The report is on Blackberry (phone) on how they failed as a company to adapt to the changes of technology, leadership, consumer needs, and not willing to go out the box to satisfy consumers. This report will cover
- Identification of type of change needed,
- Justification for the reason for change.
- Definition of the scope of the change,
- Change resistance mitigation actions,
- Requirements for resource and team definition to implement the change, a change schedule, a change communications plan, and a change closure that includes how the effort will be sustained.
- Finally, how can Blackberry connect the ship again and instilling new changes to regain new market presence??
Solution
Introduction
Every organization needs change. The organization has to evolve in terms of its strategies and operations to sustain the business for a long run. Trends of doing business in different industries have changed. These modern trends of the business have negatively hit traditional organizations. It is due to the backward intention of the management of these companies. Thus, the change in the business seems imperative, and to integrate with the new trends, it is the backbone of the company. Blackberry has faced a huge business failure, and it seems the perfect time to make some major changes to regain success and growth.
Company Background
Blackberry is a prominent company in Canada. This company deals with a wide line of different Smartphones, tablets, and other services. This company was quite successful until 2013, as 85 million blackberry customers were observed. Regarding Smartphone productivity and secure communication, the company was in the limelight. This company was founded in 1984. Main products of this organization are BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, BlackBerry Internet Service, and QNX. According to 2017 financial reports, the revenue of the company is US$1.309 billion.
How Company Failed
In the telecommunication sector, some technological revolutions have emerged It can be said that telecommunication and the mobile phone industry evolved with the passage of time. For Instance, prominent factors were the emergence of the Android and IOS platforms. Due to the lower switching cost, the company faced a huge cut in the customer range. In 2016, the company only had 25 million users around the globe. In the Smartphone industry, the company seemed slow to react regarding some key market changes. Blackberry products were in the limelight due to comfortable keyboards. However, the company did not develop touch screen mobiles to meet the needs of markets and customers. It was due to lack of technological resources. This mobile phone company seems reluctant in making some changes in the design of Smartphones. Attractive devices were not preferences of the company. Along with some prominent financial ruins, the leadership is still struggling in this company. No innovative leader to make some changes is visible in this company, and the company seems backward (Worth, 2016).
1-Identification of the Type of Change Needed
Transformation (Adaptation & Reconstruction)
There are different types of organizational change. However, based on the current business situation and the intention of the management, the type of change can be selected, as far as the condition or situation of Blackberry Company is concerned, the nature of the change is transformed, as adaptation and reconstruction are main priorities of this company in the change process. According to Balogun & Hope Hailey, adaptation and reconstruction fall in the transformational process. In this change process, there are several elements which are to be carried out. For Instance, Blackberry Company has to reshape the organization culture, mission, strategies, technology, leadership individual, and organizational performance. In the external environment of the business, the management of the company has to adopt contemporary trends in terms of technology, customers, market, development, and secluding. Change the perception of customers and come up with some new products. Rapid technological changes in the company can be conducted in an incremental manner. It can help the company regain its market share and global presence. Due to changes in technology, different Smartphone products can be generally accepted. The mission statement of the company has to be changed. Innovational leadership is also a part of transformational change, which can turn things around for the company. Inside Blackberry, the transformational change is a huge shift due to the reconstruction process. Simultaneously, the management has to take many initiatives to make rapid changes. The change in the strategies and processes through reconstruction is a good approach, which can help the company regain sales, growth, and profitability without making fundamental changes in the culture of the company. The transformational process, including adaptation and reconstruction, is effective to shift from good to great performance to integrate with latest mobile phone market trends (Financial Times, 2017).
Balogun and Hope model
2-The Justification for the Reason for the Change
Blackberry Company can make this rapid change in the business process. There are many benefits that this company can gain due to this change. These benefits are the justification of the change process in this company. For Instance, it has been revealed that the company has to reach different millstone in the competitive mobile phone market. The reason for the change is to meet new goals and objectives, and the transformation process is quite pertinent. The reason for the change process is to realign different resources of the company to integrate with the future vision. This change process can help the company to increase its technological resources to meet customer and market needs (Financial Times, 2017).
