RIMs (BlackBerry) Fall Back Analysis and their Customers Behavior

-Advising Solutions-

Ibrahim Rihan

Buyer decision process is the decision making processes undertaken by

consumers in regard to a potential market transaction before, during, and after
the purchase of a product or service.

BlackBerry is a brand of wireless handheld devices and services developed

by Research In Motion (RIM) (RIM Copmany - Learn about Research in Motion,
2012), BlackBerry is famous about its Service BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM
that is an instant messaging application that allow BlackBerry holders to chat
with each others easily from anywhere and anytime by using BlackBerry pin;
BlackBerry PIN is an eight character hexadecimal identification number assigned
to each BlackBerry device.

After BlackBerry controlled the market of Mobile Phones, it reached a stage

where the company believed that the costumers will buy every product or invent
marked for BB and this is the same as Nokias mistake.

The needs of the costumers have changed, and what Apple and Samsung
did directed a knockout for BB. Apple and Samsung studied the market well, and
the more evidence is that Samsung sold more than 30million piece of its Galaxy
SIII in one year ((LEAD) Galaxy S3 Sales to top 30 millions Samsung| YONHAP
NEWS, 2012) while Apples IPhone 4S sold more than 4 million piece in its first
weekend! (Apple, 2011).

Apple and Samsung satisfied costumers needs, and this is obvious from
their sales. From the services that Apple & Samsung provide, we can know how
BlackBerry buyers made decision to shift to the new smart phones technology:

1. Need Recognition: it is the process when the buyer recognizes a

problem or a need, BB buyers recognized that they need to use
internet easier with more comfortable browsers and easier
applications and more modern design.
 2. Information search: it is the process where the costumer start to
search where and how and who will satisfy their needs. Where
BlackBerry buyers searched most probably how to satisfy the needs
and the achieved information about Smartphones
3. Evaluation of Alternatives: it is the process when the costumer
chooses from a set of brands where he or she choose among these
brands (HTC, Apple, Samsungetc)
4. Purchase Decision: it is the process when a customer decides to buy
the most preferred brand.

Thus, BlackBerry reached success by achieving a time to control the

market of phones, this success in short time had a lot of Keys. Those keys
were:

By hiring professional team of BlackBerry App Developers who can build

the right application to satisfy costumers needs in a time, using unique
approach in marketing, Combination of RIM's network operations center
and the wireless networks of the Company's carrier partners, RIM
strategically decided to position the BlackBerry device as a tool for business
and business men, and for sure the first of all was BBM service the
BlackBerrys gold mine (BlackBerry: Key Factors to the Sucess, 2009). Also
BlackBerry reached a success when the president of United States Barrack
Obama used BlackBeryy, which was a huge advertisement for BB. (Barack
Obama to use BlackBerry as president, according to reports |World News|
guardian.co.uk, 2009)

Consumer behavior is affected by many factors, these factors are,

Cultural Factors, Social Factors, Personal Factors, Psychological Factors.

1. Cultural Factors:
* Culture: is the set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and
behavior learned from family and other important institutions.
*Subculture are groups of people within a culture with shared
value systems based on common life experiences and
 situations.
*Social classes are societys relatively permanent and ordered
divisions whose members share similar values, interests, and
behaviors.
* Measured by a combination of occupation, income,
education, wealth, and other variables
2. Social Factors: Consumer behavior is affected and influenced
by social factors such as consumers small group, familly, social
roles and status.

Acoording to case we are studying and for other information, iPhone

defeated BlackBerry by satisfying peoples social needs, since the social
factors affects the bhevior of the consumers, so iPhone supported the
consumers with apps and other services that is based on studying peoples
social needs.

3. Personal Factors: Buyers decisions is also influenced by

personal characteristics such as: age, occupation, lifestyle,
personality, and life concept.

*Age and life-cycle stage People change the goods and services
they buy over their lifetimes, also food, clothes, Buying is also
shaped by the stage of the family life-cyclethe stages
through which families might pass as they mature over time.
So iPhone attracts people from all ages, while BlackBerry when
released it was announced as Businessmen Phone (iPhone
Users Watch More Video and are Older than You Think |
Nielsen Wire, 2009)

*Occupation affects the goods and services bought by

consumers.
* Economic situation includes trends in: Personal Income,
Savings, and Interest Rate.
*Lifestyle is a persons pattern of living as expressed in his or
her psychographics.
iPhone owners are from different cultures and people from
different life styles, iPhone is more compatible for the major
types of different personalities Fan boy, Complainer, Senior
 citizen etc (The Seven Types of Iphone Owners Infographic |
Infographics Showcase, 2012)

BlackBerry holders shifted to iPhone since iPhone showed that it can

be carried from all people in a society, it applies different applications for
Business, entertainment, Social networks access, easy internet access, suitable
artistic applications, and others.

Blackberry is in a bad situation facing the leaders of Smartphones market,

iPhone, and Samsung, to face this problem; BlackBerry is called to remedy the
situation by entering the modern Smartphones makers club. They are called to
develop their mobile phones industry to satisfy the costumers needs as Apple
and Samsung did. BlackBerry did the same mistake as Nokia did, when they
believed that they are the only leaders of mobile phones industry and the
costumers would buy every single product they may produce and introduce it to
the market. To solve the major problems and challenges that RIM is facing, I
recommend the following:

