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Business Strategy and Change Management
BLACKBERRY

Submitted by:
Sharma Monika 20142256
Kaur Sandeep 20141745
Khurana Ashish 20150364
Kumar Rohit 20150599

Submitted by:
Sharma Monika 20142256
Kaur Sandeep 20141745
Khurana Ashish 20150364
Kumar Rohit 20150599

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report is about the decline of Blackberry and factors responsible for its downfall. These factors have been precisely described below in the form of PESTEL and SWOT analysis. All the latest data collected in relation to a company Blackberry has been demonstrated in the form of charts and tables correspondence to other rivalry groups, which shows the clear picture and downfall of company in smartphone industry. The latest market data reveals the current scenario and situation of the company in today’s market. The report also demonstrates how the company struggles and make effective use of different strategies of various marketing communication means and tools to stay tuned and compete with such a challenging industry especially in India. It also shows the impact of other line products that contributes to the decline of the company. * *

Table of Contents 1 Introduction 3 1.1 Market Data 3 1.2 RIM (Research in Motion) 9 2 Analysis 13 2.1 PESTEL Analysis 13 2.2 SWOT Analysis- Blackberry 16 2.3 Benchmarking 18 3 Conclusion and Recommendations 21 4 References 22

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Introduction
From the last decade, the technology has been greatly influencing our lifestyle. Just for a moment, imagine a life without a smartphone. We might feel isolated and offcut from rest of the world. Since people had been using different means of communication to interact and expand their business. The innovation of smartphone (Phone + computer) has dramatically changed our lifestyle and provided great push to business. Therefore, smartphone industry has been changing very rapidly. Nowadays, the smartphone has become an integral part of our life and realising this fact, manufacturers have been working hard in research and development to provide a market a product with some distinct and unique features in order to attract new customers in the market. The major key players in the race are Apple, Samsung, BlackBerry, Nokia, HTC etc. Though the concept of smartphone was first introduced by BlackBerry (formerly known as Research in Motion) but the other companies has left BlackBerry far behind in the race. Even though the company is declining, it is making continuous efforts to revive its position in the market.
Market Data
As we can see the graph chat from Toronto stock exchange (TO), there is significant decrease in the stock price in last decade, the stock price seems quite volatile and dancing throughout 10 years of span time. The stock price had almost touched CAD 150 during mid of 2008, but slumped down near to 50 CAD by the end of the year. . In our knowledge, that was the period when Lehman brothers got bankrupted, which further triggers the whole market throughout the world and causes global economic crisis and recession throughout the world.

Figure 1 (BSE, 2014)

Figure 2 (BSE, 2014)
This graph shown above clearly demonstrate the downfall of the company in last five years. The stock price almost dropped down 85% since 2010.
The company spent more time trying to justify its existing smartphone philosophy and less time getting ahead of trends (Standard, 2014).

Figure 3 (BSE, 2014)
Impact on Indian market
Even though, people in India has got average working income but they are quite aware and fond of exclusive brands. As they always believe branded things always have something that makes them and product different from others. The famous Brand of that time ‘Blackberry’ might or might not be aware of this fact but gained significant success in India when entered first time in year 2004. Having some exclusive feature at that time like push e-mail, Blackberry Messenger (also known as BBM), Internet faxing and many more, Blackberry straight away targeted the enterprise segment which makes this device very popular in corporate world. And there was no other rival device countering the feature possessed by Blackberry at that time and the company achieved significant success. It almost achieved leadership position in the smartphone segment in India. Gradually, people of all ages and different management level started aspiring for Blackberry. Even some companies in India begins to distribute Blackberry handset within top level management people. Over the years, people of all ages and different management level started aspiring for Blackberry. Taking the advantage of this aspect, blackberry decided to target youths and teens. Finally, in 2011 Blackberry rolled out range of models targeting almost every possible consumer segment.
But, as the time passes and due to the introduction of new smartphones, tablets, PC Pocket etc. Especially, the introduction of iPhone highly influenced the market of Blackberry in India. The trend and craze of blackberry started diminishing in India and brand started losing its exclusivity. And recently, the survey conducted by IDC (International Data Corporation), Blackberry is almost disappeared from the Indian market due to rival smartphones with more features and less affordable price.

