2. CHEVROLET
A. HISTORY
• In 1911, Louis Chevrolet, an automotive engineer and Swiss race car driver, partnered with William C.
Durant to build Chevrolet Motor Company. Their humble beginnings were in Detroit with the help of
several investment partners. One of them was William Little who was the producer of the Little
automobile. Another was James H. Whiting who was a former owner of Buick. The other two were Dr.
Edwin R Campbell, who was the son-in-law to Durant and R.S. McLaughlin, the CEO at the time of GM in
Canada.
• William Durant founded the General Motors company in 1908 but was cast out from the company in
1910. Prior to starting Chevy, he also had taken over the Flint Wagon Works plus Buick located in Flint,
Michigan. He’s also the person responsible for incorporating the Little and Mason companies. When
Durant was the head of Buick, he hired Louis Chevrolet to promote the Buick during promotional races.
His goal was to use the reputation of Chevrolet to found a new automobile company. Chevy’s first
factory was located in Flint, Michigan.
4. B. SAFETY AND CRASH RATINGS
• As far as if a Chevrolet is safe or not, statistics seem to favour less than perfect reviews of the brand.
Older models tend to be ranked higher than newer ones, with very few making the list of IIHS Top Safety
Picks anymore.
• Out of all the Chevy models, only one made the 2018 list. It was for the Chevrolet Volt in the “small
cars” category. When equipped with front crash protection, the Volt received “Good” rankings in
everything but child seat anchors. In addition, the IIHS gave the Chevy Volt a “Superior” rating in front
crash protection.
5. C. CHEVROLET: A BIG FAILURE IN INDIA
• Some point to the Tavera recall (one of it’s most popular models) in 2013-14 when the company was
found to have fallen short of the country’s emission norms.
• Others say that the company never took to the Indian way, sticking to a global strategy without adapting
to local tastes and flavours.
• A lack of products: Both Maruti and Hyundai have a diverse product portfolio, every Rs 10,000 can get
you an entirely different car. And both update their portfolio with an alarming pace so you never feel any
single product is outdated. General Motors' biggest drawback was an aging portfolio based on specific
South East Asian market products, which were not entirely global like their competitors products.
• Network: General Motors had at one point in time a robust enough network with over 400 dealers, but
diminishing consumer confidence in the products and strained relations between consumers and dealers
(several claimed to be unethical with shady dealings) shrunk those numbers to just a little over 200
touch-points.
6. C. CHEVROLET: A BIG FAILURE IN INDIA
• Many factors like:
1. Outdated Technology
2. ynability to read the market and adapt quickly: When SUVs started coming into
the limelight they were left floundering over MPVs and hatchbacks. Even though
they brought in the Trailblazer, it was too far up the price scale to make any
serious headway in the mass market.
9. B. THE BEGINNING
• The company was founded in 1985 by Mike
Lazardis and Douglas Fregin, and was then
known as Research in Motion Limited (RIM).
• It created electronic pagers and email
networks, with Sony erricsson.
MIKE LAZARDIS
DOUGLAS FREGIN
10. C. TOP ATTRIBUTES
• Excellent email services at a time nobody else in the market was focusing on
emails in the mobile form factor.
• Impenetrable security features.
• Strong reputation with the corporate world.
11. D. RISE
• Blackberry started with a pager.
• The beginning of smartphones can also be credited to Blackberry with the
introduction of Blackberry 5810 and 6710.
• Blackberry’s target audience in the very beginning was Business
Professionals.
• They had an amazing marketing strategy wherein they used to give free 1
month trial period of using a blackberry phone to people who appeared
to be from “Elite Business Class”.
• Blackberry OS was the most secure OS with absolutely no chance of
hacking. This amazing security system attracted the Businessmen, the
Politicians. Thus, generating a large market for Blackberry with half of
US’s market share.
12. RISE
• Blackberry 8700 series brought about a great change for the company
because of introduction of QWERTY keypad.
• The company entered into smartphone market in 2008 with its
Blackberry Storm with no QWERTY keypad. This decision of Blackberry
was impacted because Apple had entered into the market with
iPhones.
• With criticism for this change, Blackberry tried to balance out its new
design for Blackberry pearl 9100 wherein they offered both touch
screen and a keypad.
