Blackberry Marketing Plan
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Blackberry Marketing Plan
Executive Summary
Blackberry is a widely renowned company in the field of infrastructure which was formerly known as Research in Motion. Ideally, Blackberry was among the first mobile companies to introduce smartphones and related blackberry products solutions. Its current target market is every individual with cellular devices and wireless connectivity. Thereafter, it has developed its trademark with over 30 percent shares globally. However, the market shares of Blackberry suffered a significant drop in 2012. Recently, it has secured 500 M endpoints of IoT and optimizing how intelligent endpoints meet the standards of reshaping the economy. Therefore, the paper focuses on critical market plan of Blackberry such as market positioning, implementation strategies, pricing strategies and customer analysis.
Introduction
In the past 10 years, Blackberry company has continued developing key improvised devices. Ideally, blackberry is a limited multinational company founded by Douglas Freegan and Mike Lazaridis. With over a million customers, Blackberry suffered a significant drop of customers with 25 percent being United States. Therefore, it is important to analyze the market to identify essential marketing strategies that can revive the company. Also, identifying competitors will help to plan and introduce innovative features which can compete with the dominant wireless companies. Besides, knowing the demand and target market will help to harness growth in blackberry products across the globe. As a result, the aim of this paper is to develop a market plan for blackberry that fits the growing global business.
Market analysis
The company developed its dominance in the market through blackberry phones back in 2000s. Indeed, Blackberry has continued taking the world by surprise through introducing EoT (Enterprise of Things), cloud computing gadgets, Interactive pager 950 and among others. Initially, Blackberry focused much on phones until there was a significant drop in product penetration of Blackberry phones. Thereafter, Blackberry company decided to integrate new solution earning trust across the world by the likes of including IoT, improved cyber security, provision of endpoint security solution, mobile productivity (Unified Endpoint Management) and among others. consequently, the company revenues have increased drastically with 40 percent of revenues incurred fro0m IoT (internet of Things). According to Syer et al. (2011), blackberry has recorded its all-time highest stock price at $146 in mid-2008. Mostly of its product and features targets younger consumer who use iPhone, blackberry hand devices and among others. recent researches have revealed that Blackberry continues to have highest market share in the US smartphone market (37.3 percent) and its global user surging up to 41 million subscribers. According to Syer et al. (2011), the rise of Google and Apple in the Smartphone market led to drop in other dominant smartphone market such as Blackberry back in 2010. Also, competitors such as Samsung, Motorola and HTC in the US market led to significant fall in market shares of Blackberry. This implies that Blackberry had a stiff competition from related smartphone products. In particular, the market share of Blackberry was 44 percent in 2009 but dropped significantly to 10 percent in 2011. Therefore, the company decide to change its marketing strategy and product innovation in 2015. Recent research has ranked Blackberry among top 10 innovative company through integration of IoT data into enterprise apps, mobile tghreat defense, crisis management (through securing communication0 and embedded system security. Based on the company profile, Blackberry has an estimated 4,044 full time employee in its main headquarter and over 10,000 employees across the world. Similarly, the company revenue was recorded at $18.435 billion (2012) and a profit of $1.164 billion (2012). Previous research revealed that blackberry focused much on corporate users leaving operating system elements untapped among the customers. This issue led to significant drop in market share and customers at large.
Market definition, Potential and Demand
Blackberry is significantly known for its unique development of Blackberry smartphones. Its first development comprised of smartphones and any other hand held devices. Currently, the company has innovated wireless communication platform solution which are integrated in healthcare, retail and security sectors. Its solutions have synchronized data management and mobility solutions such as IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and cybersecurity. As a result, the cloud computing solution has taken the world by storm through introducing innovative products. Previous studies have revealed that 30 percent of the world compute users face cyber threat and malware attacks from unauthorized users. With unified endpoint security, Blackberry has improved the data privacy and system breach from malicious people. Conversely, the company has gone a milestone higher by app developers to create a Blackberry QNX network that offers unlimited mobility solutions. As a result, Blackberry continues to integrate new solution to curb the increased cases of data privacy and security by using 93 technology products including jQuery, Google Analytics, and HTML5. Therefore, the enterprise and finance sector has been the area of demand to ensure data integrity, system mobility and data privacy.
Competitor analysis
1. Nokia. According to O’Connor (2007), Nokia is one of the blackberry rival in the smartphone category. Recently, Nokia released android version which was a swap from windows. It is ranked as one of the biggest Blackberry rival due to its Networking and electronic equipment’s. With a significant growth of its market share, Nokia continues to record an overwhelming revenue at $24.4 billion more than Blackberry. Nokia was founded in 1865 and started with three workers before dominating the world with its first mobile phone back in 2000.
