I read an article this morning about the shake up at Research in Motion, the makers of Blackberry mobile phones. Its co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down as the company undergoes a major shake-up.
In recent months, Blackberry has struggled to compete with Google and Apple which has had huge implications. Shares have tumbled by 75% over the last 11 months wiping billions of dollars from its market value; it’s answer to the I-pad, the Playbook tablet hasn’t lived up to expectations and its had its worst service outage in 2011.
I’m sure 2-3 years ago, none of us would have thought that Blackberry would be in trouble. Sure, Apple has got a huge market share (and you all know I’m a huge Apple fan) but there has always
been a place for Blackberry, especially in the business world – I know lots of friends who wouldn’t be without theirs.
So, what went wrong?
In my opinion, it’s all about the survival of the fittest. In truth, Blackberry have failed to evolve as fast and as openly as Apple. For whatever reason, they’ve let themselves become average in comparison to their biggest rivals who are flying ahead.
We all know that in every town and city across the land, average shops are closing down, average/normal businesses are disappearing and most of those that are left are just ‘getting by’. We all know that the ones who are doing well are the ones who are the best marketers – these are the ones who aren’t average and will never accept average.
What’s clear is that Blackberry is failing to understand its market – BIG mistake. You see, the I-phone is constantly evolving. Apple are masters at pursuing constant improvements and tweaking their devices’ usability – if you’ve got an I-phone you’ll know that Apple issue free updates crammed with extra features. They’re committed to being the best they can be for the customer.
But Blackberry by contrast has a much slower software update cycle and a lot of people find its operations confusing. In a nutshell, to compete with Apple it needed to stand out and be better at the stuff which Apple isn’t so great at, but it hasn’t.
So what are you doing to understand your customers? We’ve all got an Apple-like competitor who is ready to mop up the business when we fail to meet your customers’ needs. How are you going to make sure you are ahead of the game?
If we’re going to be in business today, it’s important we pay close attention to each and every customer and focus our marketing on individual PEOPLE, and not on abstract demographics. It’s also just as important to see what our competition is and isn’t doing so we can stay ahead.
This week I want you to have a think about why your customers should do business with you instead of someone else? What makes you so special?
