RIM Case

Research in Motion (RIM) is a multi-award-winning company that designs and produces hardware, software, and service solutions for wireless communications used by worldwide business and consumer markets. These products and services provide customers with immediate access to information to make sound business decisions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It doesn’t matter whether you use the Blackberry or the Pearl “smart” phone, you can be assured that you have purchased a quality product. It is designed and built by one of the most innovative Canadian companies of all time.

-Introduce Apple -Brief history -Business perspective -Products -Past problems -Diversification -Current product portfolio -Revenue  overall company performance -Profit -ROA -Stock Price (template for product portfolio) Year -Introduce Smartphone Industry -Google -RIM Competitors- introduce figures -Samsung -Target Market -Marketing mix -Describe products -Functions -Packaging -History -Design -Price -Appearance -Distribution Apple Store -Promotion -Ads, Symbols, differentiate itself -Steve Jobs presentations on stage were a marketing revolution -Survey -iPhone users/ non users; not just college kids -Loyalty -Reflect on ads, promotions, appearance -Ask them to: -Report details of survey/ The secondary market targets high school, college, and graduate students. For this market, it seems that the once popular iPod is now being replaced with the iPhone (1). We will examine the marketing mix: product, price, promotion, and place, to see if Apple is delivering the intended value to target customers. When researching the company’s environment, we will study the economic, political, cultural, technological, and natural forces in the company’s microenvironment (71). By researching all these aspects, we will get a better idea of how Apple continues to grow and market itself into a prosperous technological company. Apple’s iPhone interests us because it seems to be the cell phone that has the latest technical advancements, and can do more than just the average cell phone. By studying this company’s market perspective, we can get a better understanding of how Apple can continue to have the highest sales in the cell phone market.

Apple lost valuable market share to Chinese manufacturers Huawei and Oppo, which saw promising increases in their shares year over year (9to5Mac, 2017). Currently, the iPhone market share is decreasing in China, the world 's second-largest economy after the U.S., which can be attributed to new manufacturers and iPhone users delaying upgrades (9to5Mac, 2017). While all products go through a product life cycle, Apple has already been through this cycle with at least two products (Forbes, 2016). Currently, Apple has no backup to replace its vanguard iPhone product. Adding to injury, the competing Huawei P9 phone compares well against the iPhone 7 and cost 30 percent cheaper than the iPhone (9to5Mac, 2017). In addition, cheaper android phones that offer everything the iPhone does and sometimes more at fraction of the price are also gaining market share rapidly (9to5Mac, 2017).

BUS 374 | Organizational Theory | Organization “In the News” Analysis Paper | RIM Claws Back Against Apple and Google With Free Tablets by: Mike Isaac of Wired | | Rolando A. Fuentes Ruiz | SID : 301064105February 20, 2012 | | Company Overview Research in Motion, (RIM), is “a global leader in wireless innovation, (which) revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry solution in 1999” [ (Research In Motion, 2011) ]. While RIM has no publically available mission statement [ (missionstudy, 2009) ], we can deduct the following:

Overview/Management Team Research In Motion (RIM) was founded by University of Waterloo engineering student Mike Lazaridis in 1984 who is the current Co-CEO. In 1988 RIM becomes the first wireless data technology developer in North America and the first company outside Scandinavia to develop connectivity products for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks. 1997 RIM becomes a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange. 1999 RIM introduces the BlackBerry wireless email solution, BlackBerry Enterprise Server Software for Microsoft Exchange and signs a supple agreement with Dell. RIM has offices located in North America, Europe and in Asia-Pacific. The corporate structure of RIM consists of co-CEO’s Balsillie, who also holds the position of chairman, while Lazaridis is also the company president. There are two chief operating officers; a chief financial officer; a vice-president, Enterprise Business Unit; and vice-president, Corporate Marketing.

Figure 1 Starting in early 2009, RIM has been on a sharp decline in the US, which is its largest area both in volume and revenue. Pressure from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android has pushed RIM towards the bottom of a market it once commanded. The internal environment at RIM has been in turmoil since before its decline. There have been several leaked letters from RIM ex-employees that shed light

RIM’s Successful Strategies With worldwide demand for wireless handheld’s, RIM quickly identified the market potentials which saw them launching BlackBerry products with outstanding functions. Eventually, this lead to their explosive growth with revenue skyrocketing to $6 billion. However, a corporate giant cannot reach such heights without deploying thriving

Course Project – Blackberry’s Strategy Mark Zavorski Keller Graduate School of Management NETW 583 Abstract Blackberry was the leading company in the mobile market for many years. With the advent of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system in 2008, Blackberry began to lose market share. In 2013, Blackberry hired new talent to lead their company by the name of John Chen. Chen is credited with saving software maker Sybase in the 1990’s (Miller, 2013). With new leadership and a new inspiration and motivation to take back what once was, Blackberry is poised to regain its dominance in the enterprise mobile market. This is that strategy.