2. Motorola. According to Mouss & van Amsterdam (2017), Motorola is a private company that dominated the market after Nokia. It was founded in 1928 in the city of Chicago. Ideally, it is the second competitor of blackberry in the category of mobile phones. It has continued to innovate new phone features in the telecommunication equipment field. Recent research has revealed that Motorola has 35,956 productive more employees than Blackberry.
3. HTC. According to O’Connor (2007), HTC developed massive phone production in early 1990s. it was founded in 1977 with majority of its shares being distributed across the globe. Interestingly, HTC is one of the top Blackberry competitor with over 23 percent of Blackberry limited revenue. This implies that HTC has developed as a growing telecommunication company, with affiliates operation of electronic industry across the world.
Customer Analysis
According to Moussi & van Amsterdam (2017), a primary research method was conducted in California residents to explore their Smartphone preference (Blackberry). The study conducted a primary data by administering questionnaires which took approximately 5 to 8 minutes to answer. The response captured from the survey was deemed confidential. Simple random sampling method was used to administer the questionnaire and purposive sampling was one of the specific technique to locate population of interest. The aim of the research was to identify smartphone purchase decision, factors influencing decision, consumer personality, demographic factors, market segmentation, and social status. Based on product positioning, the study observed that Blackberry products was positioned on quality and personal users. This implies that customers who purchased Blackberry phone relied on product quality rather than price. Also, it was noted that demographic factors play a pivot role in product purchase and use. Notably, the study captured majority of middle to upper income individuals who use the phone. Similarly, 45 percent of the middle to upper income individuals were aged between 30 to 35. Also, majority of the youth segment were attracted by the interactive apps such as twitter and Facebook. This implies that Blackberry marketing strategy should focus on social media and technology as a driver tool to influence Blackberry usage among the youth. From the findings, majority of lower and upper middle class use Blackberry to send and receive email notifications. Therefore, the consumer behavior to purchase Blackberry is recognized by the need which the phone will satisfy them.
SWOT Analysis
The following SWOT analysis provides insight on how Blackberry can reposition itself in the market by improving in some key fundamental elements.
• Strength
1. Blackberry features are more secured than its competitor. Its features are highly encrypted with high mobility solutions and embedded system security. According to Moussi & van Amsterdam (2017), Fibs and US department of security preferred Blackberry due to its advanced security features that cannot be breached by any malicious attacks.
2. Blackberry has a mobile carrier which can be used anywhere across the world unlike other mobile companies such as Samsung and Nokia. Its strength is drawn from easy portability and mobility of the carrier’s system.
• Weakness
1. Blackberry introduced expensive enterprise software which were to be integrated and installed in their phones. As a result, the customers could not cope up with expensive enterprise systems.
2. Blackberry focus much on corporate users with large consumer base untouched by security features such as Unique Selling Proposition.
3. Increased in competition from smartphone segment such as Samsung and Apple led to overall revenues decline in 2011.
• Opportunities
1. With an increased in service providers, the company can leverage existing customer base and improve its future products.
2. The company has revamped its organizational structure through appointing new CEO. This implies that the company can accept fresh infusion of capital to reinvent itself from its past losses.
3. The company has a bright future through the integration of its third party features and apps. This is a key opportunity in the new business partnership of third party providers as it can mimic the strategies of Samsung and apple.
• Threat
1. Stiff competition from Samsung and Apple.
2. Lack of direction among its employees due to lower employee morale.
Marketing objectives and Goals
• Goals
1. To increase awareness of newly introduced features of Blackberry Smartphones among the youth population.
2. To sensitize the advanced security and Artificial intelligent features in protecting data privacy.
3. To ensure that Blackberry Smartphone is one of the leading phones in mobility solution and endpoint management through creating online marketing campaigns.
• Objectives
1. Increase market share from $12.2 billion to $20 billion.
2. To improve existing devices with new technologies and services.
3. To increase market penetration, rate up to 45 percent.
4. To introduce google play store that allows downloading and using of apps.
Strategy
1. The blackberry should stabilize the revenue stream through incorporating innovative features that attract massive internet users from other competitor’s mobile phones.
2. The company should focus on enterprise mobility strategy and iconic design to attract youth and young professionals.
3. The company should extend product line by incorporating other medium channels through partnership with other companies such as Google.
Target Market and Position
1. The product identified upper and middle class as the most appropriate target for blackberry users. As a result, introducing a reasonable or competitive phone price will attract a significant proportion of blackberry users.
