VELAMMAL ENGINEERING COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), Chennai 600066

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

YEAR: II NAME OF THE STUDENT:

SUBJECT CODE: 19BA6204T SEMESTER: III

SUBJECT NAME: BRAND MANAGEMENT REG.NO:

FACULTY NAME: Ms.C.CHARUPREETHY SUBMISSION DATE:

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Introduction, information gathering
by analyzing &
understanding of the brand failure.

3. Strategical Analyzing
(40)

Explanation of the strategical

structure handled to cope with
the market

4. Mechanism and draw

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TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION

Blackberry Limited formerly known as Research in Motion (RIM) Limited is currently

driven towards providing technology in Enterprise of Things industry (AnnualReport19,
2019). RIM with innovation in 1999, launched itself into handheld devices industry. They
transformed handheld devices into mobile phones and had services of Blackberry
Messenger(BBM), Email and QWERTY keyboard. By 2006, Blackberry was a market
leader and its business grew enormous with this Blue-Ocean Strategy (Youssef, 2013). In
2007 and 2009 with Introduction of disruptive technology of Apple Inc. “iPhone” and
Google LLC “Android” the industry started to exhibit change which possibly Blackberry
overlooked (Youssef, 2013). From 2009 until 2013 blackberry declined and became
minority in mobile phone consumer industry (Luo, 2018) and huge loss in revenue forced
company to look ahead for other strategic alternatives (Youssef, 2013). In 2017
Blackberry finally decided to end hardware development of mobile devices but, focus on
software development (AnnualReport17, 2017). The hardware development was
outsourced to licensed partners (Spence, 2016).

Our Vision

Securing a connected future, you can trust.

Our Mission
To be the world’s leading provider of end-to-end mobility solutions that are the most
secure and trusted

A HISTORY OF SUCCESS
Blackberry, initially started with a different name and purpose, i.e Research in Motion.
Founded in March 1984, the company first involved itself with developing data
technology and connectivity products.

The company felt an increasing inclination towards creating equipment to facilitate

wireless connectivity. Hence, in 1993, it embarked upon creating Intel wireless modem
containing RIM modem Firmware. Being a private company, RIM soon reached out for
raising capital by private placement. A Canadian company invested in RIM, helping it
raise a total of C$30,000,000 in pre-IPO financing. The company then turned towards
developing pagers and came out with the Interactive Pager 900 in 1996.
INNOVATION

Blackberry also faces an innovative phase in which they didn’t compete with market that5
led them to Blackberry downfall. Apple introduces the iPhone in 2007. According
to Mike Lazaridis “It looked like Apple Mac computer stuffed into a cell phone. The
iPhone OS took up 700 MB of Memory and used two processors. Blackberry, the device
ran on one processor and used 32 MB of memory. iPhone had a fully integrated capable
browser which was missing in Blackberry. Wireless companies like AT&T Inc had

started introducing DATA packages to iPhone users.

RIM, it was using an elementary browser that limited data usage. Users could not take
full advantage. One more thing is that users also could not take full advantage of DATA
packages on blackberry phones.
Apple had signed an exclusive deal with its competitor AT &T and therefore Verizon
wireless was frozen on iPhones. In the past RIM’s smartphones had been a huge hit for
Verizon wireless.
Verizon executives approached RIM in June 2007 and asked if RIM could develop
“iPhone Killer”.
It was RIM’s first touchscreen device and was difficult to operate. The device was also
slow and buggy. RIM had failed to deliver the “iPhone Killer” Verizon Wireless decided
to abandon the storm campaign.
With the tech evolving every day, BlackBerry is overpriced with its average hardware
body. Samsung and Apple released their smartphones with a complete touch screen
system. And once the typing is over, the keyboard vanishes, giving the user plenty of
space for other tasks.

However, BlackBerry stuck on with the QWERTY keyboard, which lacked features like
the one above, and this became a huge reason for the company to fail. BlackBerry
continued to not invest in a touch screen body and kept producing phones with the
keyboard like BlackBerry Key 2. Another one of the reasons for the drop in sales.
 Android operating smartphones started to steal market share from Palm and

Microsoft and eventually RIM.

 Blackberry failed to anticipate the emergence of the “app economy” which drove

massive adoption of iPhone and Android-based-devices.

