Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Is your segmentation (still) valid?

Blackberry has become an object of ridicule, blackberry owners are likely to hide it under their iPad..... I read in newspaper. Being a blackberry and iPad user myself I could understand....

What went wrong? It was a perfect business proposition. Busy executives need mails on the go, they need to be delivered securely, they need a closed chat program, all nicely packaged by blackberry. Status symbol not so long ago, why should people hide it now.

Apple and android phones who could easily connect to any wifi network and could many more things spoilt blackberry's party. Blackberry is still the most secure and reliable phone but customers don't want it anymore. Why?

Guess the assumptions for customer segmentations failed. Office executives were no different from other smartphone users after all. They got lured by exactly the same thing that lured the teenager to the smartphone. How about security? Well, that was the users concern anyway. That was MIS departments headache. Why should the user worry about them.

There may be several technological reasons but from marketing standpoint blackberry failed to see changing customer segmentations in ever evolving market.

In this fast paced, ever evolving market if you are marketing something you should ask yourself everyday - Is my segmentation still valid?

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