the size of a brick to being virtually a miniature computer in your palm. A perfect example of moving from a near bankrupt company to that of a market powerhouse would be dramatic growth and turnaround of Apple, pioneered by Steve Jobs. When Steve Jobs took over Apple in 1997, it was a near bankrupt organization, now it is a multibillion dollar leader in the technology industry (Business Week 2011). This shows that there is still a chance of sustained success for Blackberry as another company operating within the same industry has done it before. The key to turning it around however is through innovation. Apple turned it around by the release of new technology, namely IPod, IMac and of course the IPhone. Blackberry would have to invest heavily in finding the next big innovation within the industry to make this possible. With Blackberry’s latest product, Passport, they have tried to include some new technology including a special never been seen keyboard, as well as the longest battery life (Blackberry Press January 2015). This shows that they themselves know that new innovation is key to turning things around.
References
McGraw-Hill, R. (2010). Industry Project A PROJ-2003 Custom Publication for Red River College.
The Statistics Portal (2015). Blackberry/RIM’s revenue from 2004-2014. Retrieved from http://www.statista.com/statistics/266240/global-revenue-of-rim-since-2004/
Blackberry Press Releases. Retrieved from http://press.blackberry.com/press.html Google. Our History in Depth. Retrieved from http://www.google.ca/about/company/history/ Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine (October 2011). Steve Jobs: The Return, 1997-2011, Retrieved from
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-return-19972011-10062011.html