The Remaking of Blackberry
Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry, must reinvent its business model. Otherwise, it’s the end of the road as many market analysts are predicting. Time is of the essence, so the management team needs to accelerate its search for new directions and pursue them aggressively. Here is a series of steps and techniques to do that.
1. Reframing: Use the Subtraction Tool to reframe and see new possibilities. Make a list of the major components of the company (sales force, products, brand, employees, customers, network, etc.). Now imagine that the company will merge with another company from any industry. Create a phrase something like this: “RIM has no products, but it has all the other components. What company has the ideal set of products that would best fit the remaining resources of RIM?” For example, would a company in data-mining or other information-based services have products that would find new growth within the RIM enterprise? Companies like LexisNexis, Authernative, and Lifelock come to mind. Continue searching for more insights by doing the same exercise for each component.
2. Reverse Assumption: Assumptions get outdated, and this technique helps “break fixedness” about them. List all the obvious business assumptions about RIM and its industry. For example:
- Blackberry is for enterprises
- Consumers want more functionality
- Cellphones are the dominate form of communication
Reverse the assumptions one by one. “Consumers want less functionality.” Perhaps the new business model is to create stripped down products used by a different market segment. Perhaps Blackberry becomes a system strictly for young people, not enterprises. Cellphones are replaced by Internet technologies. Imagine if RIM developed a Blackberry approach to Skype.