Features of Innovative Products Positioning (on the example of BlackBerry Torch)

One of the major problems of the company’s innovation is marketing support of the new products. Experience indicates a high degree of risk in terms of the market launch of innovative products: on average, about a third of new products is losing profits and, instead, brings some losses. The features of the launch of new products are related to both the specifics of the products and the peculiarities of the market. The following factors are usually among the reasons of the failure of new products: lack of market analysis, product defects, lack of effective marketing activities, excessive costs, actions of competitors, the lack of support in deriving the product on the market, and production problems. Factors of the success of a new product are (Zirger & Hartley, 2006):

•   superiority over competing products (distinctive features that contribute to a better perception on the part of consumers);
•   marketing know-how (understanding of consumer behavior and the rate of adoption of new items of the potential market size);
•   availability of technological know-how.

Thus, the mere technological advantage cannot ensure the commercial success. Obviously, any innovator or an innovative company sooner or later will have to think about marketing factors.

Innovative products form a specific market of high technology as well as scientific and technical products. Its features, when compared with the market “traditional” products, are diverse and cover all sides of the relationship developing between the seller and the buyer, requiring to be respectively reflected in the marketing policy of the company. Among the features of the market, the following ones should be called:

–   features of the product (unique, sometimes technological complexity, high production costs in the early stages);

 –  newness of the market for the company (especially for small innovative companies that are undergoing start-up);

–   unknown product (and, sometimes, the manufacturer) for the market;

–   unpredictability of consumer behavior (Stewart & Runyon, eds, 1998);

–   low elasticity of the price, thus the limited impact of price policy on sales;

–   small size of the market (especially for high-tech industrial products);

–   lack of direct competitors (due to the monopoly of the intellectual

property);

–   achievements of the company in the theoretical field with well-constructed PR-policy that can significantly increase the consumers’ rating of the company;

–   relationship between marketing and innovative products on the level of potential consumers: many pioneering innovations are difficult to sell because of the general technological backwardness of markets (Moore, 2010).

To better understand the successful market launch of innovative products, we will analyze the practical experience of their introduction on the market.

Let us consider the experience of one of the successful launches of technological innovations – BlackBerry Torch.

BlackBerry Torch, the first phone of the Canadian company RIM (Research in Motion), which runs on OS6, was the first BlackBerry with a full QWERTY computer keyboard and a touch screen. It was presented on August 3, 2010 at a press conference in New York.

“The launch of this phone is one of the most significant launches in the history of our company, and this amazing smartphone has collected a lot of strengths of RIM”, said CEO Mike Lazaridis (Mike Lazaridis) during the presentation (Research in Motion).

The new model intended by its manufacturer, Research In Motion, is focused on both the traditional corporate sector and the consumer audience.

At the first weekend, about 150,000 units were sold, the tenth part of the general number sold in the first month of the iPhone 4. A week later, Rim and AT & T lowered the price by half, and it was 99 dollars. Currently, RIM is hard at work on a new operating system with a mega fast dual-core processor and 3D interface. The new system made its débuton February 2011 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

During the third quarter of the fiscal year (from September till November), Research In Motion increased its net profit by 45% – up to 911 million dollars. Canadian giant’s revenue for the period was bigger than the experts’ forecasts being estimated at 5 billion 490 million dollars. Analysts said that the growth was largely due to the successful sales in the pre-season smartphones BlackBerry Torch (US Smartphone Statistics).

BlackBerry Torch is a unique smartphone that combines all the best qualities of the previous BlackBerry smartphones. So, there is no wonder that the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the new flagship of the company.

A distinctive feature of this mobile is that it combines a touchscreen with a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Thus, the company meets the requirements of the most different types of consumers: those who prefer to work with a touchscreen and those who prefer a standard keyboard.

In addition, those who want to have a stylish slider from BlackBerry will want to buy BlackBerry Torch 9800. In this case, potential buyers of Torch 9800 will be pleasantly surprised by the cost of BlackBerry Torch 9800 and subject to a two-year contract with the mobile operator.

This unit is an ideal phone for business and leisure. After all, it can be used to hold video conferences and video calls with ease, to send messages to friends, etc. With this smartphone, you can access your personal business account and quickly check your email. In addition, the model is equipped with an excellent browser.

Also, there is the possibility of fine-tuning the device – up to self-adjusting the sensitivity of the touch screen or the optical joystick sensitivity. Much attention is paid to security – from setting a password to more complex ways of protecting information.

Step-by-step, interactive guides and tutorials provided by the company for on-line support of the customers, can walk the customer through many of the functions and actions that he will need to get the phone up and running smoothly.

Troubleshooting, hints, and tips are in details presented in web-support; as well there is the opportunity to talk with the operator (including call-back).

Moreover, elegant design of the website should be noted.

Nowadays, BlackBerry Torch is one of the most popular smartphones presented by the company.

Facebook app for smartphones BlackBerry, in fact, is fully integrated into the system. After installation, you will be asked to include the social network messages to the general list, set the sync calendar and contacts with Facebook, replace the existing photos in the contact list of the profiles of friends in Facebook. In essence, after installation, Torch is converted into a socially-oriented device, but  to chat, it requires additional program. In the program of Facebook, you can quickly switch between the functions of pressing a few buttons, for example, the key opens the feed H, N – go to notifications, and so on. Another interesting fact is that you can see how many of your friends are also using Facebook for BlackBerry.

Research In Motion actively cooperates with its partners in other countries. Now, the Russian offices of “Beeline” and retail network “Euroset” are successfully selling smartphone BlackBerry Torch 9800. The device is tied to the “Beeline” SIM-card (Russian technologival news).

The number of operators around the world selling phones from RIM with the company’s mini-keyboard and touch screen noticeably increased.

Notify Technology is the exclusive partner of RIM to resolve Blackberry Torch. Notify Kerio offers the opportunity to host and manage users of mobile devices from Blackberry and work closely to create an affordable alternative mail system for small businesses.

The good news is that for the control of all communicators, there was developed a new BES Console 10. It not only allows you to control devices on older versions of BlackBerry, but also to support the equipment runs on iOS and Android. This is done as more and more companies began to take on a BB7 BB10. Thus, each administrator will be able to work with several devices at the same time, and carring out all the necessary operations will be much easier.

ActiveSync protocol will use BlackBerry mobile phones without any negative aspects, even in the corporate environment. Thus, the new devices will walk in step with popular device running under operating systems iOS and Android (Mobile Review).

It should be noted that every employee in a large business or medium-sized company can use communicator in their office. In this case, RIM says that it can be synchronized with other equipment from third-party companies. There is no need for an external server BlackBerry or licensed software. By the way, before, it was not possible due to technical limitations.

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