Blackberry Business Strategy, Essay Example

Abstract

Blackberry may be the best cited example of dominating a target market, losing the market share to more innovative and resourceful companies and then restructuring their strategic intent to work back into their operating space. Blackberry is an organization of firms that work together with an aim of facilitating community development in the Canadian society. The firm is composed of a variety of sectors dealing with smartphones, tablets, information security and high reliability software. The operation of these groups of firms has been noted to be developing because of support from the society.  For all of the dissection of Blackberry’s success and comprehensive use of business and government communication contracts is well known and their fall from market leaders is the source for many business cases but there is little written about the company’s reprioritization and alignment to new and more poignant business philosophies. The events and timeline of the company, the meteoric rise, collapse and reinvention becomes not only understandable, but also the probable history for the concept of remaining agile and never becoming complacent with the current status.

Blackberry Business Strategy

Business organizations are usually established with an aim of gaining dominance in the market so that they attain their set goals. The firms will strive to become globally known due to their high levels of performance in terms of their products and services. It is the pride of a company to conquer the world market and prosper in relation to the company’s vision and mission objectives. Strategic leadership is the main reason behind the success of global companies (Gully, et al, 2002, p. 823). The Blackberry Corporation is a Canadian based company that has achieved a lot on the global scene. The company was originally a dominate force in innovation and communication within the business and government sectors.

Overview

Blackberry Corporation was conceived from a deep understanding of the structuration principles, and founded with the specific intention of creating a new set of structural rules and resources that would, upon proving its success, be integrated into the parent’s existing structure with the intent of replacing that structure. The firm is composed of a variety of sectors dealing with different industrial activities, for instance the software development, telecommunications, security infrastructure and the information technology sectors. The operation of these groups of firms has been notable to be developing in the 21^st century because of support from the society, operating in a new and emerging market and thus losing the progress within the course of three years. After an initial, startling success, Blackberry Corporation collapsed, finally succumbing to the pressures of external market forces.  The resurrection based on re-organization, prioritization and business strategy is yet to be fully realized but the operating tactics used are significant in both finding a solution and the potential focus for preventing failure.

Blackberry is faced with different trends that definitely have to be taken into consideration in order to better understand the external environment and to deal with it in the most sensitive way. Before introducing the macro environment analysis, we first have to determine the industry we are talking about. The first issue to consider is the economy that is defined by a global increase in the cost of business, a decrease in the purchasing power of the consumer and increasing competitive forces globally.  Faced with this situation, the mobile communication market if focuses on speed, effectiveness, efficiency and security (O’Connor, & McDermott, 2007). Moreover, the current low-rated dollar offers good opportunities for western companies to conduct business based on currency purchasing power but put other regions such as Europe, Canada or Asia at a disadvantage, potentially.

Strategic Intentions

The technological advancements with enhanced production methodologies and the use of systems such as outsourcing some key logistical operations and insourcing those activities that are core to the business tenants help to reduce time to market and costs by providing more efficient product development. In addition, information technology and software use are a source of high performance and safety for the products.

Information systems are transforming businesses by transforming data into useful information for more accurate, reliable and expeditious business decisions. The core of any business is dependent on how the decision makers take inputs from the business environment, calculate the data together and ultimately compute a business decision based on those inputs.  As businesses go from the antiquated legacy processes of manipulating data to collaborative and instant information utilizing information systems, businesses can adapt and overcome their environments to help facilitate a competitive advantage. These information systems help provide a closer relationship between the key business decisions and the data needed to take the right actions.  The closer and quicker decision makers can interpret and act upon the data, the better chance they have in creating a gap between themselves and their competition.  The original concept of Blackberry Corporation was not a model organization with maximized internal relationships and a focus on satisfaction in all aspects of the organization, but as a model for producing secure and efficient telecommunications to business and government agencies (Mink, 2005).

In reviewing the well analyzed history of Blackberry Corporation’s creation, it is clear that an inclusive human experience was thought vital to the success of the venture. Labor relations, work flow, internal communications, product design, production design, franchise relations, sales team and customer interactions were all planned out for maximum human value in these relationships. The motivational goal behind these structures was clearly to maximize return and to minimize loses of soft and hard cost, but the inherent endorsement of a Cybernetic inclusivity reveals that decision makers, steeped in traditional management models, can identify the failings of list oriented management and the need for cybernetic identity for new and successful ventures.

