Companies Restructuring

Search the local media to identify companies that are growing OR restructuring. What are some of the impacts on supply and demand of personnel? How will the company that is growing need to forecast differently than the company that is restructuring? What are some of the HR programs that need to be in place to address a surplus or shortage of staff?

Blackberry is a perfect example of restructuring. It is a world leader in terms of telecommunicating with wireless phone, messaging and data access built into their popular product line. First introduced in 1984 created by RIM (research in motion) of waterloo, Ontario. Blackberry’s market share grew from 15% at the beginning of 2008 to ~ 22% by 2009. Since then, sales for blackberry plummeted to 0.5% in Q2 2014 (Source IDC, 2014 Q2). This was a major decline for any of world leader. Steps were taken to correct this big deficit gap in their market share. The Blackberry phones which once dominated the smartphone market went into turmoil, driven by the rise on Apple’s iPhone and a series of strategic missteps. This has led to exit of its co-founders and major restructuring over the last 2-3 years.

Blackberry had ~21,000 employees at its peak but due to the above decline in their market share to get to the global head count of ~7,000 employees by Q1 2015.

Impacts on supply and demand of personnel is:

1. Reduced supply and hence focus on retention of their key employees: After a big layoff, blackberry was in a crux to retain key employees.

a. The major step to retain their keep employees was to provide them with stock ownership so they can remain the engine for product innovation.

b. Company also offered competitive salary and benefits to retain and avoid brain drain

c. Blackberry also provided attractive workplace for employees compared to competition for the remaining employees

2. Lower demand and providing soft landing for laid-off employees: As a result of layoff, there was an...