As Apple’s IOS, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Win8 operating systems are in vogue, the competition among smartphone companies is increasing fierce. After the takeover of Motorola Mobility, which is part of Google now, BlackBerry announced on September 23rd that it had struck a preliminary $4.7 billion deal with a group of investors who want to take it private.
Obviously, the management accounting worked bad for the Blackberry, which became an important reason for its crumbling. Actually, the management of it was divided in opinion. QNX, as a new team which was taken over by Blackberry, was ordered to develop a new system independently, while the old team of Blackberry was developing the old system. In my opinion, this is a waste of resources, giving rise to a bad result of the Playbook which was widely considered to be a useless electronic product. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants states that management accounting as practice extends to strategic, performance and risk management, which supports long-range plans, adjustment between each sector, decision making of the management. More importantly, it is supposed to compare the prediction with the reality of the product’s situation and revise the method and decision in time to promote economic benefits. Thus, management accounting should have warned Blackberry’s managers and revise the strategy, but they did not.
In conclusion, management accounting exerts a crucial impact on a company. A company should guarantee the effective operation of it and it should warn the company in time if something serious happens. Blackberry is a counter-example.
Reference
1. Time for Plan Z. Sep 23rd 2013, 23:27 by M.D. | OTTAWA AND M.G. | SAN FRANCISCO
http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/blackberry
2. Inside the fall of BlackBerry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt. By SEAN SILCOFF, JACQUIE McNISH AND STEVE LADURANTAYE. The Globe and Mail. Published Friday, Sep. 27 2013, 7:03 AM EDT
3. Management accounting. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
I think the android revolution is more responsible for its crumbling then the management bad strategies. And second reason is their high prices, on the other hand, android smart phones are available in very low and affordable prices. However, Blackberry has made an attempt to hit lower class by introducing BB Q5, but I think it’s not enough; they have to do more in this respect.