Such inclusion suggests awareness of (Steffe & Gale, 2005), in which interviewed members of a common organization had different ideas of what the structure was. “The ‘maps’ of their ‘organization’ were rather different and, more importantly for the initial concern. This difference remained unacknowledged and was assumed to be non-existent” (Steffe & Gale, 2005). For maximum productivity and ownership to be present, all members of a common organization must have a common understanding of the organization’s structure. By incorporating a system thinking that includes nearly all elements of that organization, Blackberry Corporation clearly mirrored the objectives set out by the new Chief Executive Officer, John Chen. The main aim of their new focus is swift and impactful changes to solve problems directly and to eliminate the thinking that leads to a problem. This philosophy also gives challenge, probe and clarify habitual ways of thinking.

The initial line of Blackberry products shared almost no major competitive advantage with any other security or telecommunication company. The saving grace for the company is the competitive advantage within the government and business sectors that are reliant upon the obligation for “Authority to Operation” within the Department of Defense networks.  Product design was focused on consumer satisfaction and manufacturing simplicity. The product could be restyled by the modification of user interfaces and application compatibility, an entirely new concept, requiring limited change to the process flow (Koch, 2007).

The Blackberry Company has implemented various strategies towards its growth and development in the 21^st century. This has been enhanced by making advancements in various industrial processes such as the steel industries, airlines’ services and hospitality. This has an implication that the firm is in a position to serve a wider population of the individuals both in the American society and those who could just be having intentions of conducting the commercial operations in America. There are many business sectors under the management of the Blackberry Company. The encompassing of these business sectors has enhanced the company’s expansion in the world economy. The major business sectors under the Blackberry management include commercial and informational technology, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products and chemicals (Steffe, & Gale, 2005). The world is in a dynamic status and this is the reason why these business sectors have been quite significant for the company in the 21^st century. Apart from the business sectors controlled by the Blackberry Company, there have been various companies under the leadership of Blackberry.  The 21^st century has been encircled with numerous changes in all the companies managed by Blackberry. Blackberry’s management of the company has been quite effective and efficient and this is what has propelled the company’s performance in the 21^st century (Thayer, 2007).

The Blackberry Corporation has incorporated various strategies so has to have a high competitive advantage in the global arena. The company management has used effective management aspects to achieve its goals. The company has placed the society on the front line in its growth and development scheme. The company operates under the notion of returning wealth to the society through improving the quality of life for community members. The company has been philanthropic enough to create institutions in Science and technology, Medical research and Social Studies (Locke & Latham, 2002). These initiatives have led to upbringing of a highly knowledgeable society since the America has been entangled with high levels of knowledge.

The company’s management has advocated for high levels of business ethics. The company operates under: Integrity, Understanding, Unity, Excellence and Responsibility. With these values, the company has been quite effective in maintaining fairness and respect to both its clients and employees.  Ethics has been highly recommended in the 21^st century. The high levels of business ethics upheld by the Blackberry Corporation are what have made the company scoop a large market share in distributing its products and services (Gully, 2002). Customers are the people behind good company performance and they should hence be treated respectably. Another pivotal aspect that has made the company to continuously grow in the secured infrastructure and software business models is its ability to return more of the wealth to the society that it serves.  This includes outsourcing engineering activities and other highly technical aspects that are required for information technology growth. This has made it to have access to many clients whom it serves and therefore makes it to maximize the profits arising from the sales of the products and the delivery of the services in terms of the power and the airline services to the air travellers.

Blackberry’s leadership created a wildly successful and new enterprise, entirely free of the stigma associated with limited lifespan technology although the company was on the brink of losing their market share to emerging technological companies.  A company’s growth and development can be traced back to the leadership in place at a particular operational period The Blackberry Company has had good leadership and management hence its growth and development.  This gives the implication that companies must have effective and efficient strategic leadership to become successful. With the high competition levels in the global arena, companies must show high levels of performance so as to have a high competitive advantage. The firm is held by the philanthropic truss that have made it to make contributions to the non-governmental organizations and also aid the society in the facilitation of education, health care and livelihood of the individuals.

References

Koch R. (2007). Public governance and leadership: political and managerial problems in making public governance changes the driver for re-constituting leadership, Michigan: DUV.

Mink, O. (2005). Change at Work. New York. American Psychologist, 57, pp. 705-717.

O’Connor, J. & McDermott, I. (2007). The Art of Systems Thinking. New Jersey.

Steffe, L. & Gale, J. (2005). Constructivism in Education. Academy of Management Executive, pp 67-84.

Thayer, L. (2007). Organization Communication. Emerging Perspectives III, pp 117-142.

Gully, S.M., et al. (2002). ‘A meta-analysis of team efficacy, potency and performance: interdependence and level of analysis as moderators of observed relationships’. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 819-832.

Locke, E.A. & Latham, G.P. (2002). ‘Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35 year odyssey’. American Psychologist, 57, pp. 705-717.