Also, the organizational culture of the company needs change to delegate the work process and enhance the visibility of creative and innovative work. Different innovative leaders will justify this change process, and the company will be in a position to produce different outputs, which can generally be accepted. The transformational change in the blackberry company is necessary to maintain different employee concerned. The business process change will ensure employee efficiency, which can create an impact on the cost as well. The most important thing is the anticipation of different challenges. The prominent reason for the change process is also the anticipation of different challenges. The management can predict different challenges such as market competition and new trends. Due to this change process, the company can respond to these challenges in an effective manner (Worth, 2016).
3-Definition of the Scope of the Change
The scope of change in Blackberry Company is big. For employees to customers a, rapid changes will make the difference for the company. The business transformation process can help the company to become the major computers of different android IOS platforms. Technology, leadership, and external business environment of the company can be combined in this change process. The scope of the change is quite visible, as the company can increase its customer range from 25 million to 90 million. Due to this possible change, the company can improve both, internal and external business process. Appeal to innovate instead of nostalgia can be justified by this change. Along with the impact on internal and external business processes, the business process change can lead to the pertinent shift in technology, behavior, positioning, and marketing as well. Thus, the scope of the change is high, and the company has to create the urgency to make the change (Financial Times, 2017).
4-Change Resistance Mitigation Actions
In the change process, the management of the company can face different challenges or barriers, which can be considered the resistance to the change. Due to some appropriate actions, the company can tackle the change resistance. For Instance, the big action or consideration is applying the effective change management from the beginning. The structured change management approach can make all things in an organized way for Blackberry Company. The prominent change resistance mitigation action is formally managing different barriers or resistances. Three different phases can trigger blackberry management in this action plan. First, the management has to prepare for the change process. In the second phase, the management will manage the change, and in the third phase, the management can depict the change reinforcement. Identification of different causes is an effective approach by the management of the company to mitigate possible resistance. Early identification of issues leads towards the early solution of different problems such as backward mobile technology, poor leadership, and lack of marketing intelligence. Furthermore, the blackberry company can have pertinent resistance managers. In the change process, the company can engage organizational development specialists to tackle the change resistance (Savov, 2016).
5-Requirements for Resource and Team Definition to Implement the Change
The company needs several requirements for resource and team definition to implement the change. According to John Kotter’s theory, there are eight (8) steps in the change management process. These steps are creating urgency, coalition, vision, communication, empowering actions, quick wins, building on the change, and making it stick. All these steps are required when implementing the change process in the Blackberry Company (Nelson, 2017). All these steps trigger the schedule change, communication plan, and change closure along with the sustained efforts. Now, the elaboration of change schedule, change communication plan, change closure is as under.
Change Schedule
Well, relative to the operational process of Blackberry Company, a change in the schedule is necessary. The operational process is quite backward, and due to the new schedule, the contribution to the overall change process can be streamlined. First, the company had to change the schedule of product development, as the aim is to introduce or develop a new Smartphone every year. The launch of the mobile series should be scheduled. The main scheduling requirement from this company is forward operations scheduling. The change is scheduled in the coming year, as all eight steps will be expected in eight months respectively (Reiss, 2012).
Change Communications Plan
It seems imperative for the management of the company to communicate the change to all key stakeholders. The change is based on the pertinent rationale, and therefore, engaging all key stakeholders through an effective communication plan is mandatory. Blackberry Company will use six steps in making the change communication plan. The first step is to conduct a situational analysis. The current communication situation in this company is not up to the mark. Despite having the top-down approach, there are still many examples of miscommunications and disagreements. The second step is creating some SMART objectives. The objective of the company is to utilize best possible communication channels to engage all key stakeholders of the company in the next 5 months. In the third step, the key audience is to be identified. The key audiences for the company are both, employees, and customers. Communication can be enhanced in the company to direct employees’ shape behavior and contain the pertinent work. Communication with customers is to be enhanced to position better in their minds. In the next phase of the communication plan change, the company is looking to choose the media channels. As compared to the current situation, the intention is to choose social media channels to communicate with the audience. Of course, it is for customers. To communicate with employees in the internal business process, mobile communications, and written communications is appropriate methods. However, the change is to be made through an integrated system to keep everyone in the loop. The next step is establishing the timetable and evaluating results in annual, monthly and progress reports.
