The implosion of RIM seems to be well underway. I say that because there’s been a spat of letters that have been published that seem to display RIM’s dirty laundry for all to see. The first letter comes from a “RIM Executive” that the Boy Genius has posted:
Mike and Jim, please take the time to really absorb and digest the content of this letter because it reflects the feeling across a huge percentage of your employee base. You have many smart employees, many that have great ideas for the future, but unfortunately the culture at RIM does not allow us to speak openly without having to worry about the career-limiting effects.
I’ll let you read the rest of the letter as it is well written and well thought out in terms of what needs to be done by RIM to get out of the situation that they currently find themselves in. Now the story doesn’t end there. RIM responded to this on the official RIM blog:
An “Open Letter” to RIM’s senior management was published anonymously on the web today and it was attributed to an unnamed person described as a “high level employee”. It is obviously difficult to address anonymous commentary and it is particularly difficult to believe that a “high level employee” in good standing with the company would choose to anonymously publish a letter on the web rather than engage their fellow executives in a constructive manner, but regardless of whether the letter is real, fake, exaggerated or written with ulterior motivations, it is fair to say that the senior management team at RIM is nonetheless fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company’s challenges and its opportunities.
RIM recently confirmed that it is nearing the end of a major business and technology transition. Although this transition has taken longer than anticipated, there is much excitement and optimism within the company about the new products that are lined up for the coming months. There is a fundamental business reality however that following an extended period of hyper growth (during which RIM nearly quadrupled in size over the past 5 years alone), it has become necessary for the company to streamline its operations in order to allow it to grow its business profitably while pursuing newer strategic opportunities. Again, RIM’s management team takes these challenges seriously and is actively addressing the situation. The company is thankfully in a solid business and financial position to tackle the opportunities ahead with a solid balance sheet (nearly $3 billion in cash and no debt), strong profitability (RIM’s net income last quarter was $695 million) and substantial international growth (international revenue in Q1 grew 67% over the same quarter last year). In fact, while growth has slowed in the US, RIM still shipped 13.2 million BlackBerry smartphones last quarter (which is about 100 smartphones per minute, 24 hours per day) and RIM is more committed than ever to serving its loyal customers and partners around the world.
So RIM responded to an anonymous letter with an anonymous reply. That’s a #fail. It would have carried more weight if Jim or Mike wrote something. Oh yeah, that will never happen. But to be fair, I’m sure that they are trying to address their challenges. But clearly they aren’t addressing the corporate culture. That’s because more letters from other employees have appeared. Here’s what one had to say:
I was an employee at RIM for a year and a half. I worked in the legal and business affairs departments, and despite having originally thought I’d landed the jackpot job-wise, it took no time for me to begin planning my exodus.
Here’s what another had to say:
If I could only tell Mike, Jim and the rest of the C*O crowd one thing, it would be this: stop keeping the incredible pool of smart, talented and capable people handcuffed by poorly thought through process. It’s destroying the company, and destroying those of us that have to manage it. Being able to move quickly and innovate is what will save the company, and that goes completely opposite all our process.
Well, it really sounds like RIM is a crappy place to work. No wonder they’re in the situation they’re in. Not to mention the appearance of these anonymous letters. That will keep happening until RIM management really begins to get it. That needs to happen soon or RIM is going to find itself in a situation where it cannot recover from.
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This entry was posted on July 2, 2011 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags RIM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Letters From RIM Employees Show Significant Discourse Within RIM
The implosion of RIM seems to be well underway. I say that because there’s been a spat of letters that have been published that seem to display RIM’s dirty laundry for all to see. The first letter comes from a “RIM Executive” that the Boy Genius has posted:
Mike and Jim, please take the time to really absorb and digest the content of this letter because it reflects the feeling across a huge percentage of your employee base. You have many smart employees, many that have great ideas for the future, but unfortunately the culture at RIM does not allow us to speak openly without having to worry about the career-limiting effects.
I’ll let you read the rest of the letter as it is well written and well thought out in terms of what needs to be done by RIM to get out of the situation that they currently find themselves in. Now the story doesn’t end there. RIM responded to this on the official RIM blog:
An “Open Letter” to RIM’s senior management was published anonymously on the web today and it was attributed to an unnamed person described as a “high level employee”. It is obviously difficult to address anonymous commentary and it is particularly difficult to believe that a “high level employee” in good standing with the company would choose to anonymously publish a letter on the web rather than engage their fellow executives in a constructive manner, but regardless of whether the letter is real, fake, exaggerated or written with ulterior motivations, it is fair to say that the senior management team at RIM is nonetheless fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company’s challenges and its opportunities.
RIM recently confirmed that it is nearing the end of a major business and technology transition. Although this transition has taken longer than anticipated, there is much excitement and optimism within the company about the new products that are lined up for the coming months. There is a fundamental business reality however that following an extended period of hyper growth (during which RIM nearly quadrupled in size over the past 5 years alone), it has become necessary for the company to streamline its operations in order to allow it to grow its business profitably while pursuing newer strategic opportunities. Again, RIM’s management team takes these challenges seriously and is actively addressing the situation. The company is thankfully in a solid business and financial position to tackle the opportunities ahead with a solid balance sheet (nearly $3 billion in cash and no debt), strong profitability (RIM’s net income last quarter was $695 million) and substantial international growth (international revenue in Q1 grew 67% over the same quarter last year). In fact, while growth has slowed in the US, RIM still shipped 13.2 million BlackBerry smartphones last quarter (which is about 100 smartphones per minute, 24 hours per day) and RIM is more committed than ever to serving its loyal customers and partners around the world.
So RIM responded to an anonymous letter with an anonymous reply. That’s a #fail. It would have carried more weight if Jim or Mike wrote something. Oh yeah, that will never happen. But to be fair, I’m sure that they are trying to address their challenges. But clearly they aren’t addressing the corporate culture. That’s because more letters from other employees have appeared. Here’s what one had to say:
I was an employee at RIM for a year and a half. I worked in the legal and business affairs departments, and despite having originally thought I’d landed the jackpot job-wise, it took no time for me to begin planning my exodus.
Here’s what another had to say:
If I could only tell Mike, Jim and the rest of the C*O crowd one thing, it would be this: stop keeping the incredible pool of smart, talented and capable people handcuffed by poorly thought through process. It’s destroying the company, and destroying those of us that have to manage it. Being able to move quickly and innovate is what will save the company, and that goes completely opposite all our process.
Well, it really sounds like RIM is a crappy place to work. No wonder they’re in the situation they’re in. Not to mention the appearance of these anonymous letters. That will keep happening until RIM management really begins to get it. That needs to happen soon or RIM is going to find itself in a situation where it cannot recover from.
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This entry was posted on July 2, 2011 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags RIM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.