Blackberry's Strategy and International Management in India

This essay analyzes Blackberry's strategy and international management in India, including their company overview, expertise, goals, and strategies. It also discusses the reasons for their business failure in the Indian market.

Running head: STRATEGY AND INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Strategy and international management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
The early 21st century saw the entry of various global brands in different business
sectors in India. This was caused mainly due to the liberalization of the market by the
government of India in late nineties. One of the major global brands entered in the Indian
market at that time is Blackberry. They had entered the Indian market in the early 21st century
and there were different reasons behind entry. One of the major reasons was that, after the
market liberalization, the Indian market was getting more accustomed with the globalization
and global products and entry in the primary stage helped Blackberry to cater the entire
untapped Indian market (Kothari, Kotabe and Murphy 2013).
Blackberry first introduced the idea of smartphone in the Indian market by launching
the mobile devices such as curve. Their parent company was Research in Motion (RIM) and
is based in Ontario, Canada (global.blackberry.com 2018). Other than the mobile devices,
some other offerings of RIM were Blackberry messenger, Blackberry enterprise server and
Blackberry internet service (Rai 2015). However, the smartphones from Blackberry are the
cash cows for them.
This essay will discuss about the overview of Blackberry along with their strategic
goals and objectives in doing business in India. In addition, the strategies initiated by them in
doing business in India will also be analyzed in comparison to their competitors. The
strategies of them will be analyzed along with determining the reasons for their business
failure.
Company overview
Research in Motion first introduced the concept of pager in the market. This formed
the foundations of the future networking devices. In the later period, more updated products

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and services are being launched in the market. However, the major product that they launched
in the market was the Blackberry smartphones with having full alphabetical keyboard
(QWERTY keypad). This caused a disruption in the global market of mobile devices, which
was dominated by Nokia and Motorola (Rahulamathavan et al. 2014). Mobile devices were
started to be seen not only as a mere connecting device but also as a portable computing
device. Along with this, another two most popular services promoted by them in the market
were the Blackberry OS and push mail services in their mobile devices.
It is also to be noted that Blackberry phones are marketed as the most secured and
safe devices in the market. The operating system and encryption process used by their models
helped in having more security in the process (Ahmad et al. 2013). This also helped
Blackberry to have their products used by some prominent global personality including the
presidential heads of different countries. Till today, the competition in the market got heavily
increased with the entry of new players but still Blackberry devices are known as the most
secured operating system as well as mobile device in the market (Paik and Zhu 2016).
In the early 21st century, the disruptions and innovations promoted by Research in
Motion by introducing the Blackberry range of devices caused gaining in huge popularity in
the global market.
Company expertise
In the early 21st century, Blackberry had entered the Indian market with their range of
smartphones. The timing for their entry in the Indian market was perfect due to the reason
that at that time, Indian market was going through transformations especially in the mobile
device market. At that time, Indian customers were accustomed with the budget phones from
Nokia and Motorola. On the other hand, Blackberry introduced the concept of high end
smartphones, which will cost multiple times of the phones available in the market at that

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time. Another major reason for premium pricing of Blackberry was that their mobile devices
are directly imported in India rather than localizing the manufacturing process. Initiation of
the premium pricing also helped Blackberry to create a niche market in India along with
having an exclusivity regarding their products (Keller 2017).
However, in the later time disruptive technologies caused failure for Blackberry. This
is due to the reason that Blackberry concentrated mainly on their existing brand value and
established products. However, on the other hand, disruptive technologies in the mobile
device market such as touch screen technology by Apple caused failure of strategy of
sustaining with existing technologies. This is due to the reason that the technology of
Blackberry felt outdated in front of the disruptive innovation of its competitors (Christensen,
Raynor and McDonald 2015).
The ansoff matrix is a tool used by companies to plan their strategies. Within the
context of the ansoff matrix blackberry could be said to be pursuing a market penetration
strategy in the sense that they are not changing the product however they are changing which
markets they are entering by entering the Indian market. This is due to the reason that
Blackberry products had reached the market maturity in the product life cycle in its main
markets of North America and Europe however there was still a lot of room for growth in the
Indian market.
The major difference that possessed by the Blackberry devices over their conventional
rivals is the ability to check and send mails from the mobile device. Thus, with the
introduction of the Blackberry devices, not only the mobile market, but also the computer
market also witnessed disruptions. Blackberry phones are increasingly being assumed as the
portable alterative to the personal computers. Another major point of difference of the
Blackberry devices over their conventional rivals is the facility of instant chat option.