Figure 4 (IDC, 2014)
In the quarter ended May 31, its global shipments crashed 61 per cent to 2.6 million handsets from the same quarter in 2013-14. While the company posted a surprise profit of $23 million after reporting a loss of $423 million in the previous quarter, analysts were quick to announce that the positive news did not signal a comeback. Its market share stands at 0.5. In the last few years in India, its market share plummeted from 14.8 per cent in April-June 2010 to 7 per cent in 2012, 2.9 per cent in 2013 and just 0.5 per cent in January-March 2014, according to market research company IDC. (IDC, 2014)
BlackBerry’s profit from India declines 50% to Rs 11.46 crore. BlackBerry has seen decline in India smartphone sales as it lost out market share to rivals selling phones based on Google Android OS. (Standard, 2014)

Figure 5 (IDC, 2014)

Strategies employed
It is quite obvious while realising their continuous downfall of stock price and losing much of their market share throughout the nation. Every company makes effective steps and approach by changing either their management or business strategies in the form of advertisement and other form of marketing communication. And the same thing was actually done and being done by RIM’s Blackberry. Here, we are displaying some of the advertisements utilised by the management to convince Indian users and to gain back the trust of the people and motivate them, in order to enhance their sale and gain position in the Indian market. It can also be seen in the following ads

Figure 6

Figure 7
Since the Indian market in differentiated into two categories urban users and rural users. Urban users mainly focuses on the launch of latest, more advanced feature and application for the business use. Also they care about their status symbol and lifestyle. Whereas on the other hand, rural users checks about the affordability, connectivity, battery life, low Tariffs and lucrative offers before buying any handset. Bearing this in mind, the management divided its target market into two basis segment. Enterprise customers | Non-enterprise customers | Enterprise customers were usually high end users aged 25 + years, mainly mid to senior level management level professionals. These users were belonged to tier 1 cities. And Blackberry had already established leadership position into this segment. | Non-enterprise users were those who were aged between 15-25 years mainly students or individual who wanted to use it for personal purposes. And today there is a range of smartphones from different brands targeting consumer segment even those who have barely crossed their teen age. |

Blackberry had been very quick to understand and cater the needs of youth in India. In the last couple of years, Blackberry realised that segment who do not have the financial power today but will have tomorrow. This segment has the huge need to be connected. In order to lure this segment, the Blackberry not only released different colours of handsets and smartphones like pink, pearl and crimson but also offered lucrative tariff plans. They also made the effective use of media for advertising their products by means of different celebrities. In all the above ads, it can be observed that blackberry has actively set out to target youth and more fun focussed customers. Recently, Blackberry has announced to launch its new smartphone “Leap” in India in the mid of June, which is priced around $275 (Rs 21500). As we checked out its feature and specification, we don’t think it can hold for a long in Indian market. Because in this price range users can easily get more advanced with more attractive features. * 1.2 RIM (Research in Motion)
Research in Motion is a Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets. The company is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by Mike Lazaridis, who served as its co-CEO along with Jim Balsillie until January 22, 2012.
RIM started as wireless communication developer in 1984 and later in 1996 first form of text messaging was launched. And thus developed a much secured network. BlackBerry Limited, formerly Research In Motion Limited, incorporated on March 7, 1984, is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. Through the development of integrated hardware, software and services, it provides platforms and solutions for seamless access to information, including e-mail, voice, instant messaging, short message service (SMS), Internet and intranet-based applications and browsing.
The company operates offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The BlackBerry wireless solution comprises wireless devices, software and services. RIM generates revenue primarily from the BlackBerry wireless solution, which includes sales of BlackBerry wireless devices, software and services. The BlackBerry wireless solution also enables the use of data functions such as calendar, address book, task and memo lists, and other functions associated with personal organizers. The BlackBerry Mobile Data System (BlackBerry MDS) allows users to securely access data from enterprise applications and the internet.
BlackBerry smartphones are offered in alliance with carriers and distribution channels. The devices are designed to operate on a variety of carrier network types. The company’s BlackBerry smartphone portfolio includes BlackBerry Bold series, BlackBerry Storm series, BlackBerry Tour, BlackBerry Curve series, and the BlackBerry Pearl series. BlackBerry enterprise solutions comprise BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). BES is a software which acts as the centralized link between BlackBerry smartphones, enterprise systems, business applications and wireless networks. It integrates with enterprise messaging systems including Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise to wirelessly and securely synchronize with BlackBerry smartphones to provide mobile users with secure, push-based wireless access to email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks.
Innovation
Blackberry have recently introduced its new server BES12 which lets to manage enterprise mobility across iOS, Android™, Windows Phone®, Samsung KNOX and BlackBerry® devices. it offers industry-leading security with a rich ecosystem of mobility solutions, and flexibility in deployment choice.