 Consumers no longer cared much for battery life or security features, they cared

about apps. Apple and Google operating systems were built for making it easy on
external programmers to create apps.
 Blackberry apps built on old programming languages were uglier and stifled

creativity.
 RIM also exerted strict control over developers, costing Blackberry trending apps

such as Instagram and Tumblr.
 After all these RIM was now focusing on building a device like Apple’s successful

iPad tablet.
 It proved to be “an awkward accessory” to RIM’s smartphones and lacked e-mail,

contacts and apps.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF BLACKBERRY

Introduction
Blackberry, which was the pioneer in mobile-based technologies with its best selling
original Smartphones, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. First, the
company known as Research in Motion (RIM), which made and marketed the
Blackberries, missed the emerging Smartphone revolution though it was one of the
pioneers of mobile computing. Next, the company was unable to read the market and
hence, it lost market share to Apple and Samsung. This resulted in the company
nearly going bankrupt and despite changes in leadership; it could never regain its
position. In the past month, the company has been in the news again because it
rejected a buyout offer and rescinded a sale option and instead, chose to appoint a new
CEO along with accepting fresh infusion of capital into the company. This article
discusses the changing strategies of Blackberry through a SWOT Analysis, which
would provide clues into how the company would position itself in the future. The key
theme here is that Blackberry needs to urgently revamp and rejuvenate itself if it has
to regain market share and forget about market leadership, it has to ensure that it stays
afloat.

Strengths
 Perhaps the biggest strength of Blackberry is that it enjoys top of the mind
recall and has a good reputation among corporate users of mobiles because of
its proprietary technology that scores over its competitors especially where
corporate users are concerned.
  The Blackberry devices can be used with any mobile carriers anywhere in the
world and indeed, this is a key strength for the company as it goes along its
business with easy mobility and portability.
 One of the main strengths of Blackberry is that its devices are more secure than
its competitors and indeed, the security features inherent and embedded in the
devices are unmatched by any other mobile maker including Samsung and
Apple. This is the reason why Blackberries are so popular with corporate users
who use it to link it and integrate it with their VPNs or Virtual Private
Networks.

 These strengths have made Blackberry the Smartphone of choice for many
governmental agencies in the United States including the FBI, CIA, The White
House, and the State Department. Given the fact that Blackberries come with
an encrypted military grade security platform makes it the ideal phone of
choice for agencies dealing with sensitive information.

Weaknesses
 The key weakness that Blackberry has is that it went on a single-track focus on
the corporate users and enhanced its security features as a USP or a Unique
Selling Proposition. While this aspect held it in good stead as far as the
corporate clients are concerned, once Samsung and Apple came out with
Smartphones for the consumers and the everyday usage, Blackberry was
unable to keep up with the competition. Indeed, both Samsung and Apple have
cornered the market share by enhancing the security features in their
Smartphones.
 Given the fact that small business owners using Blackberries now had to install
expensive enterprise software, they began to switch to the rivals instead of
using Blackberries. Further, the company lost ground as the proprietary
operating system used by Samsung and Apple provided more benefits to this
customer segment leaving Blackberry out of the race.
  As mentioned earlier, Blackberry was essentially a single pony trick with its
obsessive focus on the corporate users. With the large consumer base
untouched by it, Samsung and Apple quickly garnered this segment and by
providing an easy to use user interface and apps that were simple and effective,
these companies soon began to take away even the corporate customers of
Blackberry.
Opportunities

 The recent moves by the company are very aggressive as it has rejected a sale
offer and a buyout offer as well as accepted fresh infusion of capital from an
Angel Investor. By appointing a new CEO and revamping its organizational team
and structure, Blackberry has signaled that it is serious and is going all out to
reinvent itself.
 The company has a lucrative opportunity as far as leveraging its existing customer
base of over 100 Million users is concerned. Given the fact that the company can
tap into this customer base for its future products, there is a significant opportunity
waiting for the company.
 By integrating the third party apps and features into its phones, the company can
mimic the strategies followed by Apple and Samsung and the increase in the
business partnerships with third party providers can prove to be a key opportunity
for the company as it prepares to take on Samsung and Apple.

