Change is something that everyone has to go through, especially a business. When a bigger or better product comes out, you have to compete in order to thrive. In the wireless communications industry, there are a few key big name companies that run the market. At one point, there was a company who basically started the industry by selling the world’s first mobile phone, but failed to adapt to change and is now struggling to keep up. Motorola is a company who blazed the trail but fell short in keeping up with the market and adapting to change.
Motorola has roots dated back to 1928, but was in a much different business than they are today. Back then their focus was car radios in which they were the first to produce in a brand new market. But this wouldn’t be their only first production. They were the first to launch a variety of products that other companies learned, improved, and became better well known for.
Motorola developed the first pager, which eventually led to the world’s first cell phone. In a brand new market, in which they were the first company in it, they should have capitalized and dominated. They could have controlled the market by expanding their research and technology team to constantly come up with better improvements. Instead other companies such as Apple pushed them out and took over the market. Now Motorola struggles to compete with their own ‘Droid’ lineup.
Another huge area they missed out on was wireless networking. In the IT industry there are two main competitors, Linksys and Cisco. Everyone in the industry knows about them because they continually put out great products year after year. But a little known fact is that Mottorola was the first company to actually put out the first wireless cable modem gateway. If you have internet in your house from any major cable provider such as Comcast, Verizon Fios, Time Warner, or Cox Cable, you almost certainly have a newer version of the old wireless cable modems.
Motorola is a company who peaked at 150,000 employees who failed to keep up with change and is now struggling in the market. They had many opportunities to dominate the market with being the first company to come out with a variety of world famous products, but failed to clinch at an opportunistic time.
References
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Motorola – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved September 27, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola
It sounds like Motorola has not had a problem actually finding and bringing new products to market, but they seem to have been unable to keep a firm hold and drive the market. What do you think is lacking in their organization from a leadership perspective that would fix this repetitive problem?