The Impacts of External Forces

 

In the early 2000s, Apple and Google did not dominate the mobile telephone market, but rather a company called Research in Motion (RIM) producing a mobile device for both phone and email, the Blackberry. The technology was a massive breakthrough for the email-obsessed culture at that time. RIM developed push email, which enabled users to receive messages on their Blackberry device rather than constantly fetching new messages. The device featured a full-functioning keyboard, mimicking the standard desktop version, enabling users to produce messages as opposed to the numeric-only keypad quickly. Blackberry’s popularity exploded, and the corporation developed an aggressive marketing plan targeted at the corporate mobile market (Gustin, 2013).

Unfortunately for Blackberry, several forces eventually led to the organization’s downfall. First, there was a cultural force; while the organization targeted the corporate market, competitors such as Apple and Google were laser-focused on the consumer market. The push email technology was not proprietary to RIM, and the competition included it as a native piece of software (Appolonia, 2019). Secondly, as Apple and Google had established products in the consumer space with music devices and next generation cellular telephones, there was a significant technological force. The foundational device seamlessly integrated with email. Lastly, there was a social force at work, as the mobile device was on the brink of becoming an enabler for various media types, including telephone, camera, music, email, and the emerging social media market (Weber et al., 2011).

The topic for my sociotechnical plan is the emerging digital workplace, which has drastically changed due to an environmental force, COVID-19. As organizations continue to adjust to support the remote worker, some advantages have surfaced (Attaran et al., 2019). First, remote employees do not need to be in the physical location of the corporate campus. The flexibility enables a broader and more diverse workforce located across the country or even the world. Second, by enabling a remote workforce, organizations are forecasting cost savings in space costs. Lastly, the digital workplace enables a level of agility for an organization. For example, rather than arranging cross-country business trips, collaboration is enabled remotely, providing a more efficient experience and realized cost savings (PNNL Researchers Confront COVID-19 Challenges, 2021).

The correlation between the Blackberry example and the digital workplace relies on two significant forces that require a sociotechnical plan. First, cultural forces affect both situations. The Blackberry strategic plan failed to account for the consumer market and the factors driving it. For the digital workplace, the end-user experience, whether corporate or consumer, is key to success. The end-user must feel engaged, collaborative, and part of a team while participating remotely (Attaran et al., 2019). Secondly, the technological force is a significant driver in both examples. RIM was unable to keep pace with user needs, the experience, and future innovation. The digital workplace also has technical challenges to address, such as the hybrid experience, where part of a team is on campus, and others are remote. The audio and visual experience must improve, with strategic plans for integrating new tools and repurposing existing ones (Attaran et al., 2019).

References

Appolonia, A. (2019). How BlackBerry went from controlling the smartphone market to a phone of the past. Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-smartphone-rise-fall-mobile-failure-innovate-2019-11 

Attaran, M., Attaran, S., & Kirkland, D. (2019). The need for digital workplace: increasing workforce productivity in the information age. International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (IJEIS), 15(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEIS.2019010101 

Gustin, S. (2013). The Fatal Mistake that Doomed Blackberry. Time Magazine. https://business.time.com/2013/09/24/the-fatal-mistake-that-doomed-blackberry/ 

PNNL Researchers Confront COVID-19 Challenges. (2021). https://www.pnnl.gov/covid 

Weber, A., Haas, M., & Scuka, D. (2011). Mobile service innovation: A European failure. Telecommunications Policy, 35(5), 469-480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2011.03.002