Threats
 Though Blackberries were the original Smartphones, both Apple and Samsung
beat it to the race to build the Smartphone of the future because they provided
the flexibility and ease of use that Blackberries lacked and hence, were able to
corner market share and take away its competitors.
 Apart from the threats posed by its competitors, Blackberry has to fight the
slack and the gloomy internal environment, which because of the troubles that
the company has been through in recent years has resulted in lower employee
morale and a general lack of direction. Given the fact that the Smartphone
industry thrives on innovation, Blackberry has to rejuvenate itself and reinvent
 itself apart from rescuing itself from the sagging momentum and motivation of
its employees.
Conclusion
The preceding discussion has highlighted the need for Blackberry and its management
to take proactive steps to pull the company from the quagmire it finds itself in. The
recent strategic moves made by the new leadership are to be seen in the light of the
company’s drift away from its profit making and market leadership model to a
situation where it is no longer in the reckoning. In conclusion, Blackberry and its
leadership have their task cut out as they gear themselves to take on the challenges
from the Smartphone companies like Apple and Samsung.
RISE AND FALL OF BLACKBERRY
BlackBerry was the producer of the world’s first widely-adopted premium smartphone
brand. At its peak, Blackberry owned over 50% of the US and 20% of the global
smartphone market, sold over 50 million devices a year, had its device referred to as the
“CrackBerry”, and boasted a stock price of over $230. Today, BlackBerry has 0% share
of the smartphone market and has a stock price that has hovered in the high single digits
for most of the past few years. How did BlackBerry fall from such soaring heights?

First, a little bit of history. BlackBerry was founded in 1984 (as Research in Motion) and
was originally a developer of connectivity technology like modems and pagers. In 2000,
the company introduced its first mobile phone product in the BlackBerry 957, which
came with functionality for push email and internet. Over the ensuing decade, the
BlackBerry became the device of choice in corporate America due to its enterprise-level
security and business functionality. Even after the competitive entry of the iPhone in
2007 and Google’s Android OS in 2008, BlackBerry was certainly not destined for
failure. In fact, BlackBerry continued to dominate the smartphone market through 2010,
when it still held over 40% of domestic and nearly 20% of global market share.
FACTORS OF BLACKBERRY DOWNFALL
These are also other factors which led to Blackberry Downfall.

 Google makes its Android operating system available for free. Blackberry was
unable to drop prices to retain the market share it was losing to Android.
 Android was made free to any handset maker causing Blackberry to lose orders
massively. With RIM’s new products all failing, it continued to lose market share
to Apple and Android phones.
 Growing demands of customer who wanted to surf the Internet on their iPhones,
RIM planned to release its 4G phone. This was the Blackberry 10, which was
another product that was delayed.
 Thus 2011 became a turning point for RIM, with its stock price falling from $69
(Canadian) in February to less than $15 by the year’s end.
We definitely know where BBRY turned out badly before November 2013.

BBRY attempted to contend head-on with unrivalled and better-scaled opponents.

Straightforward and coordinate assaults on more ground-breaking enemies lost BBRY

billions of dollars.
The serious canons would be wise to showcasing, publicizing spending plans, organize
impacts, and had vast frameworks to make completely coordinated biological
communities (applications, excitement, and so forth.).

The organization planned complex remote information association systems which were
utilized by the police powers, military, rescue vehicle administrations and such.

Following fast development also, advancement, RIM built up a progressive pager, a

gadget that can be utilized to send and get messages which utilized their correspondence
innovations.

Before long, this ‘individual communicator’ was named as the following enormous thing.

The Interactive was sent in 1996 as RIM’s first handheld specialized gadget. In the

following years, RIM proceeded with a line of developments and enhanced the handheld
specialized gadget significantly.

By 1999, RIM propelled the Blackberry rebranded gadgets and email administrations
which permitted clients to synchronize their gadgets with corporate email frameworks.

Request detonated, development proceeded. Blackberry turned into the notable in big

business correspondence while their Blackberry Errand person (BBM) benefit was
acquainted with customers that utilized a safe convention that can be utilized to speak
with companions. In 2007 the organization turned into the most profitable organization in
Canada worth more than 67 billion, with 10 million supporters of their administrations
and presented their recently created Blackberry Curve gadgets. Lamentably, in 2007 the
Apple iPhone was presented.

This minute onwards, the accomplishment of Blackberry was not any more historic,
pursued by a time of decay and unsuccessful items, finishing in an uncontrolled key
centre which incredible. Loss of significant worth and a piece of the pie subsequently as
portrayed in figure 1 which delineate the piece of the overall industry of Blackberry in
cell phone offers of the supplier Verizon.
FAILURE TO ADAPT

At its peak, BlackBerry’s innovation kept us all on our feet. BBM revolutionized instant
messaging, and its devices also helped speed up smartphones to what today are
effectively portable mini computers.
But in the end, BlackBerry fell victim to its own stubbornness.
One of the most glaring examples is its lack of innovation with the touch screen. Many
users were happy to stick with their keyboards in the early 2010s, which is one reason
why the BlackBerry Storm was a disaster.
The Storm’s failure may well have influenced BlackBerry’s decisions with future phones.
Unfortunately for them, by the time Apple and Samsung’s devices became more
mainstream, consumers were ready to adopt touchscreen technology.
You could also attribute BlackBerry’s decline to how it failed to adapt in other areas,
such as its camera. And as we can see today, many smartphones have cameras that could
rival their DSLR and mirrorless counterparts.

