Essay on Porter 5 Forces Analysis of Blackberry

* The fast shift of the mobile device industry and the fierce competition (especially from Samsung) may force a company out of business in a few years.

Till the year 2007 BlackBerry was the most successful company in the cell phone market and it was known for the innovative products and services. In the year 2007, BlackBerry was announced as the most valuable company in Canada with worth of more than 67 Billion and in the same period there were 10 million subscribers registered to the services as well as new Blackberry devices.

RIM business model – BlackBerry sells purely through operators which can be time consuming and costly.

The strategic decision which is taken by the blackberry is that they are now trying to shut their phone business after 14 years of making handsets. So therefore the Canadian company has now changed their mind set and trying to focus on making software instead of hardware, so as they are switching from hardware to a software company they decided to outsource the manufacture of hardware to other companies.

Size plays a factor here as well. If the company is much larger than its suppliers, and purchases in large quantities, then the supplier will have very little power to negotiate. Using Wal-Mart as an example, we find that suppliers have no power because Wal-Mart purchases in such large quantities.

There are many competing brands of smart phones and Samsung has reported a decline of profits in 2014. Information from GSM arena shows than Samsung released 54 new phone models in 2014 , compared with 24 by HTC , 11 Motorola and 2 by Apple, leading to increased production costs and lack focus on a specific customer segments thereby losing some of its competitive advantage (GSM Arena , 2015).The lack of popularity of its own OS (Tizen ) and dependence on Google’s Android platform makes it vulnerable on google to develop an “ecosystem”. There are component integration issues as well as loss revenue from potential App sales (Strategic Mangement insight , 2015). Negative publicity from litigation due to patents are likely to continue as technology patents are vague and Samsung with is large portfolio is likely to infringe on some of the patents (Tibken, 2014).

The product that I have selected will be in the telecommunication arena. There are four major companies that compete for exclusivity for marketing purposes over my elected product of Apple product/s. There is one major competitor to my product and that would be Samsung and Sony, however, the smart-phone is no comparison to any other phone in my era to date.

Today, Smartphones encompass wide range of devices, ranging from voice-centric handsets to converged multimedia devices integrating cameras, media players and personal navigation functionality into a single unit. Handset manufacturers gradually adopt OS to reduce development time and costs for the new models. Market size of Smartphones has grown from less than one million units in 2001, to more than 100 million units in 2007 already.

Overall the market has become saturated and is unattractive for new entrants but there is still a huge scope for existing market players like Nokia to capture market share by focusing on rapid innovations and marketability of smart-phones with the use of its pioneer brand image.

Smartphone market is fast-moving and very high competitive due to intense competition between two big smartphone producers, Apple and Samsung. At the beginning, Apple dominated this market solely by introducing a new innovative type of smartphone by Steve Jobs that has revolutionized people lifestyle and mobile industry. A few years after launching iPhone, a new fast following competitor, Samsung came into this market, and their sales have outperformed Apple from the year 2011 (According to Chart A1 in Appendix). In term of developing their product, Samsung has created its products by following Apple’s technology since the beginning of producing its smartphone, therefore there are many patent lawsuits between them. Since Steve Job passed away, Apple has continued to develop its core competence, which is an innovation of new type of smartphone that could help them to take back their market share from its rival, Samsung. Nonetheless, the competition between Apple and Samsung will still continue intensively in the future.

2.Bargaining power of Supplyers: Allthe mobile operators other than teletalk have international identity and have experience to work global platform.The bargaining power of suppliers in the mobile industry varies depending on the brand name and strategic importance of the supplies as well as the size of the company, such as Ericsson and Nokia siemens in the mobile telecom machinery industry

In the opinion of Baumol and Blinder (2011, p. 235), "monopolistic competition is a market structure characterized by many small firms selling somewhat different products." The authors in this case further note that the output of each entity is small in comparison to the market's aggregate output of competing but closely related products. With that in mind, the mobile phone market exhibits some key characteristics of monopolistic competition. In this market, customers in need of mobile phones are presented with a wide range of options to choose from. For instance, a customer who enters a mobile phone handset shop has the option of purchasing a Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Blackberry or even an LG handset. All these products despite being closely related are also largely differentiated. As Tucker (2010, p. 268) notes, "the key feature of

Blackberry’s success and popularity before their setbacks can be attained to their exporting approach and strategies. Since Blackberry was formed and began manufacturing and selling their devices, they have certainly made a household name and reputation particularly in the enterprise segment both nationally and especially internationally. They previously secured market share in numerous countries as they rapidly expanded. This could not have been done without effective exporting modes and strategies. Unfortunately, as Blackberry’s main downfall was their products remaining static so too were their exporting strategies. Therefore, they must be further improved immediately in order to properly rejuvenate Blackberry in order to become a

Mobile phones have become a staple of the modern era and can be witnessed in the hands of the young and the old alike. In first world countries, it is almost a need to obtain a mobile phone as they have become seemingly crucial in everyday life. Even in third world countries it is not a strange sight to see people with cellular phones. They fulfill a significant role in how we communicate, keep track of time, remember our schedule and, digest new information. Cell phones release a completely new spectrum of what people can do on a single, hand-held device. It has become effortless to obtain a cell phone but it can be challenging to notice what makes them different and understand how these differences influence the product. Apple and Android provide distinct benefits and drawbacks that can sway or deter a possible consumer. Apple relies on a more corporate approach that entails consistent performance and security. Android contrarily allows distribution in a multitude of third party developers which creates consumer flexibility and customization. These particular focuses allow Apple and Android to succeed in their own consumer specific, market objectives while also competing with one another in the mobile phone market.

. High possibility of a better product with advancing technologies may help entry of more potential entrants