Blackberry Limited, formerly known, as Research in Motion Limited (RIM) is a
Canadian based company. According to Business Insider (2013), Blackberry had
93% of smartphone sales on Verizon; this was before the iPhone was sold at Verizon.
This same article highlights the falling sales of blackberry, which went from 93% to
6% in just 4 years.
The Washington Post (2011) had reported that BlackBerrys were no longer
attractive to consumers. The question is why? Blackberry failed to see (forecast)
what the competition was doing. For example, Android and iPhones introduced
bigger screens, a greater selection of applications and a more user-friendly interface.
Not meeting customer needs and wants is a mistake many companies make when
they have captured a large share of the market and feel secure, while they feel
secure, they also become complacent. According to this same article, RIM’s shares of
the market dropped 20% (this in 2011), while Google’s rose from 17% to more than
40%. In 2013, Blackberry reported a loss of $965 million during the second quarter.
Apple, on the other hand, sold more than 9 million iPhones, while Blackberry sold
3.7 million.
Blackberry’s competitive advantage used to be their focus on innovation. But this
focus was also their demise. Blackberry did not foresee each component of the
macro-environment such as demographics and lifestyles, which leads to “customer’s
buying decisions.”
According to David (2013) (our text), strategic management is as much an art as it is
a science. Not focusing on the science is what has caused the demise of many
