CTU Blogs

Op Ed: Business Perspective on RIM’s Decline

June 26, 2012 •Business and Management, General • 2 Comments

Business and technology faculty at CTU have watched news reports involving Research in Motion (RIM) closely for lessons to share on leadership, management and innovation. As part of a two-part op ed series, we asked the University Dean of Business and Management, Dr. Emad Rahim, and the University Dean of IT, Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Myles Vogel, to share their personal reactions to what caused RIM’s decline. Part one in the series, this is Emad’s response.

By Emad Rahim, DM, PMP
Executives at Blackberry and RIM (Research In Motion) could learn a few things from reading case examples from one of my favorite business books: “Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes” by Sydney Finkelstein (2003). Rather than focusing only on successes, I believe we can learn a lot more from others’ mistakes. This book includes several insightful examples of how some of the world’s best business minds have failed to lead their company or venture forward during difficult times of change.

If you are unfamiliar with RIM, it is the company behind the BlackBerry product line. They were supposed to be the evolution of BlackBerry smartphones. But instead, repeated delays in launch dates, internal conflicts between business units, budget constraints and product malfunction are crippling the entire Blackberry brand and company. Instead of developing innovative and creative products that give Apple and Android devices a run for their money, Blackberry and RIM hand over market share and lose ground in the smartphone war quarter after quarter.

BlackberryNow, before you assume that I am talking trash about RIM because I am an Apple lover, I want to point out that I have been a longtime fan of Blackberry. I have owned several Blackberry devices since 2007 and even purchased the Verizon BlackBerry PlayBook; which resulted in constant email issues and problems uploading files. I have read reports that RIM’s business culture is very difficult to manage because of the company’s political environment. Bloggers have pointed out that the culture of BlackBerry is the exact opposite of RIM, citing RIM’s inability to get their products to market quickly and technology defects as major contributors to recent failures. Engineering and design may have some impact on Blackberry and RIM’s product problems, but I see many problems that tie directly back to leadership and project management.

When reviewing articles written on BlackBerry and RIM in the last few months, I notice similarities in the type of language used to describe the company’s failures. An environmental scan of articles and blogs reveals words and phrases like “schedule delays,” “missed deadlines,” “over budget,” “risk,” “quality defects” and “design flaws” used to describe their products or projects. It’s no coincidence that these are all project management buzz words. Words and phrases used to describe the company’s direction and structure like “unclear vision,” “strategy issues,” “business culture,” “dysfunctional work environment,” “management” and “communication barriers” point to major leadership problems.

Some of my favorite leaders dealt with similar workplace dynamics and market challenges. They were able to overcome these same challenges by first making sure the current organizational structure and environment were conducive to the type of change they were looking to implement. Regardless of how talented RIM is or how creative and innovative their employees are, the company will need to follow an organizational structure and process that fosters project management maturity and best practices. Executives at Blackberry need to show some transformational leadership to help RIM get back on track and organize. From where I sit, this is the only way BlackBerry and RIM will produce quality products that hit their target launch date. The strategy of BlackBerry will never be effectively implemented if the culture of the company has a history of resisting change; so it will take a visionary leader to examine the organization as a whole and identify opportunities to improve how the company operates.

BlackBerry leaders could learn a thing or two by reading “Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes” by Sydney Finkelstein. 

See the technology perspective on RIM’s decline – view Dr. Myles Vogel's op ed post.

Dr. Emad Rahim is a PMI Certified Project Management Professional® and the University Dean of Business and Management at Colorado Technical University. Connect with him on Twitter @CTUBusiness or leave a comment below.

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Comments

Emad Rahim •June 29, 2012 at 09:53 AM

Thank you for responding to my post. You provided a lot of great insight in to the world of smart phones and evolution of analogue cell phone technology. I also thought Motorola was back on track to lead the cell phone revolution when they came out with the Razr. I remember people waiting in lines to get the Razr or never version of it just like they do now for the IPone. Instead of building on that excitement and grow their following, they took it for granted and lost their edge and market share. What people don’t realize, phones are more accessories for consumer and successful companies learn to build a culture around it. Apple has a following of loyal customers because they have bought into the culture. Other companies need to develop a culture around their brand instead of developing a product that follows a brand. This is how you create a cult-branding and strong followers. -CTU University Dean of Business and Management

Daryl M Williams •June 28, 2012 at 11:55 AM

Dr. Rahim, This is a topic near and dear to my heart as I'm a cell phone fanatic and have also owned several blackberry devices during the last decade. The Finkelstein tome is an excellent choice but a more glaring example for Blackberry to focus on, in my view, and one closer to home is the example of Motorola and Nokia. Many of the mobile device users of today likely have no idea Motorola used to be King way back before Android was a phone OS and Apple made phones. The StarTac was a huge success but Motorola remained stagnant, confident that customers would merely buy what they offered and they made a late entry into the world of digital phones preferring to remain committed to analog. They fell behind Nokia, among others, and only in recent years, not including their Razr line of thin flip phones, with an almost sole focus on Android, were they able to remain a buzz worthy company. Nokia showed similar signs of hubris in failing to understand that simply being number one would not be sufficient and that innovation would and should rule the day. The point of all of this is that Blackberry is in danger of going the way of so many other companies because they assumed they would always be relevant. They watched upstarts like Apple and Android and chuckled, after all who wants to type on a touchscreen when we have these cool keyboards. As their market share was slowly eaten away, they smirked because they still had the business community. While their lead in terms of businesses using Blackberry is still significant, Apple, Android and even Windows Phone OS are making inroads. It seems system outages happen with regularity and sadly Blackberry could be circling the drain with continued delays plaguing them and Blackberry 10 not due for months. A sad case of what happens when companies fail to grow, whether due to hubris, funding, politics or other internal strife.

What do you think?

 
 
 

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