An Enterprise on Decline Research in Motion (RIM) was founded in 1984 and launched the BlackBerry smartphone in 1999, which made it one of the leaders in cell-phone innovation (RIM). In fact, for almost a decade, the BlackBerry was the product to have for people who were interested in cutting-edge sell phone technology. However, when Apple released the iPhone, it made a dramatic impact on BlackBerry's market. The recent release of a significant number of smartphone competitors has further impacted RIM's business. Despite these losses, RIM seemed to remain a viable competitor in the cell-phone industry, even if it had lost much of its market share. Some recent events have occurred that make RIM seem as if it may not be able to retain its current market share and may be in an unstoppable decline.

Group Name: Boosters Group Number: 8 Title: BlackBerry’s Downfall in Canadian market RSMT-5001-0LB Business Research Methods Research Problem Research Problem The purpose of the study is to evaluate BlackBerry 's de-escalating market share in Canadian market and provides a possible solution to cope up with this problem.

Table of Content Page Acknowledgement 3 Executive Summary 4 Project Outline 5 Industry Life Cycle 7 Key Success Factor (KSF) 8 Industry Analysis (Porter’s Five Forces) 10 SWOT Analysis Internal Factor Analysis Summary (IFAS) 13 External Factor Analysis Summary (EFAS) 15 Strategic Factor Analysis Summary (SFAS) 17 TOWS Matrix 19 Assessment of Current Company’s Performance 22 Review of Option for Future Direction 24 Recommendation for Implementation of strategies 25 The Usefulness of Strategies Management Models 27 List of reference 29 (Total word count: 4,093 words) Acknowledgement Firstly, I would RIM has a wide range of customers and established in many developed countries which can gain its brand image among its competitors. As RIM is responsible for innovation of high technology products, there is an effective R&D in RIM to make RIM stay competitive in smartphones industry. A strong relationship between RIM and its service providers showed one of RIM’s core capabilities.

Research in Motion (RIM) is known as a multinational telecommunications establishment which is responsible for designing, manufacturing and marketing the wireless solution for the telecommunication and mobile markets, especially its Blackberry lines. (Burr, Rothaermel, & Urbina, 2013) RIM was first founded and owned by Mike Lazaridis in 1985 and Jim Balsillie had joined the company as a co-chief executive later in 1992. The company was seriously affected by the launch of iPhone in 2007. (Burr, Rothaermel, & Urbina, 2013) The market share of Blackberry has been dropped from 20% to 5%. (Burr, Rothaermel, & Urbina, 2013) In 2011, RIM’s stock price significantly dropped by 75 %, following with the launches of a collective of lukewarm products, and declines in share. Following the resignation of many shareholders, the two founders, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, then have been replaced and RIM has been taken over by Thorsten Heins. (Burr, Rothaermel, & Urbina, 2013) According to Heins, the current issues that RIM is facing have nothing to deal with the original strategic plan, and it is all about marketing and communication. (Burr, Rothaermel, & Urbina, 2013) Also, to prove for his points, Heins has emphasized on the significant improvements at RIM which is debt free and holding $2.9 billion cash on hand. (Burr, Rothaermel, & Urbina, 2013) Heins has predicted the big turnaround for RIM will happen at the moment that the Blackberry 10 launches into the market. (Burr,

As more mass market consumers switch over to competitor operating systems such as OS and Android, Corporations will begin to use these handsets within their organizations. It has become evident that Blackberry no longer offers a unique service or product. Therefore, Option 2 is not viable for RIM in the long-term and should not be considered.

BlackBerry Limited SWOT Analysis. (2014). Research in Motion Limited SWOT Analysis, 1-10. This research analyzed BlackBerry Limited through the method of SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis it conducted was based on the facts that Blackberry had experienced a significant decrease of 38.5% in revenue during the fiscal year 2014. Compared to BlackBerry’s apparent weaknesses like poor financial performance and delayed product launches, it still holds strengths in terms of enterprise services, product design and device development. The positive outlook for smartphone and tablet markets will provide BlackBerry a great chance and motivation to develop new devices. Meanwhile, the cooperation with Foxconn is also a potential to drag up BlackBerry’s sales. However, threats such as intense competition from its

Assumptions -The BlackBerry has a good reputation, but the iPhone market share of the smartphone business is growing rapidly. The prices for the newest BlackBerry and iPhone are very close, except Apple is willing to drop the iPhone’s price in order to increase its sales and market domination. If RIM follows, its profits will be reduced and it does not have as many other products as Apple to compensate for this loss of profit.