BlackBerry failure: Forgetting to manage an enterprise ecosystem

[reading] The BlackBerry is complacent about its huge number of loyal users, unaware of the threat posed by its opponents ' ecosystem. Tencent technology Ice Dust August 25 compiled by Michael Yas Jacobides, an associate professor at the London Business School, wrote in the Harvard Business Review magazine that the BlackBerry's failure lies in failing to manage the ecosystem. The story of the BlackBerry highlights the truth of the competitive environment in which we live: success is not only about good products, good services or companies with good capital structure, proper operation and cost control. It also requires effective strategies to manage your ecosystem. This is where the BlackBerry failed. The BlackBerry is complacent about its huge number of loyal users, unaware of the threat posed by its opponents ' ecosystem. Like previous companies, the BlackBerry has lost its chance to become a market darling and has not been able to get the support of Apple, such as the app developer. But the underdog is not doomed to be defeated in the game of value acquisition. By playing in the hands of the players, they can maintain their current position and propose a scheme that can satisfy both the end-users and the operators. In the July Harvard Business Review Magazine, we analyzed the value transfer in the industry ecosystem. In the 80 's, for example, values shifted from previous giants such as IBM to emerging players in the industry's ecosystems, such as Intel and Microsoft. We also think about what bottlenecks constrain the transfer of ecosystem values. Then we wondered why other areas, such as automobiles, have shown considerable stability despite the reconfiguration of clean energy and value chains. Our research reveals what drives value transfer. We find that successful people are actively managing the company's industry structure and working with suppliers at different levels. IBM's mistake was to open up the business through a series of standards, resulting in tragedy. Today's apple companies tightly control suppliers and complement those that support their value allocation. The solution is not vertical integration, but control through differentiated management methods. It is necessary to ensure product quality and user experience in the value chain, but also to be responsible for the replacement of other industries in the value chain. Car manufacturers can control most of the industry's operations and improve the user experience. Bain & Company had a famous assertion in the 1990s that the fate of cars would soon be like computers as large suppliers controlled the entire industry. Deloitte has once again predicted that with the advent of electric vehicles, the entire industry will fall apart and value will shift. We don't see it that way. We don't think the auto industry will repeat the mistakes of computers. Apple has marketed the computer business to a more integrated car industry. Vertically, the move tightly grasps the supplier network and maintains a keen eye on technology integration. Unlike the BlackBerry, Apple not only understands the importance of value distribution, but also gets its value by managing ecosystems. Of course, if you are the king of the ecosystem, the daysbetter. You have to consider not only how to maintain your status successfully, but also how startups will break the pattern. Reduce employees by outsourcing, saving capital, patiently climbing the food chain, becoming a solution provider, or carefully operating a standard business to gain a foothold in a broader marketplace, and then recruiting people, like Huawei and other companies, to jump from assembling companies to industry giants is the way to protect themselves. Undeniably, the market strategy becomes more and more complex, the analysis is very easy, solves the actual problem to be more difficult. But if everyone is clear about the factors that drive value transfer, then the strategy will be more cautious.