1. They should learn from Nokia; Nokia assigned the president

of Microsoft's business software group, Stephen Elop, as
chief executive (Top 10 challenges facing RIM's new chief
executive | IT news from v3.co.uk, 2012), and shifted from
Symbian to Microsoft as an operating system to their new
Smartphone Nokia Lumia 920 that is supposed to be
released in market very soon.
2. They should study the needs of the costumers to apply it on
a new device that would satisfy their needs, what will push
on the costumers to buy the new product.
3. They should work on new Tablet with easy to get apps and
suitable price in order to compete with other tablets, since
the costumers now a days are interested in owning smart
technology, and it is obvious the sales of iPad and Samsung
Galaxy Tab worldwide
 4. Deliver devices with iPhone appeal, RIM have their own
handset BlackBerry, but compared to the design of an
iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy series it looks so not cool at
all. Years ago, with the peak of BB sales, the design of
blackberry phones, with the QWERTY keys looked like a
high-tech, but now a days it is not.
So these are my primary recommendations for RIM to save the name of
BlackBerry products before it is too late for them, and they would lose the
market, production and their name and they would sit at home eating
popcorn and watch the advertisements of iPhone, and Samsung Galaxy,
Nexus, iPads and Galaxy tablets.

Definition, Business buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of the

organizations that buy goods and services for use in production of other
products and services that are sold, rented, or supplied to others. While
Business buying process is the process where business buyers determine
which products and services are needed to purchase, and then find,
evaluate, and choose among alternative brands
The major influences on Business buyers are:

1. Environmental Factors
*Economic developments
*Supply Conditions
*Technological change
*Political and regulatory developments
*Competitive developments
*Culture and customs
2. Organizational Factors
*Objective
*Policies
*Procedures
*Organizational Structure
*Systems
3. Interpersonal Factors
*Authority
*Status
*Empathy
*Persuasiveness
 4. Individual Factors
*Age
*Income
*Education
*Job Position
*Personality
*Risk attitudes
It is important to BlackBerry to understand and study these influences in order to
know how to act in the market and to save its products, while if it didnt
understand these influence well it may lead it to failure in the market.

Whether you work in the consumer or Business to Business market, consider the
length of buying process for your customers and the degree of risk involved for
them. Identify the key influential factors affecting their decision making. If you
can determine these factors, you are starting to establish a deeper understanding
of how your customers behave and what influences them.

The four major steps in designing a customer-driven marketing strategy for

BlackBerry are:

a. Figure out who are your costumers:

If you dont have a clear idea for your costumers, you have to
figure it out. Look for a group of consumers or businesses that
share a very specific need or want. talk to people and study
existing businesses and products to find a void that you can fill.
If you already have a product, you should look how to develop
it and search if there is problem in it to fix it and to avoid in the
next time, to keep on trust with costumers. In BlackBerry case
they should change their products and the operating system,
since there is no way to add littlie stuff on it since costumers
changed the race of mobiles they are using to shift to the
more developed and modern Smartphones iPhone, and
Samsung
b. Get to Know your Costumer well
Look and search for your costumers habits, lifestyles, needs
and desires. Go out and search and study your costumers
behaviors, contact and communicate with them, know what do
they need and want and listen very carefully. In another way,
BlackBerry should contact with its customers, and see what do
they really want what they cannot find in BlackBerrys
products to satisfy their needs and wants, what do they expect
in the new products, what are they waiting for.
c. Look out how to Reach your Costumer
Look out where do they live? What region and what country,
what do they read? What do they watch? What publications
do they use, what organizations and companies and
competitors are serving these costumers, and how effective
they are, once BlackBerry recognizes this, they can know
where to advertise and how and where to go into the
costumers personalities. As in examples, if the majority of
costumers are using social networks (Facebook, and twitter in
majority) they should figure out how to reach them on these
networks. If they are using iPhone study why? And how did
apple reached your costumers.
d. Focus your Efforts and Promotions
First, BlackBerry should get rid of any product or service that
didnt achieve the targeted costumers. Work on new
promotions and services with competitor price in order to
compete with other businesses. Apply as much as they can
free applications that would attract the targeted costumers,
since costumers using Smartphones are into free applications
more than paid ones. Set yourself off from your competition.
Show your customer why he or she should buy from you.
Works Cited
Agency, Y. N. (2012, September 9). (LEAD) Galaxy S3 Sales to top 30 millions Samsung| YONHAP NEWS.
Retrieved December 8, 2012, from YONHAP NEWS:
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2012/09/12/7/0501000000AEN20120912003951320F.HTML

Apple. (2011, October 17). Apple- Press Info- iPhone 4s First Weekend Sales Top Four Million. Retrieved
December 8, 2012, from Apple: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/10/17iPhone-4S-First-Weekend-
Sales-Top-Four-Million.html

BlackBerry, V. (2009). BlackBerry: Key Factors to the Sucess. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from
BlackBerry: http://vestroia-blackberry.blogspot.com/2011/11/key-factors-to-success.html

infographicsshowcase. (2012). The Seven Types of Iphone Owners Infographic | Infographics Showcase.
Retrieved December 9, 2012, from infographicsshowcase: http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/the-
seven-types-of-iphone-owners-infographic/

Johnson, B. (2009, January 21). Barack Obama to use BlackBerry as president, according to reports
|World News| guardian.co.uk. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from the guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/21/barack-obama-blackberry-national-security

Motion, R. I. (2012). RIM Copmany - Learn about Research in Motion. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from
RIM: http://www.rim.com/company/

nielsenwire. (2009, June 10). iPhone Users Watch More Video and are Older than You Think | Nielsen
Wire. Retrieved December 09, 2012, from nielsenwire:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/iphone-users-watch-more-video-and-are-older-
than-you-think/
Staff, V. (2012, January 27). Top 10 challenges facing RIM's new chief executive | IT news from v3.co.uk.
Retrieved December 9, 2012, from v3.co.uk: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2141633/challenges-
facing-rims-chief-executive/page/2