At this point, the company's exponential growth and success begins to take a turn. In 2007, Blackberry found itself in heavy competition with Apple, as the era of the iPhone began to come about. In September 2008, shares drop from just under $150 to under $50 in response to the market crash (Global News). Over the next few years, Blackberry continued to struggle as the iPhone and other Apple devices began to take over the communications and media world. While it unveiled numerous new products and product improvements during this time, they were all widely met with criticism and underhype. However, the company also saw great growth, increasing the subscription base to 40 million by 2010. Regardless, the company is on the brink of no-longer existing. Between Q1 2013 and Q1 2015, the company's value fell by two-thirds, and now it seems they are constantly playing a waiting game of seeing which company is trying to buy them out each quarter.
So how might strategic management help BlackBerry? Let's first consider market penetration. Market penetration "involves trying to gain additional share of a firm's existing markets using existing products" (Strategic Management, 241). This could involve an aggressive re-marketing campaign of their products. Yet based on past experiences, this is not the best option. In 2013, Blackberry purchased a Super Bowl ad spot to build hype for the "new" company after a new CEO was hired and the company name was officially changed to BlackBerry. But the new marketing strategy failed to live up to the intended hype. Consumers who did notice the company were either underwhelmed by its new efforts or confused by concurrent shifts in management, company ownership, and the name (as BlackBerry had always been referred to as a specific product and not a company). In moving forward, it seems that market penetration would not be the most pertinent management strategy to pursue due to the fact that consumers are simply no longer interested in the same old products that originally made the company popular.
