Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies - Assignment Example

Blackberry Limited (BBRY) Public Traded Company A publicly traded company is one company that has provided securities through the Initial Public Offering (IPO) and additionally, it is traded on either at least one stock exchange market or an over the counter market. Mainly, these publicly traded companies are subject to the periodic filing and all other obligations obtained in the federal securities laws. There are several examples of public traded corporations or companies. These include: Toyota, Blackberry limited, twitter Inc, Bank of America Corporation and so forth. This paper will discuss the Black Berry Company. Blackberry The term Blackberry is a word that is used to refer to a number of wireless devices which are handheld and services that are designed and marketed by the Blackberry Limited. Blackberry Limited is one multinational corporation that is a publicly traded corporation in the production industry. The Blackberry limited which was initially referred to as Research In Motion Limited (RIM) is one corporation that is diversified in the stock market exchange. It is well known for its production in communication and entertainment devices. Its products have been changing from time to time depending on the market demands and change of technology (Chuan, 2012). Strategies For a company to achieve its intended and stated goals and set missions there are specific strategies bound to be self-proclaimed to guide the operation of the company. These strategies are set to be different and unique from other corporations’ strategies. This is what defines success in the business world. This kind of uniqueness has seen the Blackberry Limited achieve its level in the business world. It has taken a lot for the Blackberry limited to achieve its current position in the business world. This has taken both business-level strategies and corporate-level strategies in designing the operation of the company. The main objective of the Blackberry Company has been to focus on its core business strengths so as to compete with the emergence of stringent business models. These models are aimed at the development of new softwares and the transformation of consumer friendly and efficient devices. Business-level Strategies Mr John Chen, the executive chair and CEO of Blackberry limited, does not really focus on the past, but he focuses on the future value of the company to solve his programing of the company. According to Chen, competitors have been promoting negative stories about Blackberry Limited so as to affect its reputation. These competitors have been focussing on the business of the past, thinking that the past business will give a helping hand in winning success in business. However, Chen disagrees with the opinion that, the past business has fewer positive effects than negative effects on the future operation of the business (Simmons, 2004). In that accord, focus on what a Blackberry is in the modern day and what it will be in the future is one of its business-level strategies. Now that Blackberry Limited is financially, technologically and economically stable, its concentration should be on the matters that will improve the company in future. This includes both the pros and cons of the business. Such evaluation builds the company with a high level of growth and stability. This is because the company is not devastated due to the past challenges, but it sprouts because it has to be operating in the future. The Blackberry Company has a wide variety of talented members of staff. These staff members include the new leaders for enterprise, corporate development and strategic planning, and marketing. To Chen, strengthening leadership in the business creates sustainability and increase in profit. That is why he keeps on updating and creating new leadership roles that make Blackberry to retain its profitable path. In that sense, the highly talented team of the Blackberry staff is one of the strengths in the company (Chuan, 2012). The company’s operational strategy is always important in the company. This is where references are called upon. Here comparisons and contrasts are made between the past, the present and the future. In this case, the past and present operational strategies of the company are noted and thereafter the effects of the two strategies. This helps in deriving an operational strategy for the future. If the present strategy is better than the past strategy then it can be used for the future. However, if the exact strategy is used, the competitors will have an easy time in counter attacking. This now calls upon super, swift and impactful changes (Foust, 2010). During this time, the market is studied on how it is and how it is evolving. Mostly, the demand of the market is the key factor. As said by the Blackberry CEO, Mr Chen, swift and impactful changes must be made depending on the demand of the market, time and the available competitors. This gives the competitors a very rough time in predicting the next products or services of the company. In this mind, no competitor seems to copy or emulate your products meaning that the products will be unique and produced by one company. This is what has been helping the Blackberry limited to maintain its position as the leader in enterprise (Chuan, 2012). As per the business-level strategies of the Blackberry limited company, most of the strategies seem to be better in the long run. However, great focus on swift and impactful changes act as the best strategy for the Blackberry Limited. This is because, it creates uniqueness in that, competitors have no chance of deriving Blackberry’s products and creating same products as those produced by Blackberry (Simmons, 2004). Corporate-level Strategies The corporate-level strategies are the additional strategies that have also helped Blackberry Limited to maintain its position. Blackberry is going after a mass market through the production of efficient and cost effective devices. Most smart-phone industries are pricing their devices at a higher level. It will be more monotonous and costly for the Blackberry Limited to present devices at an expensive price. This does not mean that Blackberry will be producing less efficient devices but it will produce more efficient devices as always or even better devices at less expensive prices. This is a corporate-level strategy that is used by the Blackberry limited to counter its competitors. For this matter, Blackberry will be unleashing cost effective devices as opposed by other smart-phone producers (Simmons, 2004). S.W.O.T analysis gives a better view of how to achieve profits for the Blackberry limited company. This involves the focus on the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats that the company faces. Blackberry Limited enjoys a variety of advantages over other smart-phone producers. This includes high technology, better environment and high level of invention. Blackberry uses this strategy to maintain its customers and to ensure more Blackberry subscribers in the market (Foust, 2010). The SWOT analysis works as the best strategy in the long run for the Blackberry limited company. This is because the company gets a well laid chance of reviewing every resource that it has before unleashing any product to the market. Additionally, this structure pronounces the possible price of the devices to be produced. Expensive devices have the best softwares and programs. Other smart-phone producers keep on following Blackberry’s back since they have no better analysis of the SWOT analysis (Chuan, 2012). Competitive Environment A competitive environment is an environment where several companies produce the same products under different situations and resources. The companies that compete against each other differ according to factors affecting them and the reasons making them to differ. For example, Blackberry Limited has 8, 057 employees and a market cap of about 5.04B. Considering the status of its competitors, this is way lower than its competitors. To this effect, Apple Inc is the biggest competitor of Blackberry Limited. This is because Apple Inc has 80, 300 employees and a market cap of 587.71B (Foust, 2010). This difference has been created because of several reasons at hand. This means that Blackberry ignored certain strategies, making it to be a failure as compared to Apple Inc. these factors include the recognition of the consumer power shift. Blackberry limited failed to recognize the consumer power shift making them to remain in one place in technology and other aspects. Secondly, Blackberry limited failed to create a headless movement. This makes the competitors to learn what Blackberry wants to produce thus being beaten. And lastly Blackberry tried to copy the competition in that it never produced its own unique product. It always copied from Apple Inc and that is why Apple Inc has defeated Blackberry Limited. However, with the differences between Apple Inc and Blackberry in mind, Blackberry has an advantage over Apple Inc. This is because Blackberry has a wider environment of inventing new ideas. Secondly, there is no need of having many employees. This creates more expenditure than income. This will help Blackberry since they have less, but efficient employees. Blackberry may fit in fast-cycle markets, but not in slow-cycle markets (Simmons, 2004). References Chuan, S. (2012). Html5 mobile development cookbook over 60 recipes for building fast, responsive HTML5 mobile websites for iPhone 5, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry. Birmingham: Packt Publishing Limited. Foust, B. (2010). Blackberry Java Application Development Build and deploy powerful, useful, and professional Java mobile applications for Blackberry smartphones, the fast and easy way. : Beginners Guide.. Birmingham: Packt Publishing, Limited. Simmons, C. (2004). How to do everything with your Blackberry. New York: Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Read More