RIM Blackberry Falling Behind

When thinking of Smartphones-what jumps out to you?  Immediately in my mind I picture iPhones and Droids, fast, touch-screen, app focused phones, even though just three years ago, I was a proud owner of a Blackberry Curve.  I remember my first days with the Blackberry-going to it from my previous phone was like going from a Mac to a PC…completely different logic in the functioning, leading to several days of frustration and searching through my instruction manual just to find out how to change the ring tone.  Last fall, I bought an Evo 3G (Android); I don’t think I’ve opened the instruction manual to this day.

Why does this matter?  As a consumer, business student, and hopefully future employee of a large organization-Blackberry should care that their phones are falling out of consumer’s evoked set and are challenging to understand for those consumers who do have them.  After reading RIM's Blackberry: Failure to Communicate, it doesn't appear that RIM is positioning themselves to overcome this.  As an example, here is what co-CEO, Jim Balsillie had to say after unveiling the Blackberry RIM’s answer to the iPad,

“There’s tremendous turbulence in the ecosystem, of course, in mobility.  And that’s sort of an obvious thing, but also there’s tremendous architectural distinction.  We’ve taken two fundamentally different approaches in their casualness.  It’s a causal difference, not just nuance.  It’s not just a causal direction that I’m going to really articulate here- and feel free to go as deep as you want-it’s really as fundamental as casualness.”

Did you catch that?  I certainly didn’t.  If this quote is an example of the communication style within RIM, it is easy to see that the sender’s intended message can easily be misunderstood and decoded incorrectly.  It is difficult to see how the marketing department within RIM understood what Balsillie said, and better yet, could take that information and turn it into an appealing message to consumers.  The heavy use of business jargon limits their ability to communicate effectively, even within the organization. 

Blackberry has placed their focus on highly secure, business minded phones and have openly discussed a resistance to the concept of “apps”, but they have failed to connect with the consumer.  The recent success of both Apple and Android in taking over the mobile device market with their app-friendly focus shows that the consumers (even the ones who work in business) value these features.  Currently, Blackberry still holds the top seat for smartphones in business, but that market is dying off as organizations find more secure and cost effective ways to have employees utilize their personal smartphones. 

Now is the time for RIM to diversify their teams, and create customer friendly products.  Although their focus on high quality technology is right, and they believe in being authentic to their consumers, it is evident there is disconnect between the tech-savvy teams creating their products and the consumers who use them.  RIM does not necessarily lack surface level diversity, but rather deep-level diversity in the backgrounds, values, and attitudes of their employees.  RIM is desperately in need of a closer connection with their everyday consumer, the non-tech guru who still wants to check email and have a few fun “wow” factors available on their cell phone.  Increased diversity will lead to a better understanding and ability to satisfy customers, ultimately resulting in higher performance for the organization. 

In a recent article, RIM BlackBerry World Fails to Impress Analysts, RIM was again criticized for failure to innovate and bring revolutionary ideas to the mobile device market.  As Android and Apple are continuing active growth, it is time for RIM to reevaluate their organization’s culture and bring in more innovators that will help them connect with consumer wants and needs.  RIM can take a few lessons from Apple and Android, since I know we all have heard plenty about Apple’s culture, check out this article about Android, 100 Million Android Fans Can't be Wrong. 

What do you think?  Anyone out there still a proud Blackberry user?  What other ideas could RIM use to take back the mobile device game?

Kelsey Umbarger