10 Steps BlackBerry’s Leadership Is Taking to Complete Turnaround Plan

BlackBerry’s turnaround strategy has been slow, but the company is sticking to it. Here’s a look at what BlackBerry is doing to return to profitability.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen made his name turning around Sybase in the 1990s, which may make him the best person to lead BlackBerry. Chen, who became BlackBerry’s chairman of the board and CEO in 2013, knows the enterprise market well. He has said in several earnings calls that his strategy is slowly, but surely fixing the company’s woes and that he is sticking to that plan. Chen is central to BlackBerry’s potential turnaround, even if investors are concerned that the turnaround isn’t happening quickly enough.

Unfortunately, BlackBerry has been forced to use layoffs to cut expenses and help its ailing financials. In addition to the 200 people BlackBerry just cut, it has already slashed its workforce to its goal of about 7,000 people. To put that into perspective, in 2011, BlackBerry had more than 17,500 employees.

BlackBerry has embraced the idea that it’s part of a broader mobile ecosystem. The company has brought its applications, including BlackBerry Messenger, to other mobile operating systems. In addition, it has added support for Android apps to BlackBerry 10 and even launched an Android-based device in the BlackBerry Priv smartphone. BlackBerry no longer adheres to a business plan focused on proprietary phone technology

For a while, BlackBerry tried to be all things to all people, including consumers. Chen, however, realized the idea was a bad one and shifted focus. Now enterprises are the primary focus of its product designs and application packages. Looking ahead, BlackBerry is counting on enterprise users with their interest in communications security and business applications to keep buying the company’s mobile products.

Physical keyboards live on in BlackBerry’s world. Although nearly every other device maker has nixed physical keyboards in favor of touch screens, BlackBerry believes there’s a market for smartphones with keyboards. Whether there actually is may be debatable. But at least for now, there appears to be little chance that BlackBerry will entirely give up its physical keys.

There has been some speculation of late that BlackBerry will turn its back on BlackBerry 10, its mobile operating system, and just move to Android. To end all speculation on those rumors, the company posted a blog recently reaffirming its support for its mobile OS. It seems the operating system still matters to BlackBerry, despite it losing significant market share to iOS and Android over the past several years.

BlackBerry hasn’t shied away from strategic acquisitions as part of its turnaround plan. The company acquired corporate-focused mobile device management company Good Technology last year for $425 million. Also last year, BlackBerry acquired enterprise data synchronization company WatchDox and networked crisis communications firm AtHoc for undisclosed sums.

To boost his company’s cash coffers, John Chen decided to sell noncore assets. For instance, Chen sold BlackBerry’s many real estate holdings across Waterloo, Ontario, where its headquarters are located. Chen told investors that the cash would be used to make strategic acquisitions and other moves, and at least some of that cash was used in BlackBerry’s aforementioned acquisitions.

While speaking at the Waterloo Innovation Summit last year, Chen said that BlackBerry’s patent portfolio could come in handy. He said at the time that BlackBerry owned approximately 44,000 patents and most of the patents won’t expire anytime soon. What’s more, those patents cover meaningful mobile innovations in the industry. Chen said at the time that the “monetization of our patents is an important aspect of our turnaround.”

Chen has said on numerous occasions that he has no interest in trying to play catch-up with Apple or Google and that comparisons between those companies and BlackBerry mean nothing. BlackBerry solely wants to appeal to enterprise users hoping for a high-quality user experience across hardware and software. It also wants to lead the market in mobile security. BlackBerry long ago gave up trying to be a leader in terms of mobile device sales or market share.