Unlocking Business Agility with Evidence-Based Management: Satisfy Customers and Improve Organizational Effectiveness

6

Applying EBM at the Product Level

Most people are familiar with the story of BlackBerry and how it was the envy of its industry. Its corporate customers—largely executives, salespeople, and other professionals who were constantly on the move—loved it. They called their devices “Crackberries” because they felt addicted to them. Corporate IT managers loved Blackberries, too, because they conformed to their security standards. Blackberries scored high on industry analyst reports checking all the boxes in rating reports.

Rumors that Apple would release a mobile phone sounded like a prank. To date, the company had resurrected its computer business, but it was not a significant factor in the corporate markets BlackBerry dominated. Apple had also ...