• A revolution for the company was when it launched the Blackberry
Z30, the 1st in the premium smartphone category
• The BlackBerry Z30 was the biggest play for a direct competitor device
to compete with the likes of Android, however in that environment, the
lack of native apps stood it apart.
13. E .DISTINCTIONS
• SECURITY- The security that Blackberry phones offered was the major role player in establishing them as a big
brand. Unlike, Android and IOS who have a flaw of Rooting and Jailbreak, blackberry had no such weakness. All
the emails and messages that one sends through a blackberry phones are highly encrypted, leaving very
minute scope for hacking. Moreover, Blackberry is based on QNX, it’s the same OS used in nuclear power and
research, so basically, its incredibly reliable. Android and other OS can be hacked over networks also, wherein
to gain access to the data on a Blackberry, physical access is a must. So this security that Blackberry offered
was the major selling point for them and this attracted a large number of people from the business class.
• HARDWARE- At one point in time blackberry’s selling point was also its elegant keypad which was faster than
other keypad phones in the market. For the people who were involved in writing emails or messages on a large
scale were fascinated by the smoothness of keyboard that Blackberry offered. But with the advent of
smartphones, the same keypad which was earlier an asset to the company lead to its downfall. With faster
touchscreen phones and wider screen ratios, a phone with a large keypad was not appreciated by the potential
customers.
14. DISTINCTIONS
• BATTERY LIFE- Another reason why blackberry was endorsed was its battery life and capacity,
in comparison to other rivals in the market, blackberry offered much larger battery capacity
which could keep up with its business usage applications.
• APPLICATIONS- While the android expanded its number of applications in its play store,
Blackberry chose to restrict it to very few, in lieu of safety, but this wasn’t pleasing to the
users as it decreased customisability and functionality. It basically made Blackberry choose
between Customisability and Security.
• TARGET AUDIENCE- Primary target audience for Blackberry was the Business Class and it
basically ignored the consumer demands made by the youth. They sacrificed diversity for
security as it wanted to please the business class which was its major buyer. Eventually, with
the rise of Apple, this target audience got tilted to the use of iPhone because of the classy
look and features that Apple offered. This deprived Blackberry of its target audience.
15. F. DOWNFALL
• BlackBerry finally left the smartphone manufacturing
market in October 2016, announcing that it will stop
manufacturing its own devices and let third-party firms
do the job instead.
• 904 million dollars revenue in 2019, however in 2011
blackberry recorded a record revenue of 19,907 million
dollars.
16. G. LACK OF INNOVATION
• Blackberry did not change their operating system to match
the new offerings from their competitors and then they
couldn't change the physical form of their phones.
• Blackberry’s OS limited users heavily, lack of games or new
cool apps that flooded the play store and app store.
17. F. HOW BLACKBERRY COULD HAVE SAVED ITSELF!
• EMBRACING NEW HARDWARE- Even though QWERTY keypads was a success in the initial
years but soon after advent of touch screen phones, it got outdated. Blackberry did shift to
touchscreen phones, but it was too late for it to do in 2008. Had it resorted to touch screen
hardware earlier, it could have survived.
• FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES TO OS- Due to security reasons, the RIM OS of blackberry
entertained very less changes due to which number of application in the Blackberry store
decreased. Had it made some changes to this rigid OS, the company would have attracted
more new audience.
• DESIGN CHANGES- Earlier Blackberry models focused on adjusting the Keypad into it, as a
result it lead to an ugly design of many of the models. With the advent of smartphones,
consumers shifted to phones with slim design and elegant mobile bodies. Had it altered its
model’s designs, making it slim and hand adjustable, it would have attracted larger audience.
18. HOW BLACKBERRY COULD HAVE SAVED ITSELF!
• COLLABORATING WITH ANDROID- Ultimately the company had to accept that
consumer demand are in sync with Android devices, eventually making them
collaborate with Android in 2015. Had the company introduced Android models
earlier, it would have been easy for them to sustain in the market.
• SELLING BBM- BBM is what made Blackberry special, but they made it
Blackberry exclusive which made its access limited and people shifted to
WhatsApp, Kik, etc. Had they made its access open to all devices, the company
could have stayed in the software market.