DIGITAL MINIMALISM
The amount of information we have about how addictive smartphones can be and the
apps on them grows larger and larger. Documentaries such as the Social Dilemma have
also shed light on how toxic modern-day cell phones can be if we let them take too much
control of our lives.

Many users have sought to adopt a more minimalist digital lifestyle, with some deleting
apps from their phones and only accessing them from their computers.
While BlackBerry's are less restrictive than before in terms of customization, some users
might consider switching to give them more control over their digital experiences.

APPS SUCKED
The apps that did make their way to BB OS 10 were mostly inferior versions of their iOS
and Android cousins. In many cases they weren’t even made by the creator of the service.

The end result was often a feature incomplete app which was inferior experientially .

AUDIENCE

BlackBerry mainly concentrated on the richer segment of the society like businessmen,
celebrities, and other rich users. They carried BlackBerry presenting their superiority and
other features like end-to-end encryption security and email services.

But even though iPhone sales increased and BlackBerry started losing some of its
consumers, BlackBerry only focused on businessmen and celebrities and ignored the
consumer segment. That had a major role in the company’s downfall.

R&D

BlackBerry lacked innovation and updated features because it was always up there with
technology and supervision. However, the reason for BlackBerry’s fall is money.

BlackBerry’s advancements came from Research and Development (R&D). But, this
required money, and because of the decline of sales and increase of failures, it was unable
to invest money in R&D.

OS
While BlackBerry did not allow developers to construct apps, Android and iOS allowed
the development of apps. Coupled with that, users can add and remove apps at their
convenience. All of these features lacked in BlackBerry’s OS, which was a complete
disaster. To this day, the production of BlackBerry mobile phones has completely
shuttered. It has gone back to software and mobile security solutions.

HARDWARE INNOVATION

The evolving technology, BlackBerry was considered to be overpricing on its average

hardware system. Soon as Apple and Samsung launched their smartphones with a
complete touch screen body.

Also, after the typing is done, the keyword would disappear giving you a huge space for
other purposes. However, BlackBerry with its QWERTY keyboard lacked such features
and became a big reason for BlackBerry to fail.
Nonetheless, Blackberry did not invest in making a complete touch screen body, instead,
it kept making phones with the outer keyboard such as Blackberry Key 2. That's why its
sales dropped by a major number.

SOFTWARE SECURITY COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Blackberry’s software security division had a limited competition in software security industry
as compare to the competition that the company faced in smartphone (hardware) industry.
There was a long list of companies providing a wide range of different types of enterprise
securities. However, Blackberry Limited specialized in Mobile and Data Security for
Enterprises. A few of Blackberry Limited’s close competitors in mobile & data security
industry were Symantec, Verizon Enterprises and Imperva.

Symantec (Mobile Security)

Symantec was a California based public limited company founded in April 1982
that offered a variety of mobile security solutions, and its security software was most
popularly known as Norton. Symantec was particularly specialized in mobile
(software) security, and its information security revenue was about $3.77 billion by
2017. Symantec was a large size company and employed about 11,000 people around
the world. Symantec was a tougher competitor for Blackberry. Nevertheless, by
maximizing the allocation of resources to its software business, Blackberry might be
able to do better than it was doing by the second quarter of 2017.

Verizon Enterprises (Data Security)

Verizon Enterprise security was a unit of New Jersey based company known as
Version Communications that offered mobility and data security solutions. It was
founded as Verizon business in 2006 but was renamed as Verizon Enterprise Solutions
in 2012. Although Verizon Communications was a big player in its competitive market
of wireless networks, but in order to compete Blackberry in enterprise security
business, Verizon Enterprise Solutions was relatively a new company in software
security industry. There was no doubt that competing with a company backed by such a
 giant market player was a challenge for Blackberry Limited, yet a well thought strategy
might turn out to be a success in long run.

Imperva (Data Security)

Imperva was a California based public limited company that provided a variety
of data security solutions and was founded in 2002. It employed almost 1000 people
and operated in approximately 100 countries. Imperva’s revenue for fiscal year 2017
was about $264 million. Imperva was also experiencing financial difficulties as its
stock performance had been volatile over the past years. Hence, as a competitor, this
could be a competitive advantage for Blackberry to cater to the market share that
Imperva was not able to access.

