Three words: Strat. E. Gy. Or lack of it.

RIM is choking on a piece of rotten fruit, it has been for a while — why are they only seeking medical attention now? RIM needs CPR, now. No miracles needed, just a lot of focus and strong leadership can bring it back to life.

Yes, I DO think Research in Motion’s business is fixable.

As I work on finalizing a business plan for a new business to be fully launched in early 2012, I am relieved I’m almost done with this dreadful phase of developing a start-up. Putting together a good business plan is always painful because of the countless hours of work and re-work required. However, after discussing sections of the document with my business partner last week, of course, we were reminded of the importance of this thing. It forced us to look into areas we didn’t think of before, to answer questions that we didn’t ask ourselves before. And, this is exactly what a strategic business plan should do, if done properly.

Addressing areas of the business that were not previously looked at or answering questions that were never asked should be approached with strategy, supported with clear business objectives. Now, I think most would agree – this all sounds logical, simple and straight-forward, but business decisions are often made without any strategic- thinking. 

Without strategy, business operations can quickly become tactical and meaningless. Multiple activities being performed, just for the sake of getting something done because you have realized action needs to be taken. That can work for a while. After sometime, this approach can lead to a domino effect — one, tactical quick-fix will eventually lead to another, and so on. Although everyone is busy, productivity sinks. Business operators become caught-up in getting things done without stepping back for a minute to ask, WHY.  We forget to evaluate the impact of business activities being performed and exploring better of doing things. There may be approaches out there now that are more cost-effective, efficient, or just cooler that can provide a competitive edge.

In my opinion (there are currently a lot of these on RIM), I do think RIM’s business is fixable.  But they need to go back to the original business plan template and write-up a plan.

Leadership has moved at pace which can be called reactive, or worse. In the competitive mobile communications space, the first-mover advantage can be vital, especially when your competitors are Apple and Google. Blackberry’s R&D seems to be based on Apple’s or Google’s actions with iPhones or the Android system.

To get the obvious out of the way: Yes, support for innovation is weaker in Canada, than in the U.S., but Canada does have a large pool of talent. So I do think RIM is comparable to Apple and Google.

For example, we only heard about the Playbook, which was then called the BlackPad, after the first iPad was already launched. Was it smart business to take-on the heavy costs that would eat-up cashflow to develop a product so quickly even though the competitor had already had the chance to develop, launch, test, and learn from their mistakes?

The problem is, I don’t think they can honestly answer this question even now.

The company’s failure to understand their competitive edge and to fully capitalize on it has been the ultimate cause of their current position. Eventually, their reactive, tactical approach was bound to catch-up to them. With financial analysts and investors’ reduced confidence, a disoriented team culture (with the recent news of laying-off 2,000, or 11% of their workforce), tough critics, and even tougher competition, RIM’s got a bit of work to do. 
 

Copyright © Esha Abrol. Canada. August 15, 2011.