Figure 8

BES12 introduces a new, scalable architecture and streamlined user experience that consolidates enterprise mobility management (EMM) control in a single, powerful console. The new attribute-driven, endpoint-permissions model gives you strict control of devices, applications and data, by-person or by-group, more efficiently than ever. And with BES12 v12.1, the admin experience also integrates with third party and in-house monitoring solutions.
Blackberry has also introduced an IOT platform which is a comprehensive set of components comprising device software cloud services, and data interfaces. (BlackBerry, n.d.)

Figure 9

Analysis

Blackberry has been demonstrating a continuous downfall in last decade. There had been several factors responsible for its decline and could not be immunised from these factors. The factors to be taken into account comprises political, economic, social and Technological which directly and indirectly linked to each other and effected the company market share. These factors collectively known as PESTEL. The PESTLE analysis is being conducted to find out the reason of its decline.
PESTEL Analysis

Figure 10
Political factor
For the decline of Blackberry, the political factors had been the major concerns. Since there was fairly and friendly political environment in USA for Blackberry and which helped it to flourish and expand its roots to other nations as well. In the year 2010, there had been some serious issues raise by some countries like Saudi Arabia, China, India against Blackberry. The governing authority of these nations raised the concern over the security features provided to the users by the Blackberry. They were finding it quite hard to break the encryption of the device and monitor the user detail possessing Blackberry product. India's intelligence services cannot intercept BlackBerry encrypted data, citing this as a risk to national security. What's more important: national security, or consumer privacy - and why? (ZDnet, 2010)
Blackberry had also been scrutinised by the countries like Indonesia, Kuwait, and Egypt just because of the above mention reason. Similarly, some other European countries like UK, Germany had also caused some implication for the company. These countries raised the concerns regarding hygiene and safety issues, due to which the government imposed checks on the use of raw material (mainly toxic substances), energy usage and recycling which further effected manufacturing and operation of RIM. All these political interferences largely influenced the market share and results in the decline of the company.
Economic factor
Since the sale of Blackberry largely effected due to the variation in exchange rate. The fluctuation in exchange rate makes it more competitive and surprisingly expensive which might be beyond the budget of economical users especially in the developing nations like china and India. It may not exclusively effect on RIM (Blackberry) products but also other vendors device’s falling in the same line. Since from the recent economic meltdown in 2008, the users from the developing nations have become economically weak and very fussy about electronics devices and gadgets. And therefore always wanted to spend their hard earned money very wisely and smartly. They have diverted from brand name and have become smart watchdog to make comparison among different products and go for the product of same features and specification in less cost.
Social factor
As discussed above, RIM devices were found too secure to access and break the encryption by some nations which are quite vulnerable to terrorist attacks like India. And such a distinctive features makes the device very useful for some anti-social elements to commit any crime. In some religiously sensitive country, it largely impact on the brand image of the company and is considered as an integral part of anti-social elements operations and businesses. And Blackberry being considered as too secure device was quite easily being targeted which highly influenced the company sales.

