The man who needs to give new shine to BlackBerry

The Canadian BlackBerry manufacturer (which until the beginning of last year was called Research In Motion, or RIM) has been a symbol of the global market for smartphones. For a long time, brand appliances were considered the best productivity tool for companies and their use has led to "BlackBerry prayer"-a reference to the movement to put the head to handle the phone under the table, in an action that became common in business meetings and remember the Act of making a prayer.
Unfortunately for the BlackBerry, the mobile phone market has changed. Residential consumers have gained prominence in the segment and the company failed to remain competitive against rivals like Samsung and Apple.
Now, after recent unsuccessful attempts-including an attempt to close the capital-the BlackBerry you want to go back to its origins and focus on the business market to grow back. "Companies are a fundamental part of our recovery process over the next 18 months. The margins are greater in this segment, "said John Chen, Chief Executive of the company, during meeting with journalists at the fair of electronics CES in Las Vegas. The value was the only Brazilian publication to participate in the meeting.
With the company for about two months, Chen was hired initially to be the President of the Council, with the task of defining a business strategy and hire an Executive to replace Thorsten Heins, fired in November, in charge of operations. In the middle of the process, Chen said he had realized that it would be easier to take over interim Executive to take your first steps and went on to accumulate the two positions. More recently, in a change of plans, Chen took the post effectively. "We haven't made any official announcements, but I've changed my business cards. Customers don't want that kind of instability, "he said.
The decision to focus on the business market is no longer focused solely on appliances. The idea is to expand the sale of BlackBerry software to ensure that the information exchanged through mobile devices trafeguem quickly and securely. The approach refers to the Executive's past. Chen was responsible for restructuring the American company Sybase, of enterprise systems. The company was bought by German SAP in 2012, for $ 5.8 billion, more than 15 times the company's market value when the Executive took office, 13 years before.
At first, Chen said, the target will be companies and Governments of five countries (Germany, France, Canada, New Zealand and United States), where the BlackBerry has a base of 40 thousand customers. In other markets, like the rest of Europe and emerging countries, including Brazil, the goal is to adjust the operation. In Latin America, the Executive said that needs to hit the structure to sell services to businesses. "If you don't grow in the five priority markets, the emerging us advance will not be sufficient to achieve the goals within the next 18 months," he said.
The goal of Chen is the BlackBerry to be profitable until the end of the fiscal year that ends in October 2016.
The strategy aimed at the corporate market does not mean, however, that the BlackBerry go abandon sales to ordinary consumers. The idea is to do this without much financial impact, said Chen. The company closed last month, a deal with the Chinese Foxconn, which will be responsible for the production of equipment designed by the company and by the management of stocks of products and components, the Foxconn will also assume part of the task of designing the devices, especially those intended for the consumer market.
With Foxconn, said Chen, the BlackBerry plan to compete in the market cheap phones, sold in emerging countries. "They're going to bring the volume of sales that we need," he said. According to the Executive, the agreement with Foxconn is not unique and can be extended to other companies.
Since coming to BlackBerry, Chen also made significant changes in senior management, replacing executives in various areas. Last week, the singer Alicia Keys, who last year had been hired to help in the development of products, was dismissed. "It was a matter of focus," said Chen.
On Monday, the company announced the hiring of Ron Louks, former Sony Ericsson and HTC, to oversee the creation of new phones. The Executive will also be responsible for developing business in new areas.
Chen gave no details of which areas will receive more attention, but stated that one of which arouse more interest to the BlackBerry is the communication between machines, called M2M. "If all inhabitants of the planet have two cell phones, the potential market for these devices will be 14 billion units. It's a significant number, but with the M2M, the opportunities are even greater, "he said.
According to Cisco, American manufacturer of networking equipment, 50 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020. The M2M is also known as "internet of things".
For Chen, one of the most promising areas in M2M's vehicles, in which the company already has some agreements for the use of your QNX software. The idea is to expand this market and, at the same time, seek out new areas. All this, however, requires patience and preparation. Chen said take 6 to 9 months to close a deal of this type. Then, the product has to be developed. "We're talking about a cycle of at least two years," he said.