Our BlackBerry phones are still with us, and we all know how nostalgic that feeling is! It was an integral part of our lives, and they achieved market leadership due to the ‘Push Email” adaptation – which made it a business tool.
They sold millions of handsets, but they are trying to make ends meet today.”
Why?
“They became too attached to a particular trend and stopped innovating.”
BlackBerry was once the market leader for smartphones. They were also the first to offer push email service – they were far ahead of their competitors. But they didn’t stop there.
It was the most business-friendly telephone.
It doesn’t mean that a business executive is not able to listen to music and watch videos. They might listen to music while they are preparing for a presentation to help calm their nerves. They might even want to show a phone video, which is a scenario they may not have thought of a few years ago.
They did not see a world in which entertainment and education were merging quickly.
“They became too attached to a particular trend and stopped innovating.”
Brands like Apple and Samsung did it!
Sometimes you can find a trend, but being too attached to it or making it too powerful can lead to the demise of a company or brand.
Another side to the story is when the current trend dictates what the future holds.
We also recall the story of IBM, the inventor of personal computing. They said that there was no way it could be reduced to sizes we enjoy today. Their summation was scientific.
Moore’s Law says that processor speeds or the overall processing power of computers will double every 2 years. Moore’s Law was not created by God, but fortunately for us humans!
We don’t need to be attached to trends and have seen business giants split up into smaller arms just as HP has now been divided into Inks and Enterprises.
The corporate giant trend [with 50 floors of corporate headquarters and 50,000 employees] is ending as smaller companies can do more than big companies.
Businesses must be able to distinguish between trends and natural laws. They could lose their business, both literally and financially, if they don’t.