SMARTPHONE-MAKER IN ROUGH SEA Top Execs Abandon Troubled BlackBerry At least 6 execs have quit the co to join the likes of Apple,Samsung and Micromax Smartphone makers Apple,Samsung Electronics and Micromax are scrambling to pick top talent leaving their beleaguered rival Black-Berry in India even as recent uncertainties over the Canadian firms future have badly dented its market share.More than half a dozen senior executives have quit BlackBerry India in the past three months to join the three companies with two critical exits in the past three weeks,two senior executives who have recently left BlackBerry India said.Some of them have joined at the same salary package,while several others who are currently on the lookout are ready to take a paycut,they said.Apples iPhone team in India is already dominated by former BlackBerry executives including chief of iPhone business Sanjay Kaul,Manish Sharma who was BlackBerrys chief of modern trade and Rahul Puri who used to head its northern region.Debashis Dutta,who was more recently head of modern retail and online sales at BlackBerry in the country,too quit earlier this month and is now tipped to join Apple.Recent exits at BlackBerry India include Prosenjit Sen,its director of retail channel sales who joined Micromax this month as vice-president of sales;Sunil Cutinha who quit as the head of service and joined Samsung as director of customer satisfaction;Gary Chaudhury who was heading enterprise business in India and several other markets,and Sumita Tandon who was the head of human resources.In the mid-level,more than 15 executives from the sales,marketing and service teams including regional heads have quit.BlackBerry Indias headcount has almost halved to 30 in the past nine months,the two ex-executives said.The vacant positions are not getting filled up,they added.BlackBerry Indias director of corporate communication,Varghese M Thomas,said the company continues to attract the top talent in the industry.We continue to hire key talent in India based on business needs and market dynamics.We continue to retain our key talent as most of the leadership team in India has been with BlackBerry for over three years now, he said,responding to a detailed questionnaire emailed to him.Our focus and commitment continue to remain on growing and strengthening the business in India by aligning to our global goals to drive the company towards profitability. BlackBerrys share in the Indian smartphone market has fallen to about 0.6% during July-September from 6% a year earlier,according to market tracker CMR.Samsung had close to a 40% share at the end of September,followed by Micromax at 19.7%,Karbonn at 9.7%,Nokia at 5.7% and Apple at 1.4%.BlackBerry has seen widespread departure of executives and layoffs globally in recent times.The company,which has been hit by losses,last year put itself on sale,but abandoned the process in November.The chief of a leading mobile phone brand in India,which has recruited former BlackBerry executives,said the company has been losing talent for the past few months.Major exits have already taken place since executives have realised that it will be difficult for BlackBerry to make a turnaround with the current strategy, he said.Sunil Dutt,a veteran telecom industry executive and former BlackBerry India MD who quit in March last year,said it might become a difficult task for the company to bounce back.In the Indian mobile phone market,innovative products at the right price and right channel strategy are required to be successful, he said.If a brand starts to lose market share,it becomes extremely difficult to recover it back.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:37:01 +0000