Blackberry Right Strategy

It is important to implement the right and winning strategies fit into the company’s internal and external situations which can enhance the organization performance, build sustainable competitive advantage and uplifting company’s productivity.

In this examination, we will include a tone that places emphasis on sales and continual development of viable product and innovations, which has already positioned the brand in the lead position of an extremely competitive domestic industry. Taking insight from George Stark’s, Curveball Strategies to fool the competition, we will have a strategy aimed at “winning customers, not by

A management decision problem and a marketing decision problem. Management decision problem consists of questions that will help change and rectify the situation such as how to increase sales? While a marketing decision problem for Blackberry consists of How to make Blackberry in itself more appealing compared to its competitors such as IPhone and Nexus? What do the consumers want in a Blackberry when it comes to the applications and tools? How to make Blackberry more adaptable? What is the top priority in a smartphone that the target market wants to see and be able to use? What are the consumers’ expectations when it comes to a smartphone they prefer to use? Have consumers been affected by bad publicity or believe that Blackberry is not innovative anymore? One of the biggest problems might also include, as mentioned above, their change of target market to only corporation. Blackberry Ltd.’s last move to desert its consumer business and pay attention on selling products to companies is a risky bet that it can hang on to ground that is hurriedly eroding. Once consumers grew addicted to using other phones such as IPhones in their personal lives, they now wanted to be able to bring it and use it at work too, which again pushes Blackberry into the

There has been a large amount of research into what strategy is, since Michael Porter’s perennial work in the 1980s. Studies done on the execution of strategy have been far less numerous. However, there is one major understanding about the execution of strategy. The execution of strategy is a vital part of success in business. A summary of many myths surrounding various strategic executions will be outlined, along with their subsequent analyses.

Strategy is a set of complicated tactics formulated by the executives of a company directed towards the achievement of company’s goal (Salmela, 2002). It is about all the path ways that a company would follow to reach its ultimate goal. It is a company’s strategy which helps to identify what it does better than the other companies in the industries, which may be different from what it does best. For successful strategy formulation and implementation, a company should know the needs of customers and should have knowledge of its competitors. Through a good strategy a company would identify that opportunity which makes it different from the others (Thompson, 2005).

Joseph Palenchar (2013) noted that “the old days saw BlackBerry’s market share in global smartphone shipments peak in 2009 at 20% and fall to 5% in 2012, marking the company’s lowest level since 2003.” (para. 3) “Increase the chances that BlackBerry can regain some of its lost market share during the make-or-break year of 2013” (para. 9) Revenue is declining because the market is becoming smaller. With Apple, Samsung’s products are growing deeply in customers’ impression, BlackBerry is standing in the behind position compare with those two brands. BlackBerry is not enough strong to attract those Apple and Samsung’s customers to choose its products even they produce the new products.

Another competing business or company, business B, will come along and provide a better way that will make consumers go to them instead of business A. Business A will have to come up with a better business strategy to out beat the competition and bring back the customers it lost and others and so on goes the cycle. This is what the CEO of Whole Foods means by the phrase “no business stays on top of its niche forever.” Another example will be Apple’s iPhones and keyboard phones. Apple used to be only a music, electronic company (iPod and iMac), and it sought out the phone business, which was dominated by Blackberry, LG, Samsung, etc. It was the first phone to not include a keyboard, everything was on a touch screen, and had internet access with music. It was thought to be a failure since it was very different but it proved to be the opposite. It became very popular with consumers and soon after many phone companies began to change their phones into touch screen phones. So far many companies have tried to be on top of Apple but have failed. Does this mean Apple is lucky and won’t go through what the CEO of Whom Food stated? I believe it will soon have a tough competitor in the near future (5 years from now) that will come along with interesting features that Apple’s iPhones don’t have. Meaning that some people will leave Apple’s iPhones and go with the next big thing whatever it

BlackBerry’s Market Share has been reduced to less than 1%. In an industry dominated by two major companies, BlackBerry is highly unlikely to gain a larger percentage of the market,

According to Keller(1993) the effective brand positioning gives a brand a competitive advantage or “unique selling proposition” that determines a reason why consumers are buying this product or service (Keller, 1993). Similarly, Kay (2004) argues that brand’s strength depends

A successful business strategy can help companies effectively execute and stay ahead of the competition. Maintaining strategic direction and relentlessly executing - rather than reacting to competitive conditions - is the most consistent route to success. Along with a successful strategy, a company needs to focus its culture and align it with employees. Aligning the right people in the right roles with the right strategy for your business will lead to organizational success.

Execution of a strategy allows an organization to identify a strategic manager or management team who will be responsible for five key components: people, resources, structure, systems and culture. The role of the strategic manager or management team is to implement and monitor performance and report to company stakeholders on the status. Because strategy drives an organization’s success, the team should select managers who can aggressively drive the objectives to achieve desired results through three actions:

Apple’s iPhone and iPad has gained a large share of the smart phone and computer tablet market.   Mitchell (2011) noted that competitors have released their own versions, and almost overnight, a new technological commodity has become a competing force in the business world. Apple has introduced many innovative features and has redefined the mobile-device and computer tablet landscape forcing the competition to evolve and play catch-up in many cases (DesRosiers, 2010).

Marketing strategies are generally concerned with 4 Ps; product, pricing, promotional and placement strategies. The focus of these strategies are the objectives to be achieved, meant to ultimately meet the business overall goal of revenue growth. The key to successful marketing is differentiation strategy. If consumers do not perceive Nike as being different from those in the competition, Nike will not win the marketing war. The battle for consumer minds is a battle of perceptions not the products, thus, it is important for Nike to constantly engage with a differentiation strategy and tactical activities to stay ahead as the leader in global sportswear and apparel market.

In the book “Good Strategy and Bad Strategy”, Richard Rumelt illustrates examples of success and failure of business management to explain the true meaning of the strategy, and tells companies how to develop a correct strategy and adhere to core of management strategy. He also emphasizes the central role of strategic management as to remind the readers to understand the huge difference between a good strategy and bad strategy. This book has three sections: good and bad strategy, sources of power, and thinking like a strategist. I will be evaluating strengths and weaknesses under these topics. After finish reading the book, I had gained a better understanding of what a good strategy means to the success of a company. According to Rumelt, a good strategy is coherent, where companies pursue multiple objectives that are connected with each other. Rumelt points out that a good strategy consists of three elements: diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. (71) First, diagnosis means to define the obstacles and challenges that the companies are facing, and guidelines help the people to overcome the obstacles. Lastly, coherent action is the activities or actions that company did to be consistent with its guiding policy. Today, many of us lost the focus of the strategy, which results in the downward of businesses and organizations. Rumelt has defined the strategy as acknowledging the main problems and take coherent action to overcome the problems. Moreover, he illustrates

A strategy is said to be a plan that is made for the long term success of a product or brand. It is extremely important to have a strategy in order to figure out a direction towards which any company is able to focus all its resources efficiently and achieve desired outcomes. Formulating effective strategies is a considerably long process in itself that combines analysing several factors, situations and issues that are already present in a company and looking to improve on them alongside trying to implement various innovations and ideas to collectively create a direction towards which they can move and direct the resources available to them.