Is Rim Destined to eventually Fail Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Is Rim Destined to eventually Fail - Essay Example The factors can still support the argument otherwise. As a manufacturer of the Blackberry phones and products, RIM has shown a significant growth record in the recent past. The growth is witnessed in terms of output, staffing and the manufacturing infrastructure. The consistent increase in volume of the company’s products ensures its competitiveness in the marketplace by confirming that the products it supplies are market-friendly and adequate to the ever-increasing number of customers. The increase in production is fueled by the adequacy of staff. Adequate staff ensures that work is concluded on time, hence, meeting the company deadlines. Manufacturing infrastructure, on the other hand, facilitates invention and innovation resulting in originality of the company products (Palmatier & Crum, 2003). Externally, there is the ever-rising pressure from the rapidly expanding consumer base; RIM products experience a short lifecycle. Therefore, they have extended manufacturing contrac ts to likeminded firms to help them in production to meet the ever-rising customer demands. This has extended the decision making chain resulting in complexity when it comes to market efficiency and decision-making in terms of enhancing supply chains. The software makeup of the organization is also not up to the task, prompting the implementation of a decision support system for the company to ensure it continues its operations successfully (Chopra & Meindl, 2001). In the recent past, RIM has been quite successful and because of this success, a crop of challenges has come up threatening the success of the corporation. The company introduced seven new models of their products within the last 18 months. The challenge with these products is their shortened lifecycle that has reduced further from 2 years to a mere 1 year. Reports show that the company’s product portfolio has become very complex ranging from 18 to 100 possible end combinations of the models with only seven lines o f products. This has the challenge of easily creating what we call an excess inventory calling for an appropriate plan. Such are the introductions of the product lines without which the overall costs of the firm would rapidly escalate cutting down on profits resulting in reduced returns (Palmatier & Crum, 2003). The growth of the output of the handheld phones invented and launched within the last two years has risen by 310%. This has presented a challenge of keeping up with such growth as the supply chains have risen from just one to six suites worldwide (Klein, 2003). The ramp rates are also severe as they are executed from multiple manufacturing points within different countries. Therefore, RIM through its management has to be extra careful on how it introduces its products to the customer base that is wide both in size and in the expectation. Decision-making has become increasingly difficult in the ever-rising complex environment. As a result, the corporation has lost track of wh ich products to produce, at what time and to which audience (Chopra & Meindl, 2001). This is despite the fact that the decisions made at the head office cuts across all the supply chains making the company to always honor its commitment to its clients. A company is able to succeed if it is in the position of responding appropriately to the demand of its staff. In addition, there would be a delay in the production due