Company Snapshot
Research In Motion (RIM) is a standout Canadian business success story. Since the launch of its hugely popular BlackBerry smart phone in 2001, the company has grown to achieve FY2007 sales of US $3.04 billion and net income of $631.6 million.
Blue Ocean Strategic Move
RIM's BlackBerry launch was a Blue Ocean strategic move because the company not only created technology innovation, it created superior buyer value innovation as well. Breaking away from traditional cell phone and pager competition, BlackBerry offered a new type of wireless handheld solution for companies. It created a new market space focused on delivering secure company email access to roaming employees. Companies that adopted BlackBerries saved time and money because their staff could now get and send email practically anywhere and any time without having to make trips back to the office. Also, there was no need to install remote client software because RIM offered a turnkey, centralized Enterprise Server and software solution. Since BlackBerries were easy to use and had simple user interfaces and a limited number of contextualized options to choose from, companies also saved training and support costs.
Buyer value was increased because BlackBerries offered high reliability and long battery life, multiple mailboxes at once, and web browsing capability. Traditional PDA functionality such as calendar, address book, and the To Do list were also enhanced along with the included cell phone through smart software that linked these tools and made them easy to use and navigate.
Most importantly, the BlackBerry created a highly secure offering for companies because all emails and their contents could be protected behind their corporate firewalls. If a single device was lost or stolen, the company could easily disable it from its central control server.
Success
The Blue Ocean that RIM created through its BlackBerry keeps growing year after year. Competition in the wireless handheld market is intense, however, RIM continues to expand penetration in existing markets and grow internationally as well. The company's sales grew 47% in FY2007 compared to 2006 and its earnings grew 65%. Subscribers quadrupled from 2 million in 2004 to 8 million by April 2007.
There are now over 100,000 installations of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers worldwide, and RIM is aggressively partnering with wireless carriers to expand availability. It currently has service agreements with over 270 wireless networks in about 110 countries. The BlackBerry's success in the corporate market and broad appeal has quickly spread over to the consumer market where RIM plans significant future growth as well.
