The PEST analysis is a useful method for examining the external environment of a company. This strategic tool will help to analyze the marketing plan direction and the industry trends of Blackberry Limited from different perspectives that are covered in the PEST analysis. Aside from competing dynamics, PEST research provides deep insight into the operational issues that BlackBerry Limited encounters in today’s macro environment. For example, a fast-growing industry can be very profitable, but BlackBerry Limited will suffer if it operates in an uncertain political climate.
The External Environment
Because the global world is constantly changing, the organization’s external environment could be quite complicated. Technology businesses, such as Blackberry, may only succeed in all areas if they admit numerous opportunities and threats that affect the external environment. If companies understand the dynamics that can be caused by these external factors, they can more accurately measure the direction the industry is heading and predict it as the most important. To understand the external environment, organizations first need to understand the many trends that exist in the external environment. Only then can we analyze and explore many factors in a general, industrial and competitive environment.
Future External Environments
BlackBerry has used environmental scanning, monitoring, forecasting, and analytics techniques to discover some of the latest market trends that are already in focus. BlackBerry recognizes that focusing on the supersaturated electronics market has little or no chance of success in today’s society. Security, on the other hand, is one of BlackBerry’s best-known features and offers the company the best opportunity in today’s and future external environments. BlackBerry has repositioned its status as a software firm under the leadership of John S. Chen (Grover et al. 40). BlackBerry’s focus has switched to enterprise applications and the Internet of Things since then. Considering the current state of the global economy, a company’s ambition to operate globally is linked to the global part of the common external environment.
Political Factors
Political variables are important for understanding issues that can affect the long-term profitability of BlackBerry Limited in a particular country or market. Partly as a result of its limited engagement in the local economy and politics, BlackBerry never exercised the hegemonic influence (Ornston 20). BlackBerry Limited is a diverse communications services company with operations in more than 12 countries and exposed to a variety of political and systemic risks. The systematic risk diversification of the political environment is essential for success in such a dynamic market of diverse telecommunications services across several countries. The political/legal environment has a huge impact on BlackBerry’s business. BlackBerry’s extensive patent portfolio is one of the company’s most powerful assets. Currently, BlackBerry owns numerous patents, and patent infringement opens the door to many legal perspectives (Barnett 1). BlackBerry has the advantage of monetizing patents through various license agreements with other companies and defending patents through proceedings.
Political and Legal Cases
In the past, some foreign countries have faced political difficulties with mobile phone services. Due to the nature of BlackBerry’s business, emails and messages sent by BlackBerry are automatically encrypted and routed through corporate servers in North America. While the United Arab Emirates and some other nations have potentially curtailed the capacity to monitor carried data over BlackBerry smartphones, this security function has typically been well received in North America. As a result, India and the United Arab Emirates are threatening to ban BlackBerry devices if they cannot find an alternative to enable proper data monitoring (Almuraqab, Nasser, and Mansoor 3).
Economic Factors
Aggregate demand and investment in the economy are determined by macroeconomic factors such as inflation, savings, interest rates, exchange rates, and business cycles. Microenvironmental factors such as competition standards affect a company’s competitive advantage. Over the past few years, the competitive environment has changed, and BlackBerry has lost its dominant position in the industry. The company’s hardware sales and mobile phone subscriptions also plummeted (Eisner 12). BlackBerry Limited can predict a company’s growth path based not only on the sector but also on agricultural factors such as growth rate, inflation, and industry economic indicators such as the growth rate of the various telecommunications services industry and personal consumption increase.
Economic Challenges
In recent years, the world economy has faced major challenges. Despite the fact that there are different signs of the improving economy, businesses and individuals are still cutting the costs and trying to save financial resources. This problem might also be relevant to BlackBerry. Cyberattacks have created damages that might create high potential costs. The issues that BlackBerry is facing are considered as additional challenges regarding the resources for entering the market. This could lead to competition in the price sector and other conflicts related to high competitiveness.
Social Factors
The culture and way of life of a society influence the culture of an organization in a particular context. The way Blackberry Limited marketers analyze and create consumer marketing messages for the diversified communications services industry is heavily influenced by the values ​​and attitudes shared among people. BlackBerry not only complies with industry and federal operational regulations but also prioritizes sustainability and its environmental and social impact. Sustainability is becoming more and more important as the world’s renewable resources and the efforts of large corporations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are attracting attention. BlackBerry is always looking for innovative solutions that meet today’s needs without jeopardizing the future.
Environmental Performance
Blackberry is pursuing to ensure environmentally and socially responsible supply chain management. Since it is a multinational company, its activities associated with the supply chain are practiced in countries all over the world. Thus, the organization is in consistent contact with various communities that have individual business and culture standards. As a responsible company, BlackBerry understands that certain employment standards and environmental performance must be met, wherever we do business or where we do business.
Technological Factors
The primary threat standing in front of the company operating in the technology industry is a challenge to adjust to the rapid technological innovations. Considering the past experience of BlackBerry, not following the latest technological trends might create big risks of failure for the organization. BlackBerry was one of the first smartphone producers and later was competed by Samsung and Apple. Technology and technological development is affecting many different businesses, and it is disrupting many of them. That is why BlackBerry should set the relevance of the technology stems from identifying and developing new technological items that correspond to the new trends. With today’s cyberattack threats and growing needs for cybersecurity solutions, BlackBerry chooses to focus on developing security, connection, mobilization, and productivity of software rather than competing in the supersaturated hardware device manufacturing business. Thus BalckBerry Limites should provide devices and services that are tailored to the software and applications used by remotely working devices.
Works Cited
Almuraqab, Nasser A. Saif, and Wathiq Mansoor. 2021. “Determing Factors That Infuence Smartphones Purchasing Intenrion in the United Arab Emirates (UAE): Empirical Research.”, 25(4), pp. 1-11.
Barnett, Jonathan M. 2020. “The Long Shadow of the Blackberry Shutdown That Wasn’t.”
Eisner, A., Nazir, S., Korn, H., and Baugher, C. D. 2018. Blackberry Limited: Is There a Pass to Recovery?. Global Journal of Business Pedagogy, 2(1), 12.
Grover, Purva, Arpan Kumar Kar, and P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan. 2019. “Impact of corporate social responsibility on reputation—Insights from tweets on sustainable development goals by CEOs.” International journal of information management 48, pp. 39-52.
Ornston, Darius. 2018 “When Flagships Falter: Comparing BlackBerry and Nokia.” Presentation at the CDO Annual Meeting. Vancouver.