Technology alone does not make a successful company. Business tactics do. Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer of Research In Motion (RIM)?a company he founded in his student days at the University of Wisconsin in 1984?understands these market dynamics best. A fact vindicated by his attempts to position his smartphone company as a complete communications solution provider, with a constant focus on R&D, new product development and launches as well as creation and development of vast variety of content and solutions for both, enterprises and individuals. In short, business agility, responsiveness and innovation are the new imperatives of growth for the iconic device maker, in order to match the momentum of rival mobile monarchs Apple and Google.

To say that Lazaridis, widely known in the global wireless community as a visionary, innovator, and engineer of extraordinary talent, struck the right business chord would be the understatement of the twenty-first century. With a new kind of business model, largely driven by the stupendous popularity of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), he empowered millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day, courtesy the BlackBerry product line.

BlackBerry was literally the king. Then came Apple?s iPhone, followed by Android. And the BlackBerry maker seemingly lost its way. Statistically speaking, RIM had another tough quarter in the United States, the world?s largest smartphone market, where its volumes declined 58% from a year ago and its US market share slipped from 24% in Q3 2010 to just 9% in Q3 2011, reveals data compiled by consulting firm Canalys. It continues to face unfavourable press there and its volumes have dropped significantly despite a refreshed product line that includes its flagship BlackBerry Bold 9900.

For all the consumer appeal of Apple products, BlackBerry is still dominant in corporate mobile communications and RIM sells millions of its workaholic devices each quarter to a growing global audience. During its second fiscal quarter 2012, it shipped more than 10.6 million smartphones and 200,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets globally. And the picture for RIM in other parts of the world is clearly more positive. It has shown robust growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and in Asia Pacific, largely driven by the continued popularity of BlackBerry Messenger service.

While RIM is yet to stir the excitement levels in its predominant developed markets, it appears to have got the right winning formula in emerging markets like India: deliver new, fresh, exciting products to the market and increase its pace of innovation and execution. The R50,000-crore India mobile handsets market has emerged as a test bed for new technologies and business models for the BlackBerry maker; it is seeing explosive growth for its communications business and has grabbed 15% of the India smartphone market. The company remains unfazed by recent setbacks such as the October blackout of services worldwide, including in India, or the departure of its India managing director Frenny Bawa. On the contrary, it is getting ready to play an entirely new game here.

RIM India director (enterprise sales) Sunil Lalvani says, ?India is one of the fastest growing markets in the smartphone space. Analysts have predicted that the global smartphone market would grow at 40%, whereas the estimated growth rate for India is expected to be more than 100%. India is adding 6-7 million new mobile users every month and there is a soaring demand for smartphones. We have further observed that the youth segment has emerged as a strong buyer of smartphones indicating the increased usage of mobile internet and social networking along with the availability of 3G services. Considering the scenario, the smartphone category in India is at a very exciting phase and has become more exciting for us.?

As the domestic handset market is burning hot, RIM is thinking up new products and strategies for one of its fastest growing markets globally. Until now a dominant player in the enterprise market, the company?s strong consumer focus in India is a part of its overall strategy; it is working on products at various functionalities and price points to cater to the diverse set of audience. This year, it has been very aggressive with new product launches. ?We are bullish with our plans and would continue to introduce new line of smartphones and tablets in the coming year as well,? he says.

?The consumer segment is primarily driving the adoption of data rich services such as internet, social networking and online audio/ video content as they would want the best of social experience from their devices,? says Lalvani. ?Today, BlackBerry devices are very popular in the consumer segment and widely used by students, artists, musicians, fashion designers and also house wives. Our devices come loaded with applications that cater to wide range of interest areas such cooking, fashion, health, news, sports, games, business and many others. At the back-end, RIM team works together with its partners to create entire ecosystem with local relevance to offer what the consumer would want.?

The business strategy has been multi-fold with RIM focusing on key factors to strengthen its position in the consumer space. It has introduced new smartphones in both CDMA and GSM platform with diverse features, functionalities and form factor to suit the needs consumer across categories. For instance, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 was specially designed keeping the price sensitive Indian market in mind and today it is one of the most popular smartphones. The strategy also included solidifying RIM?s presence by strengthening the team in India, enhanced focus on new marketing initiatives, opening up new channels for distribution and retail and efficient customer service.

Lalvani says, ?Our advertising campaigns ?BlackBerry Boys? hit the right chord with the diverse set of consumers and our recent campaign ?Welcome to the BlackBerry family? has helped in amplifying the brand proposition. These campaigns have been well accepted by our audience, especially youth segment and positioned BlackBerry as a smartphone for everyone catering to all segments and cultures.? RIM has also devised a comprehensive marketing and advertising campaign spanning across TV, print, digital and outdoor media for its latest range of BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones.

RIM is currently present across 80 cities in India. It has been pretty active on the sales and distribution front with more than 4,000 retail touch points across the country. The company is developing localised marketing campaigns focusing on the target segment to ensure better connect and drive strong awareness and understanding of its products as well as its differentiators. A unique initiative it has undertaken is to set up BlackBerry Experience Zones which are based on the store-in-store concept. Currently, it has 500 BlackBerry Experience Zones across the country and plans to add another 250 by the end of this year. ?The intention is to give the customer an opportunity to experience the product, its specifications and benefits,? says Lalvani.

In addition, RIM has made a concentrated effort towards developing applications that are relevant to the end users. ?We understand the needs of the young Indians and are working towards creating content that would be of their interest. Both the smartphone and tablet segment by BlackBerry offers a wide variety of apps that help them find jobs, look for the perfect match, manage finance etc. with popular apps like Naukri, Shaadi, Bharat Matrimony, Indiabulls, Bloomberg Alarm Clock, Blue Mobile etc. Enterprise customers using BlackBerry now also get empowered with interesting business apps to help increase efficiency, manage work and monitor results. These include Quintell BI Dashboard, UnVired applications for SAP Dashboards, and even specific security applications for employees of the BPO industry,? says Lalvani.

With its focus on business agility, responsiveness and innovation, the Canadian smartphone maker is holding on to impressive growth in India. By any yardstick, it is a frontrunner to convert millions of feature phone users into data-wielding smartphone customers here.