10 glorified years of a technology driven product

I was wondering when I read about Nokia (now MS company) and Blackberry (the oracle of Ontario) buyout after a sharp decline in the product demand and adoption rate. These two were glorified media darlings till early 2010 . 

What did actually went wrong after 2010??


Before 2010 the market valuation were reap to be at peak, the market share tumbled drastically and the companies were sold actually just below the  10th of their actual valuations 5 years before.

What really went wrong?? Was that a strategy failure or just a failure to gauze the competition or a self created hallucination by ignoring the market dynamics and competition completely or just an over confidence of being on top??

To my understanding- its over confidence and inability to gauze the competition, ignoring small but powerful players (largely because of Android platform from Google as the Symbian platform they were operating was also fighting the battle with Android at the same time- to survive in the mobile operating system space)  who offered them threat in big way and lately translated into the poorest market capitalization and sharpest decline in the product demand.

Like Kodak was ousted by Nokia, Nokia by Android, Blackberry by Android & iOS and so on. Apple and Samsung are the segment leaders today (in terms of numbers of handsets sold and devices they run on these two platforms) but what counter strategy they would be adopting to protect their lion market share- is still a grim strategic answer none is able to get as on date. The demand created for Apple iPhone 5 (to my knowledge some 9 million units were sold during the first 10 days of launch- was that a sales strategy or real craze for the product- an answer I am myself looking within).  At the same time I also read that the fingerprint sensor of iPhone 5s was hacked. The patent and war around it would go on with many followers imitating the product features but am not sure how can you copy or imitate the user experience with few small time importers who purely get the handsets manufactured outside at a location and get it packaged here.

There is another coincidence- at the time when Blackberry, Nokia were were at their peak, Palm was struggling with the predatory market conditions which resulted into sharp decline in demand , and was later on fizzled out after Palm was acquired by HP. Within few months Palm was then withdrawn from the market and disappeared forever from the retail market .

Should I conclude here by assuming that a technology driven company, can not survive with a limited research and development, or a long term strategy? They can rule for a decade or so and this is only time they grow, reach at the peak and then starts declining. There are many brands who share the similar fate with some antonym as well- I see them with vision, innovative and 'play safe approach with long term strategies'.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

People 'excellence' or people 'exploitation'

I recently have completed an assignment for a so called 'services' organization and am surprised to know that over 80% of the employees who leave the organization are exploited in the name of processes, even to the extent of asking them to pay back salary the organization has paid to them while working for them (including, in the cases where an employee is asked to resign forcefully or resigns at his own will because of abuse at work) and then later on demanded a notice salary citing the agreement/contract which the employee generally signs in good faith while joining the organization. I have a case of an employee who had joined the organization and soon realized that he was at a wrong place as within 10 days he was commented for 'no results coming' out through his little efforts.  He resigned as soon as he received salary of the period he worked (though, the organization releases salary after 15th of the next month)- the employee was not only threatened over phone...
Read more

Good days are coming..

PS - This title has nothing to do with BJP’s   Achhe Din campaign though ;)  I was reading articles from few of my social connections and bloggers, writers, experts etc etc- one writing on abundance with over 21 'to do's with appending list of activities one should follow, some with words which we read in the synonyms of the dictionary (though I had to Google their meaning... unfortunately could not digest these words and thought of writing my own article and sharing the real meaning of abundance, contentedness and real meaning of success. I would not share a 'to do' list which I   could never practice myself…but a one liner which would change the perspective of your life completely. We come from all walks of the society, with different educational & social backgrounds. Most of the times, for the sake of showing off people around you or while pretending to be happy- we loose the  real person we live with ( your own conscience and the ‘real’ yourse...
Read more

critical factors to be addressed for a online/tele-shopping model in India

- Payment mechanism (wire/cash on delivery contributes to less than 3% of total online transactions) while Cheque in India seems to be just a confirmation, not a guarantee. If a cheque bounces (more than 2% of the cheque bounces for government utilities where there is a service termination /legal process/ or penalty is well defined in the payment acceptance policy and the customer even faces de-activation of his services whichever he is subscribed to, in addition to imprisonment of 6 months and a penalty of Rs 100/- min on such situations. Despite of all these collection policy guidelines, there are discrepancies in payment receipts; this needs to be well defined. - Pricing: The pricing is a critical factor to any purchase which is done online/ on a tele-shopping model. Either the brand has got high brand value & recognition/ or if the brand is not available locally,then the customer prefers to buy the product through online mode. - Local partners: The models which you are planning...
Read more