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In business there are times where you almost start to feel sorry for companies because they can’t seem to do anything right or catch any kind of break for any reason. It takes a while to get to that status though.
Very few companies are given this kind of status. No company wants it. Ones that currently come to mind are Yahoo and Aol. You almost feel bad for pointing out their screw-ups because it feels like dog piling to a degree. You can’t seem to turn around without tripping over more bad news for both of these former heavyweights.
Now there is another member of the “WTF Could Happen Next?!” Club. That newest member would be Research in Motion of Blackberry fame. Here is a company that already was getting trashed by the tech press for not staying current and losing market share like very few one time high fliers have in history. The market for smartphones is whizzing right by them and it feels like all they can do is watch (or put out their Playbook tablet which is an argument for watching being a better move).
Then you have the London riots over this past summer and the indirect role the company played in helping those spread.
Being the texting platform of choice amongst the disenfranchised in London may have paid a few bills but it also gave some of the worst press a struggling company could have asked for which was then followed by RIM working with the authorities to catch some of the organizers of the riots. I bet that sent the riot starting crowd on a frenzied search for a new texting provider they could trust during times of severe agitation and disruption.
Next comes the news over the past few days about Blackberry’s outages that have impacted service in Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa and the US. It’s as if the company was on the ropes covering up but then they left one last opening for a final haymaker which may end up knocking them out.
Now their CEO has produced this video to try to get things back to normal, which hasn’t really been that good lately but it sure beats where they are today.
So the question begs “Is BlackBerry officially on the road to extinction?” Has this latest problem finally pushed BlackBerry fanboys to the edge to make the move to the iPhone or an Android device? Or has the company just become fodder for jokes like the one from one commenter over at Mashable?
Reputations in this day and age can’t hold up like they used to because the reaction to company shortcomings can be so swift and so intense through the online world. BlackBerry may end up being one of the early case studies in just how far and how fast a once high flier can fall if they even allow the slightest room for negativity and then stumble over their responses.
Is there anything BlackBerry can do to get itself out of this reputation mess? let us know in the comments.
You know what would really help companies in times like this? The CEO’s don’t look like they’re obviously reading from an autocue with a carefully-crafted response.
Just for once, please, for the love of all that’s giving a f*ck, speak from the heart and without prompting, and look as if you truly care about your customers.
It’s not too much to ask, is it. Is it?
@Danny – In today’s world yes it is too much to ask. Funny thing is MOST people will never know he did the video. The ones like us who are ‘reviewing” his performance are actually a very small (even negligible) number and, lastly, everyone forgets anyway.
If RIM were to somehow turnaround their product set tomorrow his “performance” will be forgotten as long as bottom line performance is in place.
This romanticized idea we all like to promote of people actually being people in a business environment is really a pipe dream when it comes to the large enterprise. At the local level it is essential but then again at the local level most folks won’t need to do a video mea culpa if they screw up.
I have given up on expecting different things in these situations because it plays out in the classic definition of insanity. These guys don’t get what we may think, they don’t really care and we likely need to move on in railing against them.
While I am frustrated like you at these measures I am not willing to waste any more time trying to change them. Just gonna concentrate on what I do and how I might do things better.
I hear you, mate – both the co-CEO’s of RIM have continuously shown their arrogance at not accepting blame and laying it anywhere else they can. The truly sad part is that they’ll be fine if the company goes under – it’s the loyal employees that will suffer…
Interesting post. I would never have even known about this video if you hadn’t posted it. As a case study it will be interesting to see how RIM proceeds in the future.
Ah yes, another wonderful side light of why CEO’s don’t need to care. I don’t get upset when founders and CEO’s make good money because they did something I didn’t. It’s when they drive the bus over the cliff, jump out before it clears the land and walk away with bags of cash that is distressing.
As for placing blame? That’s a national pastime here in the US. Just look at our government.
Oh well! Back to the salt mines!
Hi,
The other problem not looked at closely is the evaporation of their market share, particularly acute outside the US and UK, and accelerating over the last 6 months.
What I cannot understand in this day and age where ALL tech companies must have disaster recovery/backup plans (and I am sure I heard in the press that Blackberry RIM did) that an outage of this length of time was allowed to happen.
As somebody who has worked in the computer industry for many years, we often got caught out but never to this extent.
Blackberry have failed to keep up and I agree this must surely be the final nail in their proverbial coffin so to answer your last question it’ an emphatic ‘No’ they can’t.
That’s a key point, Peter – the back-up failed too. Now, okay, maybe you can’t plan for both systems failing, but for a tech company so large, you have to wonder how sturdy the back-up system is/was.