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Currently, there is huge popularity of instant chat messengers (Mehrotra, Pradhan and Jain
2014). However, in the early 21st century, the concept of instant messaging facility was first
introduced by Blackberry by the way of Blackberry Messenger. Thus, the users were able to
communicate with others with having Blackberry devices in less time.
Thus, the premium pricing of the Blackberry devices along with the computing
facilities helped Research in Motion to gain popularity for the Blackberry devices among the
business professionals (Morris 2013). Initiation of the premium pricing also helped
Blackberry to have less competition in the Indian market. This is due to the reason that at the
time of the entry of Blackberry in the Indian market, the market was flooded with the cheaper
feature phones. Thus, having the premium pricing helped Blackberry to operate in an entirely
new market without having any competition. Blackberry could be said to have had first
mover advantage in the Indian market premium phone market as not many other phones were
premium priced in India at the time. First mover advantage is defined as the advantages
which accrue to companies which enter first into a market (Markides and Sosa 2013).
Company goals
When Blackberry entered the Indian market, their main objective was to offer global
products. This is due to the reason that before the entry of Blackberry, the Indian market was
only having localized products. Thus, the major goal for Blackberry was to create a
distinctive image in the Indian market by offering standardized products in the market.
Another major goal of Blackberry during their early entry in the Indian market was to gain
the status of market leader in the premium mobile device category along with enhancing their
brand value and recognition in the Indian market (Gupta, Czinkota and Melewar 2013). This
is due to the reason that prior to the entry of Blackberry in the Indian market, they were lesser
known to the Indian customers. On the other hand, prior to the entry of Blackberry in the

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Indian market, there were no other premium mobile devices available in the Indian market.
Hence, it was the major goal for Blackberry to tap the maximum market possible in India.
Initiation of the premium pricing and directly importing the devices as standard model
helped Blackberry to have positive brand value and recognition in the market. Indian
customers had the assumption that Blackberry devices are superior to others and they started
to assume Blackberry as status symbol. Thus, it helped Blackberry to meet their goal of
having positive brand image in the market (Malik et al. 2013).

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Company strategy
The major strategy that has initiated by Blackberry in term of their international
market entry mode is direct exporting
. This entry mode is initiated by them in order to offer standardized products in the Indian
market. According to (Tan and Sousa 2013), product standardization strategy is one of the
most effective strategy in terms of international distribution. This is due to the reason that
initiation of the product standardization strategy helped Blackberry to have their global
products in the Indian market. This also helped them to gain competitive advantages due to
the reason that during the time of their entry in the Indian market, the market was flooded
with localized products. Thus, offering global products helped Blackberry in initiating
differentiation strategy in the competition (Banker, Mashruwala and Tripathy 2014).
It is also to be noted that with the help of direct exporting entry mode, it became
easier to maintain the standardized features and attributes of the mobile devices of
Blackberry. However, on the other hand, initiation of the direct exporting also caused
increase in the price for their mobile devices. If Blackberry initiated the direct investment or
joint venture in the country, then they can offer their products in less cost. But due to the fact
that Blackberry models are targeted for the higher end customers, price was not a primary
factor for consideration, rather the higher price for the Blackberry products got justified with
the innovative and first in the industry features offered by them. In addition, initiation of the
premium pricing also helped Blackberry in creating a niche image in the Indian market
(Keller 2017).
Moreover, another major reason behind not having localized manufacturing facility in
the Indian market is the low volume sales of the higher end mobile devices. At the time
Blackberry entered in the Indian market, it was not matured enough with the trend of

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globalization along with having lower growth of economy. Thus, the sales of the higher end
phones were also limited in nature. Thus, investing in having manufacturing facilities in the
Indian market caused more cost for Blackberry and it may get difficult for them to recover
the cost by having limited sales potentiality in the market. Another mode of entry that got
effective for them is licensing. According to (Bond and Saggi 2014), licensing mode of entry
helped Blackberry to have their manufacturing facility in the Indian market without having
the responsibility of greater financial risk. This is due to the reason that licensing may helped
them in having a vendor in the Indian market who had manufactured their devices under the
license. This caused maintaining the standardized approach of their devices along with
preventing the cost involved in exporting and importing (Akaka, Vargo and Lusch 2013).
In relation to the chosen country for entry, Indian market was selected due to different
reasons. One of major reasons is the huge market size. India was and still having huge
population in the world. Thus, the more population denotes higher market potentiality for the
business organizations. Entering the Indian market also helped Blackberry in having the
opportunity to cater to the huge market potentiality (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan 2015).
Another reason for entering in the Indian market is the liberalization initiatives by the
government of India. In the late nineties, market liberalization by the government of India
opened the closed Indian market to the foreign organizations. Thus, Blackberry gained the
opportunity of tapping the completely new market without having any competition (Kumar,
Mudambi and Gray 2013).
Strategy analysis
The above discussion analyzed the competitive advantages of Blackberry in entering
and operating in the Indian market. However, the strategies initiated by them got success in
the short term only. Currently, Blackberry is a failed organization both in the global and

