Breaking trust with your supply chain partners; lessons from blackberry

Once upon a time, who didn’t like blackberry at its prime? The mini stylish powerhouse that hooked our generation. During my lifetime; I had more than seven blackberry phones. Still, I have two specimens of the sort; a blackberry passport and a classic… both gathering unwanted dust in my bottom drawer. Sad enough for myself, having been a loyal fan of Blackberry, I am left only to wish being able to still use them. Though, I take solace in my thoughts of not being alone. A huge fervent fan base marked by deep loyalty to the brand is now left with Blackberry’s declaration to subcontract its design and manufacture of its smartphones and to focus on enterprise security and communications solutions. This stage of its metamorphosis can be recognized by their new slogan ”Software is the new Blackberry”.

Seven years ago, Blackberry was the leading smartphone manufacturer in the world. That was before iPhone and Android conquered their markets with touchscreen phones and user-friendly echo-systems. Astonishingly, a recent report published by Gartner shows Blackberry’s share to remain at merely less than 1%, and as the report below aptly indicates; IOS / Android indeed conquered. Blackberry’s operating system shrunk to less than 1% from 36% in a half-dozen of years.

Competitor’s hit was hard; no actions but late reactions!

Blackberry smartphones are not inspired by lesser gurus of quality and design in comparison let’s say to those from Apple, Samsung or HTC. Quite the contrary, we”Crackberries” regard them superior and more functional. The Problem as we all know is the unavailability of commonly used apps on its platform. Throughout the years; I convinced myself about the Blackberry comeback, despite the unavailability of A-list apps as Facebook, Instagram, Viber, and Snapchat.

A good reason to accept for Blackberry’s ordeal is the lateness in its reactions to rivaling actions. Indeed, it introduced in 2013 a new operating system; the BB10: three years behind the competition. A-list apps became hesitant to invest time and money on a new platform for an already declining user base. Besides, its endeavor carried the risk of alienating both its users and developers of its good old operating system (BBOS), whom truly believed in its credo ”BBOS will always be supported as long as there are users”. But, we now know: that too did not happen.

Was that a first sign of breaking trust?

At this phase, Blackberry developed an excellent user experience operating system without any users. But truth be told that their bet was placed on attracting the already frustrated users and developers of BBOS as well as users who were becoming comfortable with the mature IOS and Android.

What went wrong in Blackberry’s supply chain. If you can’t beat them join them. (Oh really?)

Let’s face it, mobile supply chains are somehow all the same; they consist of two different but integrated flows namely the hardware supply chain and the software supply chain. However, the level of in-house operations differs from one mobile company to another.

If we can segment them; we have Samsung, Sony, HTC and all the Android operating system phones; all firms that indeed outsourced the software supply chain. On the other hand, we have iPhone, Windows phones, and Blackberry which indeed designed and operated both their hardware and software supply chains.        

Okay, Blackberry, you have developed the excellent BB10, a little too late but okay nonetheless, and as the saying goes: better late than never. Now, we call upon you to ‘’please’’ partner and collaborate with your Blackberry developers(partners) to develop unique apps built for Blackberry. Beautiful other stories are ridden with same: Microsoft paid developers to build apps for its operating system, now you can too, and we want more…

Fine, it may be that a (temporary) compromise may entail waiving your share from paid app fees (30%). Hand them a higher return on investment and encourage them to build those apps!

But no. Please allow me: Why are you now bringing Android for your BB10? Quite noble indeed of you my dear Blackberry to so generously share the BB10 app market. Not only do your developers suffer a defeat from a low user base. Wasn’t it enough they continued to build apps for Blackberry and did not shift to the more rewarding Android and IOS like everybody else?

Users called for native apps, if hear, seem to echo too late. Android apps, let’s say it, were not even functioning as well on the BB10, and we, the customers feel frustration. We were still calling upon you whilst your developers were feeling left out already.

Was that the second sign of breaking trust?

The end: Blackberry shuts down the software supply chain.

Fast Forward to 2016; as a last attempt of a dying warrior, Blackberry rolled out 100% android based smartphones: Blackberry Priv and some other phones of which I do not recall their names. In my opinion, that broke all the remaining ties with Blackberry developers and users.

This was indeed The third sign of breaking trust.

From the previous history of Blackberry’s mixed reactions, both BB10 developers and users knew this was the end of the 3-year-old BB10. Even though, they reminded us of their (mixed) message: ” BB10 shall continue to be supported and new BB10 devices are yet to come.”

Blackberry’s intention was seeming motivated to regain its former market glory through increasing service level for their customers by offering them BB10/Android built apps on one platform (BB10). As such, this weakened its apps portfolio and worsened the actual service level. Their comeback strategies lacked differentiation, transparency, and indeed perhaps most noteworthy their keeping at arm’s length to their most important partners in any mobile supply chain: The Developers.

Thank you to all the Blackberry developers who helped us through the rough BB10 years. This is written in huge part as a tribute to your work most of us so dearly loved. You were the real champions. Goodbye good old Blackberries, we will miss you.