Change Closure & Sustainability of Efforts
Change closure refers to stopping the change actions and sticks to it. Relative to the Kotter model of the change, the company management can use the last two phases for the change closure. The company can build operations on different change actions and streamline them. These efforts will be sustained in the blackberry company through regulating the change. Replacing several actions completely and stick to it is a change closure of this company (Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006).
6-How Can Blackberry Connect the Ship Again?
Finally, Blackberry can connect the ship again through producing sets of products. It can help the company to increase its market share. The transformational change in the company can assist them to focus on different enterprise apps and cool Smartphone. Interestingly, the firm can connect the ship again through integrating with the new generation apps. Advanced mobile phone technology with a frequent series can help to regain sales and market share. Several factors such as leadership, business process, communication and organizational culture is linked to these changes. Connecting the ship is compacted due to the intense competition. However, through some improvisations, the difference can be made (Arthur, 2017).
Instilling New Changes to Regain the New Market Presence
Instilling new changes to regain the new market presence is imperative for this organization. These new changes can be implemented through creating the urgency and creating the coalition. According to Kotter theory of the change, all key stakeholders have to understand the need for the change and create a coalition to make the change happen. Giving people a proper rationale for these new changes is a good approach to regain the market presence. Production, marketing, and human resource department can be gathered for instilling the change (Hayes, 2018).
Comparison with Apple & Android
The big difference between Blackberry and Apple Inc is the technology adaptation. Apple Inc depended on its traditional technology. The adaptation process regarding technology in Apple Company is remarkable, and it seems the main reason for the success. After the departure of Steve from Apple, the management took several initiatives. For Instance, the legacy was sustained, but few processes were reshaped to keep the development, innovation, and creativity in the limelight. Apple and Android were successful at the beginning because they believe in the incremental changes with the passage of time to make some improvements. Comparatively, Blackberry seems backward, as despite having the capability, initiatives were not taken.
Conclusion
In the end, it is to conclude that Blackberry Company can get rid of these problems by effectively implementing all change strategies. The company is looking to identify some causes of the business failure and combine different efforts to make some big changes. The business process transformation is a type of change method, which covers organizational culture, leadership, business environment, and technology. These are key aspects regarding the change, and the firm has an effective change schedule accordingly. Blackberry can increase the market presence or share in the mobile phone industry through sustaining the change efforts with better planning and execution.
References
Arthur, C. (2017, December 23). Green shoots at BlackBerry? Fallen phone giant turns its hand to software. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/23/blackberry-green-shoots-phone-giant-turns-hand-to-software
Financial Times. (2017, September 28). BlackBerry rides high on shift to software and services. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/0c210e78-a455-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2
Hayes, J. (2018). The Theory and Practice of Change Management. Palgrave.
Nelson, T. (2017, October 9). Believe It or Not, Blackberry Is Making a Comeback. Retrieved from https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/believe-it-or-not-blackberry-making-comeback
Nilakant, V., & Ramnarayan, S. (2006). Change Management: Altering Mindsets in A Global Context. SAGE Publications India,
Reiss, M. (2012). Change Management. Books on Demand.
Savov, V. (2016, September 30). BlackBerry’s success led to its failure. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13119924/blackberry-failure-success
Worth, D. (2016, October 7). 6 reasons BlackBerry crumbled in the smartphone market. Retrieved from https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2473044/6-reasons-blackberry-crumbled-in-the-smartphone-market
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