CASE STUDY

ANALYSIS

GUIDE

Prof. Dr. R. GOPAL

ASSIGNMENT

CASE STUDY

TITLE

KEYBOARD LOVERS

BEMOAN THEIR OWN

AS BLACKBERRY IN

TROUBLE

SUBMITTED BY:

SURAJ KOKANE [41]

SHRIDHAR

MASURKAR [49]

KARTIK MEHTA [50]

CASE STUDY

Keyboard lovers bemoan their own as BlackBerry in trouble

BlackBerry could soon be leaving the phone business, which is worrying its loyal users

who have refused to give up its devices

What is a BlackBerry user to do?

After teaching the world to type on tiny buttons, BlackBerry could soon be leaving the business of

making phones - leaving fewer options for a vocal minority still committed to phones with its once

popular physical keyboard.

"It's not good, not good at all," said Gord Rosko, the president of GR Communications, a consulting

firm in Edmonton, Alberta.

Rosko said he had used BlackBerrys for about nine years. "What I call my fat Polish fingers have a

hard time with touch-screen keyboards. So, I'm going to keep using this thing until I can't anymore."

The possibility that BlackBerry would exit the handset business was only reinforced on Friday, when

the company announced disastrous financial results, including a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion.

BlackBerry had warned last week that the results would be bad, heightening expectations that it

would put less focus on handsets.

In the last few years, most smartphone users have switched to touch-screen models, like the iPhone,

with virtual keyboards that appear on a glass screen.

That has left few good alternatives for people like Rosko, especially beyond BlackBerry.

Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester who tracks the handset market, said most phones with

buttons were inexpensive models aimed at teenagers. Most use slide-out keyboards, but those add

extra weight and heft. He offered simple advice for people sticking to a physical keyboard.

"The way you now interact with phones is through touch screens. Get over it," he said. "Maybe the

message isn't just get over it; it’s give touch screens a chance."

Still, the chances that some company will try to pick up BlackBerry's single-digit market share are

good. Ted Schadler, Forrester's vice president and principal analyst, said he expected some

companies to experiment with keyboards. "Then there's a big question mark of whether people will

go for them," he said.

The experiments may actually come from the companies that overtook BlackBerry in smartphones.

Samsung Electronics, whose Android-based phones are a leader in smartphone sales, has already

offered phones with physical keyboards. But more important, it is aggressively going after

professionals, who were the first adopters of the BlackBerry and who appear to disproportionately

remain its final users. This year it introduced Knox, a set of security features for Android aimed at

government and corporate users.

Motorola Mobility, as it rebuilds itself under Google's ownership, might also re-entre the keyboard

phone market, too. Before the Google takeover, some of its most popular Android phones included

a slide-out keyboard.

Golvin said he was sceptical about any company trying to build a high-end smartphone with a

physical keyboard. BlackBerry's method of combining a screen and keyboard significantly reduces

screen size, he said. The smaller screen often requires developers to tweak their apps to work on the

different size, making some reluctant to make apps that work on the phones.

But more important, Golvin said, is that the overwhelming majority of smartphone users have

spoken and found that the downsides of on-screen keyboards - namely, more typos - are

outweighed by a variety of other advantages.

While there remains a chance that BlackBerry will continue to churn out handsets, the company's

results on Friday underscored how big of a challenge that would be. Because the handset business

requires a large sales volume to be profitable and to sustain development, many analysts expect

BlackBerry to focus its remaining resources on software and services for corporations.

That strategy could change if the company is sold. The company's largest shareholder has made a

tentative and conditional offer to buy the 90 percent of BlackBerry's stock it does not own. But many

analysts expect BlackBerry to soon leave the business of making phones regardless of the owner.

The loss reported on Friday mainly reflected a $934 million write-down of a growing inventory of

unwanted BlackBerry Z10 phones, the devices that the company had hoped would restore its

fortunes, as well as $72 million in charges related largely to layoffs.

The $1.6 billion in revenue during the three-month period that ended August 31 was well below the

$3 billion analysts had expected and reflected a 49 percent drop from the first quarter

Strategic Management Dr. Gopal Case Study Analysis

Alkesh Dinesh Mody Institute SYMMS 2014-2015

Q.1 Is Joint Venture or Buyout the only solution for Blackberry? Suggest a turnaround strategy to keep the company afloat.

Solution:

Joint Venture or Buyout can be one of the solution for BlackBerry.

The Turn Around Strategy to keep the company afloat is as follows:

Re-launching the product with different name

Understand consumer preference and work on it

Convey the unique selling points and make use of it to create brand

awareness

Use offers and market it

Reposition the brand

Understand the demand and make production accordingly

Q.2 As Samsung Electronics is the leading brand in

Smart Phone Category, What Strategy should it adopt to

benefit from Blackberry’s fail?

Solution:

Samsung to adopt the following strategy:

Samsung should try to add in additional features compared to

Blackberry’s product. These product of Samsung should be available at a

reasonable cost (inspite of addition of features) in order to attract

customers that are in favour of Blackberry.

Do a competitor analysis (with Blackberry) in order to analyse the

mistakes done by Blackberry and learn from it.

Strategic Management Dr. Gopal Case Study Analysis

Alkesh Dinesh Mody Institute SYMMS 2014-2015

Also develop the product as per the new technology requirement or as

per the changing customer requirement.

Q.3 Blackberry products are used by governments and

large financial institutions around the world for secure

communications. How can Blackberry benefit from it?

Solution:

Since Blackberry is used by government and large financial institutions, it can

benefit in following ways:

Since there are large number of employees working in government and

financial institutions, Blackberry can attract large number of customers

Generally in Government and Large Financial institutions, once a make

of a product is been approved, the mostly all employees are advised to

use that particular make

For that Blackberry only needs to only provide discounted rate and try to

make the decision making units happy

More Points including the detailed solutions vis-à-vis thorough discussion of the

strategies will be included in the presentation.