Blackberry Case Study

8/10/2019 Blackberry Case Study

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Strategic Management

SYMMS

2013-15

Keyboard lovers Bemoan Their Own as Blackberry In Trouble

Case Study

TEAM MEMBERS

Name Roll No.

ROOPDIP MUKHOPADHYAY 82

ABHISHEK SHARMA 90

CHRISTOPHER REBELLO 81



SUMMARY

Blackberry the company which brought the QWERTY keyboard to the market has been facing a

rough time in all markets around the world from the last few years.

Blackberry reported a quarterly loss of $1 billion dollars. Business Analysts think that with such

heavy losses Blackberry might have to exit the market. In the last few years most users have

switched to touchscreen mobiles. BlackBerry’s failure to keep up with Apple, Samsung,

Motorola and Google was a consequence of errors in its strategy and vision. First, after growing

to dominate the corporate market, BlackBerry failed to anticipate that consumers — not

business customers — would drive the smartphone revolution. BlackBerry insisted on

producing phones with full keyboards, even after it became clear that many users preferred

touchscreens, which allowed for better video viewing and touchscreen navigation.

Integral security features and an ever-expanding administrative toolset have earned

BlackBerry® products the trust of some of the most secure organizations in the world. These

security features have also made the BlackBerry solution a world leader in mobile securitycertifications. Black berry may have to contend with Knox – a set of security features developed

by Samsung for android platform aimed at professionals, government and corporate users.

The loss reported by Blackberry reflected a $934 million write down of a growing inventory of

Blackberry Z10 phones as well as $72 million in charges related to layoffs. The $ 1.6 billion in

revenue during three month period that ended August 31 was way below the $ 3 billion target

which analysts had expected and it reflected a 49 percent drop from the first quarter.

Blackberry has three key business platforms: devices, enterprise services, and BBM. According

to Technology analyst, Jack Gold BBM unit would be the most attractive for any potentialindustry buyer.

As of now, BlackBerry is struggling to rebuild itself. Whether BlackBerry can rebuild itself again

or nor is something everyone is waiting to see.



I) Is Joint Venture or buyout the only solution for Blackberry? Suggest a

turnaround strategy to keep the company afloat.

The company has for long trying its level best to launch products with its black berry keyboard

interface the physical QWERTY keypad. Blackberry is a one of a kind smart phone with

keyboard which enabled texting a breeze which has its place in a very niche segment of the

market but instead of that over the years it has been unsuccessful in the race of innovation and

development of new OS which is based on a more friendly and customizable eco system that is

Android. It has made quarterly losses which amount $1 billion which is crippling its operations.

One can easily draw out there is a failure in the 4 P’s of the company:-

a)Product: Black berry served the cooperate customers to a great extent it made day to day task

so much easier and it was the only phone which act a personal digital assistant. The product line

of black berry still tries to cope with these customers’ needs but nothing to offer to the

customers. There is no differentiation in the product offerings of Black berry as compared to the

other brands prevailing in the current market. The benefit it offers and how the customer’s life or

work will be improved if he or she buys what black berry offers is lost out as true positioning isnot done properly. From the application developers point of view if a phone has a keyboard the

application would have to be made specifically compatible for a smaller screen. Black berry

needs to move from the keyboard towards the operating system and phone functionality which it

could use a competitive sustainable advantage

b) Price: The price point in the case of its products as compared to the market leaders is high as

most of the phones being offered by the company are no doubt targeted at the elite class of

individuals with very specific requirements most of the phones available at a price point lower

than black berry meet these requirements with ease and at half the price. Hence pricing is a miss.

In the case of Blackberry it is essential that it directs its R & D towards developing better and

unique bundled OS which are secure and offer tamper proof. Black berry services which were

linked to their servers were highly appreciated by many of its users as it is secure and maintains

high level of SSL (Secure Socket Layer) network.

The following directives need to be considered by Black berry

1) Cost cutting

2) Develop Blackberry User Interface on Android Operating System

3)

Liquidate unwanted or obsolete assets

4)

Focus on enterprise customers5) Invest in device integration with android.

The benefits would be:-

• Increased Revenues from New Devices

• Synergies in Services Revenues from Devices



• Better brand perception

• Niche player with Net Profits

Industry Analysis

II) As Samsung Electronics is the leading brand in Smart phones category what strategy

should it adopt to benefit from Blackberry?’

Samsung smart phones have been leaders in selling’s phones to elite and high end customers

with the fall of Blackberry they could augment their high products on with add on features that

of security and customization. Also over and above that they can position these products towards

ERP plugin options where in the elite class of cooperates can balance both business needs and

personal life needs all on the same phone without compromising on anything.

• Main factors influencing the Smartphone industry:

i. Relationships between platform leaders and hardware manufacturers.

ii. Market demand and carrier support.



iii. The decisions of a number of major players with regard to key transitions or

major trends.

• Google control over Android OS.

• Budget phones

• Informed customers

• Better benchmarking tools

• Powerful phones and number of players in the market

• New and untapped markets

III) Blackberry products are used by governments and large financial institutions around

the world to secure communications. How can Blackberry benefit from it?

Blackberry is the preferred enterprise phone with regards to cooperate customers as it meets all

work related needs the security encryption and secured services offered by blackberry act aunique selling point for all its product. It is found that most of the delegates of various countries

and of various organizations use its products to carry out day to day activity stable operating

system and robust network has protected most of its users from security threats. But to

accomplish this focus on enterprise security, BlackBerry has to appear truly interested in the

enterprise. This means developing an application ecosystem that plays to its strengths, but the

apps that seem to emerge from BlackBerry don't do that. Instead all that seems to show up is a

trickle of games and entertainment packages that don't do anything for BlackBerry's loyal

customer base.

This means offering an infrastructure that remains secure, an ecosystem that offers business andgovernment users value they can't find elsewhere. The obvious question is how he plans to go

about accomplishing that. Catering to the needs of these enterprise customers is the base for

development of more business and this can only be done by generating awareness among the big

giants and governments about secure communication system. This is a very niche segment which

will help Black Berry sustain provided it focuses on developing a complete eco system which

provides end to end solution to these entities as cyber security is the need of the hour.

This is how Black berry can benefit:-

1)

An entire niche market to cater to2) Monopoly in this niche segment

3) Retained and loyal customers

4) Competitive sustainable advantage

5) Brand building and higher turnover

6) Access to high priority clients

7) Secured market share

Blackberry Case Study

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