FUTURE OF BLACKBERRY

Industry experts believed BlackBerry’s sales were yet to bottom out, putting a strain on the
company’s cost structure. In a very crowded and highly competitive industry, the road to
profitability would not come easy for Blackberry and will certainly test the company’s
managerial skills as well as strategic thinking at higher levels. With rumours and speculations
surrounding the Canadian tech giant’s future reaching an all-time high, Chen released an open
letter to BlackBerry users: highlighting the company’s strengths, commitment to innovation
and dedication to “earning your business – or earning it back”. The letter reduced speculations
regarding a potential sale of the company, but a profitable future is still uncertain where Mr.
Chen has difficult strategic choices to make. Nonetheless, on December 20, 2016, Blackberry
reported GAAP gross margin of 67% driven by tremendous growth in software and service
revenue 40 . Looking at the changing momentum of BlackBerry’s leadership and financial
inflow, perhaps it was possible for BlackBerry to keep improving the gross margins and
optimizing the company’s cost structure.
ACQUISITION

Cylance has been the largest acquisition by BlackBerry to date. BB acquired the company
for $1.4 billion, utilizing its cash resources. It was not the first acquisition in the sector,
but a useful one: BlackBerry had extensive expertise in secure communications and
tended to work with large enterprise clients. Cylance, on the other hand, provides threat
preventative software to SMEs, complementing the existing offering. It is clear from the
latest earnings releases that the company will be heavily reliant on the recently acquired
company for growth: ESS (enterprise software and services) has been underperforming
for 3 consecutive quarters, while growth at Cylance was up 31% in Q1 and 24% in Q2.
BLACKBERRY STATEMENT AND BALANCE SHEET

Blackberry Consolidated Statement of Operations, 2017

BLACKBERRY BALANCE SHEET, 2017
FINAL TRY BY BLACKBERRY

BlackBerry ultimately brought new smartphones with demanding features to regain its
lost significance and customers. It launched Priv with the features like a dual-curved
UHD display, pop-up widgets, 3GB RAM and snapdragon 808 CPU. But, this was too
late. The phone was an absolute failure. Its product quality and features lacked some
major technology.

BlackBerry did not imply adding new features or advanced OS and because of this, the
potential consumers of BlackBerry shifted back to Android and iOS

Reasons BlackBerry Will Make a Return

A New 5G Phone on the Horizon

4G hasn’t been mainstream for that long, but we’re already hearing plenty of debates
surrounding 4G and 5G. Some people have even begun speculating on how 6G could
change the world forever!

Many smartphones haven’t yet adopted 5G, and there’s probably a way to go yet before
the world has the proper infrastructure for this technology. BlackBerry isn’t waiting
around, though; in 2020, the company announced that it would launch a 5G phone in
2021.

At the time of writing in August 2021, no device is yet on the market. However, it might
convince a few to give the phone at least a try.
2. Partnership Deals With Other Companies

BlackBerry’s previous success means that despite falling away from the top of the
smartphone market, it’s still a reputable brand name. And thanks in part to this, it has no
shortage of businesses happy to work with it. For example, the company is releasing its
2021 smartphone in partnership with Onward Mobility.

BlackBerry also has plenty of partners using its solutions, including Dell and IBM.

Digital Minimalism

The amount of information we have about how addictive smartphones can be and the
apps on them grows larger and larger. Documentaries such as the Social Dilemma have
also shed light on how toxic modern-day cell phones can be if we let them take too much
control of our lives.

Many users have sought to adopt a more minimalist digital lifestyle, with some deleting
apps from their phones and only accessing them from their computers.

While BlackBerry's are less restrictive than before in terms of customization, some users
might consider switching to give them more control over their digital experiences.

CONCLUSION:-

Today, the production of BlackBerry smartphones has been completely shut down. It has
turned back to software and mobile security solutions. BlackBerry succeeded in the
market because of its advanced technology and left behind the less-evolved technology.
Yet when it came to evolving BlackBerry's technology, it failed because of its
incapability to judge and compete with the competition level of the market.
BlackBerry left some major points and examples for other tech companies that to survive
in the technology world, you need to keep evolving your features and technology.
We get to see some facts about how the smartphone market changed a lot with
innovations. The main reasons for the demise of Blackberry were probably its
unwillingness to let go of its key successes such as its signature keyboard devices.
Lack of innovation and failure to anticipate how the smartphone revolution was going to
carry forward