In the year 2013, John Chen became CEO of Blackberry. Who was CEO of Sybase before Blackberry? After becoming CEO while he tried launching a new phone, all of those handsets failed. Blackberry could never evolve from being a business phone to being a smartphone for everyone like Apple and Samsung did. While Blackberry had some brand awareness, they could not cash in. Due to product quality, they lost an opportunity. So, John Chen pulled the trigger and Blackberry stopped producing hardware (Crow, 2016). We can consider this step as first change. A second change is Blackberry turning into a software services company. Blackberry was popular among business and government users because of it’s secured software that allowed the user to send emails securely. John Chen had to stop producing Blackberry’s signature hardware devices but he turned the company into a cybersecurity company too (Morgan, 2016). So a phone maker stopped making phones, because it could not essentially compete in the marketplace then started doing more of what it was known for, which is cybersecurity and now the third change is Blackberry is stepping inside autonomous driving. Blackberry is working to expand secured software in driverless cars which are yet to take over the world (Chen, 2018). So, we can see how Blackberry in 2018 is a very different company than it was in 2013.
Blackberry always produced highly secured phones and they focused on a niche market, specifically for business users. And I believe CEO John Chen who came from Sybase, has a background in software, which was an added benefit for the company. As John Check realized that Blackberry does not stand a chance with the competition he switched focus and the company started doing more of what they are good at. Which is security? In today's connected world, we always need security and the future will be more connected with all connected devices. John Chen and the company recognized the opportunity and went for it. So, from providing a secured device they entered into cybersecurity and now they are bringing security in connected devices, including autonomous cars.
Blackberry’s major weakness was an inability to market the brand, and I believe specifically that issue is still there. While Blackberry has transformed itself into a cybersecurity company, it used to be a consumer brand and now it's brand recognition must be really low. While they came out of hardware business and got rid of Blackberry OS or their really bad tablet, but while they are trying to introduce Blackberry products again as secured devices which run on Android, but the brand recognition is low. If Blackberry can improve that their products can do well, especially when there is so much concern around security of data.
Blackberry transformed itself from a phone maker to a cybersecurity company and many things helped them along the way. The major opportunity came in the form of internet and handheld devices. Blackberry was competing against those hardware makers to lose market share. When internet penetration increased and thread to cybersecurity increased Blackberry saw an opportunity to use the expertise they already had. Which was making secured communication? And now as the internet of things are coming along, which is mostly about connected smart home devices, appliances, cars, etc. Blackberry has even bigger opportunity to provide cybersecurity for all those connected devices.
The area of cybersecurity is well discovered already. While Blackberry went out of the hardware business of making phones or tablets, they are coming back with some secured hardware recently. All these areas have existing players with is brand awareness. So Blackberry is going to face huge competition. And this time Blackberry cannot afford to be slow with innovation or marketing. And they will need to generate brand awareness too.
I see one more risk, currently, Blackberry is focused on Android, they should make themselves available across platforms. For each operating system, blackberry should have cybersecurity solution.
Once a famous phone maker almost died off because they could not innovate, market and compete. Now they are transformed into a cybersecurity company, Blackberry faces similar competition but hopefully, Blackberry has learned from past mistakes and they will need to do whatever they did not do with the tablet or their once popular phones.
References
Morgan, S(April 2016). BlackBerry's Turnaround CEO Dials Up Cybersecurity, And It Answers. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2016/04/28/blackberrys-turnaround-ceo-dials-up-cybersecurity-and-it-answers/#59936c593b3d
Crow, D (September 2016). John Chen — the man whose BlackBerry died on him. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/a948e658-866a-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5
Chen, J (April 2018). Why There Is More Work To Be Done To Make Autonomous Vehicles Safe. Retrieved from http://blogs.blackberry.com/2018/05/why-there-is-more-work-to-be-done-to-make-autonomous-vehicles-safe/
Jurevicius, O (February 2013). SWOT analysis of Blackberry. Retrieved from https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/blackberry-swot-analysis.html
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