2. Ideally, youth are the most appropriate users of blackberry based on their interactive lifestyle. This implies that introduction of technology and social media features will increase (attract) significant number of blackberry users.
3. Similarly, blackberry users use the phones especially for communicating (sending and receiving email notification). Therefore, the company should focus on communication related mobility to improvise on advanced technology that will bring people together through chat features.
Product and Brand management
1. The company should introduce 4 k technology that focus on improving Blackberry mobility features. This can be done by extending battery life and AI face recognition software’s.
2. Also, it should introduce app developers who are responsible for integrating new features and checking any error that may arise from the blackberry devices.
3. The company should make customer service the top priority by introducing an online survey feedback based on the customer experience with blackberry products.
4. Introduction of variety of blackberry phones that satisfies the need of the market segment such smartphone that can be afforded by all age groups and social status in a given market segment (affordable prices ranging from low to high).
Pricing management
1. Pricing of Blackberry products will be guided by the company profits and revenues. This implies that company’s policies and strategies of current profit will identify product pricing based on its quality and demand in the market. This will be evaluated in a seasonal basis in relation to company profit.
2. Also, the pricing of blackberry products will be guided by competitor’s prices. As a result, the level of competition will be a factor to achieve quality pricing and remove some competitors away from the market. After analyzing top competitors, product will be priced according to competitor’s prices after market research.
3. The product price will be determined through market penetration and promotion of a new product. Ideally, a product will be priced low if it is newly promoted in the market to attract customers but after performing market research. If successful in the market, the company will set a low price to encourage customers to buy.
Distribution management
1. Movement of goods are the priority of blackberry products. This implies that flow of goods from production to consumption area will be guided by the market segment and purchase behavior in key areas. This will be handled by the distribution channel and supply management department.
2. Distribution of products will be guided by the availability of products to the large masses customers. This implies that customers living in indifferent geographical areas will be reached by product demand.
3. Protection of goods will be top priority to ensure products are in its good condition during supply process. As a result, the distribution will be guided by proper handling and storage of products to reach the desired customer through using tracks and planes.
Communication management
1. The company will aim to establish user system solution that allows reports, decisions and interaction of people to be the priority in marketing strategy. This implies orders and invoice will be communicated through use of computer and AI tools in different departments.
2. Also, the company will aim to introduce progress meetings and systems that integrate and synchronize orders from third party. According to Sukamto & Lumintan (2015), progress meetings equip labor force with knowledge and abilities during controlling logistics network of blackberry products.
Implementation and control
According to Cojocaru & Cojocaru (2013), implementation and control plan is created overall to assess the strategies and results associated with the action plans. As a result, the overall goals of the Blackberry will be implemented through creation of marketing structure. This will consist of centralized market structure that have managers and supervisors who control market activities. By decentralizing the market decision, it will cost approximately $20,000 to hire corporate staffs and productive labor force. Indeed, they will be responsible for creating a holistic environment for customers and ensuring consistency in the day-to-day operation. Also, the company will focus on systems and process that are responsible for order fulfillment, performance measurement, strategic planning, procurement and capital budgeting. As a result, it will cost the company roughly $120,000 to ensure collection of work activities absorb inputs and process aligns with the strategic goals. Finally, tangible resources such as facilities, financial, manufacturing capacity and equipment will be the top priority in marketing implementation. This implies that customer loyalty and strategic alliances will be built by the tangible resources. In particular, it will cost more than $80,000 to set the tangible resources and controlling the daily activities creating product feasibility.
Conclusion
In conclusion, blackberry has identified itself as one of the fastest growing telecommunication company. Introduction of diverse products has revamped revenue allotment and mobility solutions. With proper implementation strategy in pace, the company can succeed in the electronic AI devices and cloud computing through endpoint solutions.

Referencing
Cojocaru, C., & Cojocaru, S. (2013). Leadership and Innovation–the Catalyst of IT&C Industry. A Case Study of BlackBerry Company. Manager Journal, 17(1), 55-61.
Moussi, A., & van Amsterdam, U. (2017). Mini-Case Study: The Downfall of Blackberry. Universteit van Amsterdam, 5.
O’Connor, J. (2007). Attack surface analysis of Blackberry devices. White Paper: Symantec security response.
Sukamto, R., & Lumintan, D. (2015). The impact of marketing mix towards customer loyalty mediated by customer satisfaction of blackberry Indonesia. iBuss Management, 3(2).
Syer, M. D., Adams, B., Zou, Y., & Hassan, A. E. (2011, September). Exploring the development of micro-apps: A case study on the blackberry and android platforms. In 2011 IEEE 11th International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (pp. 55-64). IEEE.

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