The LAB: Innovating the Blackberry with S.I.T. (November 2010)
Blackberry is taking a shellacking from iPhone and Android. It’s market share has declined 4% in four months. Why? The company drifted from a strategy built around its core competency and is frantically chasing its app-crazed competitors. Though Blackberry defined the smart phone category, it will lose its lead unless it changes.
Blackberry needs innovation. This month’s LAB outlines an approach for using the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to Blackberry. The focus is how to disrupt iPhone and Droid and re-assert dominance in the smart phone category.
The first step is to pick the core benefit that Blackberry can lead with. Using the Big Picture marketing framework, we need to identify a “dynamic variable” that is tied directly to RIM’s core competency – secure communications. Blackberry uses powerful codes to encrypt messages as they travel between a BlackBerry server and the BlackBerry device. All BlackBerry traffic runs through RIM data centers and servers which encrypt and unscramble messages. The iPhone and Droid communicate directly with ordinary email servers – unsecured.
My recommendation is to compete on privacy (NOT security which is more of the “how,” not the “why”). Blackberry cannot compete with iPhone and Droid on functionality (apps) and design. Instead, it needs to raise the Importance and Perception of privacy in the minds of the market. Privacy is highly desired by people and organizations, and Blackberry is the only technology that can do many functions securely. The trick is to extend the idea of privacy management beyond just emailing. Blackberry wants to convince the market that privacy is more important than apps and desgin.