Technological factor
Technology is one of the major factor or key driver for the success and failure of company in any industry. Actually, we all are bound to technology around us and always keen to see further development and advancement in technology. In order to stay tuned, the manufacturing companies must comply with new technology periodically. Though RIM has actually made every possible attempt to stay updated in technology by inventing new business software’s, smartphones, tablets and actively participated for further enhancement in wireless technology. Though, Blackberry smartphones are adaptable to technological changes and compatible with various advanced service like HSPA/UMTS (high-speed packet access/ universal mobile telecommunications system), GSM/GPRS/EDGE (global system for mobile communications/general packet radio services/enhanced data rates for global evolution),CDMA/Ev-DO (code division multiple access/evolution-data optimized), and iDEN (integrated digital enhanced network) (RIM 2009). But as compare to other mobile manufacturers still lagging in innovation to hold the users with some of their user friendly features and specs. The blackberry once being a big giant to revolutionise the smartphone have to produce something different to meet the expectation of consumers which they from such a brand company. It is equally important for the company in order to withstand in such a competitive market.
Environment
Blackberry is committed to operating in sustainable way that respects environment, employees and the communities in which blackberry operates and its partner around the globe. In order to preserve the image of the company, blackberry ensure to comply environmental standards. And manufacturing does not contributes to any kind of pollution to the environment. The environment factors like use of raw material, product recycling, energy usage and wastage have significant importance for the success and failure of any company.
Legal
The legal issues can largely impact on the growth and sustainability of the company. As discussed above Blackberry has been under legal complications for making their devices too secure, which makes harder for governing bodies to encrypt data. For the security reason, blackberry devices were banned in some countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE and china. In the past year 2001, RIM was issued with a legal notice by the group of inventers accusing the company of building its wireless e-mail network by infringing on patents held by an American-patent company, NTP Inc. of Virginia. However, later the dispute was settled after paying sum total of USD 612.5 Billion to NTP. Thus, impact of legal factors can never be under-estimated and avoided for the success and failure of the company. (Johnson Gerry, 2008)

SWOT Analysis- Blackberry

Figure 10

Strength
Even being influenced from its rival groups, Blackberry still remain big player in the market. Blackberry has been the key player in introducing a wireless e-mail application into its devices. BBM (Blackberry Messenger) developed by the company is still being utilised by millions of users and easily available in application store of different operating system. Blackberry had been very carrier friendly and the only company which introduced very secure phone in the market. It was very common in the corporate world due to its security feature and business enterprise server, due to which it was to consolidate its position in the corporate sector. (Forbes, 2014)

Weakness
The failure of any company is quite obvious if its weaknesses overcome the strengths. This is what actually happened in the case of blackberry. Blackberry was unable to market their brand and in results other company taken over the whole market. R&D was not so effective in innovation whereas other player like iPhone, google android proven to be more effective. The limited application and ineffective blackberry operating system also contributes towards weakness. At the time of touch screen, the QWERTY keyboard has been hassle for some user and thus they switched to touch screen handsets. The devices were too secure to access encrypt data.
Opportunity
“Opportunity knocks Everyone’s door”. The falling blackberry is still in the race and not yet renounced manufacturing smartphone and tablets. If we see the latest two years stock price chart above, it can be observed that stock price has been in stagnant position with no sign of downfall and improvement. The acquisition of QNX software system is the opportunity for the company to develop and improve their software system in order to grow in the market. The introduction of new and more advanced IOT (Internet of things) and BES12 (Business enterprise server) could let the company to hold the market. The introduction of Z series smartphones (Z10, Z30 ) seems being appreciated by the consumers and has been capable to hold their position. Blackberry is just going to launch its new smartphone “leap” into the market in short time. The awaited phone can open the gateway for the company to revive its position in the market. The addition of “HUB” features in the new smartphones, which is exclusive and unique for Blackberry user, could lead to grow in the market.
Threats
There is really a tough competition among the different smartphones companies. In order to consolidate position in saturated smartphone market, every company is making breakthrough improvement, innovation and changing strategies to expand its market share. The biggest threats to the company are from its major rivalry group Iphone, and other Android phones like Samsung, HTC and LG etc. These global player will always remain threats to each other and especially to Blackberry. As the demand of smartphones are increasing due to the growth in the market, this will lead to threat to almost all the smartphone companies. (Ovum, 2006)
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a method of measuring products, services, and processes against those organizations that are known to be leaders in one or more aspects of their operations.
Benchmarking has been key management tool for different companies and organization in order to make their business sustainable and profitable. Blackberry has been giant player in smartphone industry, until the Apples iPhone hit the market by the 2007. After the introduction of Apples iPhone, the blackberry started losing its market share. But at that time, blackberry never realised its whole market would be captured by Apple, which actually happened later on. The underestimation of Apple by Blackberry lead the company to fall abruptly and lose much of its market share.
However, both the companies made every possible effort planned different strategies, opt different marketing communication to introduce their new product in the market.
10 YEARS OF STOCK PRICE CHART OF APPLE IPHONE

