Two things happened in those days that are in extreme contrast: The Canadian Tech Darling of BlackBerry announced that it expects a loss of roughly $1 billion of the second quadrant, whereas Apple proclaimed that the combined sales of its iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c peaked at 9 million units through the first weekend of resease. Why is there such a huge difference? According to Gerry Purdy, an analyst from the mobile sector for Compass Intelligence, BlackBerry was overconfident with its revenue coming from device sales in a way that it missed out the opportunity to create a more advanced system, an imperative medium in order to keep up with the increasing expectation of smart phone from customers. Hence, the once pioneer company in the field of smart phone quickly lost its competitive advantage as it failed to keep pace with innovations from the most uprising rivals, Apple. Indeed, what BlackBerry incurred demonstrates the magnitude of customization. BlackBerry persisted in producing cell-phones with physical keyboard while ignoring the coming age of touch screen. Without pinpointing customers’ changing demands, it failed to tailor its product cycles in a timely fashion, which brought about the gigantic loss in both financial aspect and brand loyalty.
References:
http://bgr.com/2013/09/23/apple-iphone-5s-5c-sales-numbers-opening-weekend/
erican History. By misrepresenting earnings reports, the executives of ENRON embezzled funds funneling in from investors who were not privy to the true financial condition of Enron. It took Enron 16 years to go from about ten billion dollar assets to more than sixty-five billion dollar assets, and took just less than a moth to go bankrupt. Looking at the case, Enron’s culture contributed much to this ethical scandal. Indeed, Enron emphasized competition and financial goals only. The harsh, condescending atmosphere resulted from the sole pursuit of financial achievements caused a culture of deception. Due to the fear of losing jobs, employees started blindly focusing on making good financial numbers and ignored the value of ethic. Once someone started cheating, his co-workers would have to do the same- regardless of the notion of righteousness- to keep up the financial achievements and avoid losing jobs. This fiercely competitive environment also led to a lack of communication among employees. When there was little information being shared, nobody really has the “big picture” perspective of the company’s operation. Thirdly, the lack of communication between employers and employee also contributed to the fraud. In Enron, it’s discouraged to express one’s doubts and opinion on the executive team. Therefore, employees in Enron were pressured to shut their mouths, protect their own short-term interests, and try to achieve their goals even if it went against ethical standards.