Culture and Climate for Blackberry Innovation - Term Paper Example

? Business Research- BlackBerry Contents Contents 2 Company Background 3 Industry Information 3 Pestle analysis 3 Porter’s Five Forces 5 Production 6Personnel 6 Marketing 6 Financial 7 Conclusion 7 Strengths 7 Weaknesses 7 Discussion 8 Works Cited 10 Name of the Student Name of the Professor Course Number Date Business Research- BlackBerry Company Background BlackBerry was established in the year1984, in waterloo Canada. Formerly called as Research in Motion Limited, it a wireless telecommunications organization. Marketing firm Lexicon Branding coined the term BlackBerry, which has emerged to be one of the top selling handheld devices across the globe. The service is available across 91 countries. As of 2012, there are more than 8 million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide. The company has its offices in Europe, North America and Asia- Pacific. It is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Company’s vision and goals include providing solutions across global mobile market. BlackBerry’s current mission is to enhance its current product portfolio and develop new products. It also aims to provide uninterrupted and efficient services. The brand’s corporate culture is well developed and celebrates creativity, achievements as well as risk taking attitude (Ahmed 35). The workforce is motivated to accomplish beyond potential. BlackBerry also supports the environment through variety of campaigns, programs and participative opportunities. The company is known for its philanthropic activities. The company has donated huge amounts in various social charities as well as institutions for growth and development of the society. Industry Information The industry information includes Pestle and Porter’s Five Forces analysis. Pestle analysis Political Canada is a land of rich natural resources. Political environment is progressive; quality of life is stable and comfortable. Since political risk is very low in Canada, organizations have the liberty to establish their corporation without any political hassle. Economical Economy of Canada is dominated by service sector. Major energy exporter and trading country across the globe. Conservative banking system Economic system is market oriented. Social Sense of belongingness in the community. Living standard is high and maintaining social status is important. Women are given less preference than men in society and occupation. Technological Internet usage is one of the highest across the globe Most of the internet users are teenagers and young adults Social media is gaining a cult status Legal Federal state with parliament system Supreme court has the authority to bind any court with single ruling Individual privacy is important for Canadians and they also have a privacy protection act Jurisdiction is divided between provincial and federal jurisdictions Environmental Criticized for lack of environmental improvement activities High emission of greenhouse gases and high waste production from industries as well as organizations (“Environment”). Need for greater sustainable consumption Porter’s Five Forces Figure: Porter's five forces model (Source: (Source: Author’s creation) Production More than 90 percent of BlackBerry’s production costs go for its four largest suppliers. These are Elcotec, Jabil Circuit, Qulacomm and Multi-Fineline (“Do you know who manufactured your BlackBerry”). Various third party application developers have been integrating with the device. The company is a bit secretive about its supply chain management process as there is no mention of its logistics strategy in the company’s website. Since majority of its suppliers are concentrated in China, the company sometimes faces issues in terms of timely delivery and logistics management in case of bull orders. Personnel The employee compensation is based on basic pay, merit pay as well as benefits and incentives. Benefits include free message parlor, free gym membership, free participation in various wellness programs and a free BlackBerry. The current human resource division of BlackBerry has been hugely criticized for its layoffs and huge amount of terminations. The company’s personnel management system has been organized into teams; delegating tasks to workers and employees with the objective of identifying management issues and addressing them. The company has also been criticized for a lack of harmonious and pleasant working relationship. The organization is in need of an effective communicating medium among existing workers and employees. A rigid workforce has hindered innovation and creativity among teams as well as departments. Another immediate initiative required by the company is building a flexible organizational hierarchy so that there is better and more effective communication between the employees and higher management. Marketing The current marketing strategy of BlackBerry focuses on its features and brands itself as cool. Major target customers include millennial, young professionals, cool, urban and hip youngsters within age group 20-30. The company is trapped with a wrong target audience as most of the customers