Figure 11 (BSE, 2014)

10 YEARS OF STOCK PRICE CHART OF BLACKBERRY

Figure 12 (BSE, 2014)
It can be easily figured out by comparing the stock price chart of both the companies that Blackberry share price start falling in 2007 after iPhone was launched into the market in the same year. Blackberry share keeps on declining and Apple iPhone share price gradually keeps on rising. It seems that share price are almost inversely proportional to each other. Competition from the iPhone has forced Blackberry devices forced to support more features like downloadable applications, higher resolution cameras and touchscreen technology. Blackberry introduced three models BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 and a Blackberry Bold 9000, all released in 2008 as the iPhone gained in popularity.
Latest data released by IDC (International Data Corporation) about smartphone OS market share. The worldwide smartphone market grew 28.2% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2014. Android dominates the market with a 76.6% share. Apple managed to ship 74.5 million units this quarter with a year-over-year growth of 46.0%, closing the gap to a near tie with Samsung. Whereas Blackberry OS has been continuously decreasing since 2011 and dropped to 0.4% in the recent year. (IDC, 2014)

Figure 13 (IDC, 2014)

The reason iPhone gain more popularity is because of its hardware design, user interface, app store with millions of application and moreover its upgradeability. The RIM did not focus much on the innovation and company was unable to make patents. Later, google launched its OS android and competition became more stringent among the smartphone players. Even after the release of android OS, RIM did not shown any improvement into their technology and strategies. Blackberry didn’t learnt much from its competitors and finally, in 2011 blackberry services were interrupted for 3 days which effected the blackberry users all over the world. This led to the biggest downfall of its market share.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The company has been through ups and downs in the last decade. According to the latest data released by International Data Corporation, the company has lost 100% of its share in almost all the countries like USA, India, China and Brazil. The PESTEL and SWOT analysis conducted has precisely described the reason of its downfall due to both macro and micro factors. In the last five years, the company has almost lost 85% of its share price. In our personal judgment, we conclude that the company actually wasn’t strong enough to compete with any of its rival company. Since the company was doing fine until the release of iPhone and android OS. After the introduction of its rivals, the Blackberry goes volatile due to lack of innovation, strategies and unstable management. RIM could not maintain as its possessions and abilities, as a result it has undergone serious setback (Taylor, 2012). Also the RIM had no effective business strategy to fight and survive in such a competitive world of market. In our recommendation, The Company needs to rework a lot on its strategies. The company needs to understand its competitor and their strategies by continuous efforts. The company needs to increase its productivity by launching different user-friendly smartphone of different variant to all segments. The devices must be accessible by user to customize the way he wants. The company needs to strengthen market penetration with advertisement and promotions. To compete with current rivals, Blackberry needs to demonstrate breakthrough improvements in technology by means of coalition or investing in Research and Development to make it more effective. Since industry is highly competitive and introducing new products is very crucial. Thus from the above recommendations and the drivers for success, RIM may possibly regain its share in the smartphone market.

References
BlackBerry. (n.d.). BES12. Retrieved from http://ca.blackberry.com/enterprise/products/bes12.html
BSE. (2014). Bombay Stock Exchange. Retrieved from www.bseindia.com/
Forbes. (2014, December). Why I Prefer The Blackberry Passport Over My iPhone 6?
IDC. (2014). MA, USA. Retrieved from http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
Johnson Gerry, S. K. (2008). Exploring Corporate Strategies. Pearson Education Limited.
Ovum. (2006, August). Retrieved from http://www.blackberry.com/select/get_the_facts/pdfs/vendor/OVUM_RIM_in_the_mobile_enterprise_market.pdf
Standard, B. (2014, September). New Delhi, India. Retrieved from http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/in-india-blackberry-sees-its-best-hope-for-revival-114090101351_1.html
ZDnet. (2010). Retrieved from www.zdnet.com/