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Indian market scenario. There are various internal and external reasons being identified as the
probable causes for failure. One of the major reasons is not matching up with the change in
the market requirement and expectation. In the last few years, Indian market went through
huge transformation regarding the change and evolution of the technology along with
increasing impact of the globalization (Liu, Liu and Lin 2015). Thus, Indian customers who
were fascinated with the Blackberry products in the early stage are now have the options of
more superior and updated products. For instance, Indian market is now having mobile
brands such as Apple, Samsung and HTC. These are products are far superior compared to
the Blackberry devices. Thus, customers are getting more in to these brands and customer
base for Blackberry got reduced significantly (Mitra, Sharma and Vegazones-Varoudakis
2014).
It became difficult for Blackberry to compete with the updated products from their
rival organizations. They failed to determine the change in the market and continue to offer
the same products. In this case, one of the major strategic failures for Blackberry is more
putting concentration on the existing attributes over developing new ones (Hofmann et al.
2013). They continue to leverage more on their brand value, secured operating system and
mailing facilities. However, with the change in time, the requirement and expectation of the
customers from the mobile devices got changed. Blackberry failed to identify this and got
trailed behind their competitors.
Another reason behind the failure of Blackberry in the Indian market is their pricing
strategy. This is due to the reason that in the early 21st century, premium pricing of
Blackberry helped them to gain brand recognition and value in the market. Moreover, their
profitability also got increased due to not having huge competition in the market. However,
with the entry of more players in the market, models with superior features than Blackberry
are being offered in more affordable cost. Thus, the strategy of premium pricing is no more

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viable for Blackberry in the current time. On the other hand, advantage gained by Blackberry
in having premium positioning also got diluted with the entry of the higher end brands such
as Apple. Thus, Indian customers are no more getting attracted towards Blackberry for status
symbol. This also caused reduction in the customer base for Blackberry in the Indian market
(Vigneron and Johnson 2017).
Reasons behind selling the business
The above reasons discussed caused rapid reduction in the customer base for
Blackberry in the Indian market. The sales revenue and profitability got reduced in much
extent that caused initiating different options by Research in Motion. Currently, they have not
sold the business of Blackberry completely but ended their mobile device business. Instead
they have outsourced their mobile business sector to different third party vendors for different
regions. These third party vendors are given the license of using the brand name of
Blackberry for manufacturing the mobile devices globally. Thus, it can be concluded that
research in motion has stopped their mobile business completely.
The major reason behind outsourcing the mobile business is reduction in the viability
of retaining the business. This is due to the reason that the current sale trend of Blackberry in
the Indian market is not making profit that are required to maintain the own facilities. On the
other hand, outsourcing the business activities helped Blackberry to gain capital from the
vendors that they can further invest in their profitable business sectors. In addition, another
major reason for promoting outsourcing the business activities is the cost in research and
development. In order to compete in the current market scenario, Blackberry should have to
start from scratch in developing new devices with newer technologies and operating systems.
This will cause huge investment for them and Blackberry currently is not financially viable
enough to invest huge amount (Eloff and Bella 2018).

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On the other hand, outsourcing the mobile device business to Optiemus Infracom to
manufacture and market the Blackberry labeled products in the Indian market helped them to
transfer the responsibility of developing new products to the vendors
(www.thehindubusinessline.com 2018). The vendor is selected based on their expertise in
manufacturing latest and cost effective mobile devices (Denicolai, Strange and Zucchella
2015). It is reported that Optiemus Infracom will introduce latest devices with having updated
operating system in the market. Thus, this will help Blackberry to have less risk and
responsibilities in operating in the Indian market.
Another theory as to why blackberry failed in india could be due to the disruptors
dilemma. This is a phenomenon where established companies fail value new technologies as
they seem to offer lower rates of return on their investments than the current technologies
they are currently using (THRASYVOULOU, 2017). It could be argued that Blackberry were
comfortable as the major premium brand in India and other markets and did not make
innovations quickly enough to adapt to their competitors.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that strategies initiated by Blackberry in their initial stage
are both effective and innovative at that point of time. However, it is discussed in this essay
that lack of innovative strategies and ineffective determination of the market requirement and
trend caused Blackberry to fail in the Indian market. This essay also discussed about the
probable reasons behind the failure of business of Blackberry in the Indian market. This essay
also discussed about the business strategy of Blackberry in outsourcing their mobile business
in the Indian market along with determination of the viability of outsourcing strategy.

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