from the above age group prefer Iphone, androids and tablets over BlackBerry (David 293-298). Current promotional strategies and messages lack authenticity. Also, there are message inconsistencies while communicating its brand. However, it has occupied a unique brand space and this can help the organization revive its falling brand image (Welch and Welch, 110-120). BlackBerry users are still faithful to their brand; only their numbers are decreasing. Financial Number of BlackBerry users has increased and the current base of active subscriber vase is around 10.5 million. As of 2013, the overall sales of BlackBerry were 11, 073 million dollars and net income was 317 million dollars. Net sales went down to 47 percent compared to 2012. However, the company has been recovering in the past few quarters in its profit margins. Conclusion Introduction of BlackBerry revolutionized the mobile communications business. Few of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses which can be altered and utilized for its recovery are summarized below; Strengths Strong focus on niche segment Strong brand recognition and high intrinsic value as a result of its past performance and market domination. Strong cash reserves of the company showing high execution ability and strong financial reserves. Its unique operating systems, GPS capabilities as well as decent number of applications are few features that still differentiate it from the competitors. Good reputation of manufacturing highly secure devices. History of building unique award winning services makes it highly recommendable. Weaknesses Inconsistency between current target market and communication messages. High dependence on corporate and government contacts Inadequate presence in tablet market. Continuous loss in market share and brand loyalty High inventory levels due to unsold devices and lack of an effective supply chain Melting competitive advantage due to lack of creativity and innovation Customers perceive BlackBerry handsets as marketed for high-end corporate professionals and not regular users. Loss of brand loyalty among non-corporate consumers. Current layoffs and high volume termination has resulted in negative brand publicity. Discussion Slumping shares of market, uninspiring devices as well as lack of innovation in the R&D department has resulted in an overall diminishing market image of BlackBerry. The current marketing strategy of BlackBerry is inconsistent and targeted to wrong segment. There is a miscommunication between the marketing and communication strategies. Also, BlackBerry’s marketing strategy needs to focus on user’s experience. The brand’s social media connect is weak compared to its competitors. Therefore, the brand will have to first change public perception so that it can survive and thrive in the smartphone market. The brand will have to capitalize on its unique features in terms of branding and promotions and improve its presence in social media space. The company has also suffered due to copycats and patent infiltration. Stronger regulations and policies in terms of patents must be made. BlackBerry’s current share in the worldwide sale of smartphone has decreased to 2.8 percent. The current financial situation can be termed as shaky and the company is losing its financial image too (Fox 2-6). In order to gain capital and reinvent itself in the market, the company has decided to sell its stake and is now open for acquisition. The company is expecting loans from organizations such as BMO Capital Markets and Bank of America. The current financial position has also affected BlackBerry’s shares which are consistently falling. BlackBerry’s recent issues in its internal management have generated negative publicity. After consecutive loss of profit and sales, the company went on terminating almost 40 percent of its workforce. This has generated enormous criticism among employees as well as media, affecting the overall brand equity. Customer sentiments have also gone down as company is selling its stake. The company’s supply chain and production units have been consistently criticized. BlackBerry’s major suppliers are from China and the company has faced many security breaches in its production process. Also, the supply chain process in mysterious and nothing has been mentioned in its website too. All these issues have resulted in decreased customer loyalty and negative brand perception. Works Cited Ahmed, Pervaiz, K. “Culture and Climate for Innovation.” European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 1.1(1998): 30 – 43. Print. David, Fred. Strategic management: Cases and concepts (13th ed.). Florence, South Carolina: Pearson, 2011. Print. “Do you know who manufactured your BlackBerry” Forbes. Forbes Corporation. 2013. Web. 09 December 2013. “Environment” conference board. The conference Board of Canada. 2013. Web. 09 December 2013. Fox, Kenneth. “Learn to expect the unexpected in global retail expansion.” Graziadio Business Review, Vol. 14.4(2011): 1-7. Print. Welch, Danny and Jennifer Welch. “The internationalization process and networks.” Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 14(1996): 103-124. Print. Read More