Along with a new year come fresh – and often ignored – resolutions. These are meant to shake bad habits, adopt better ones and ride the long road to prosperity.
This year, it looks as though Canadian technology giant Research in Motion is looking to improve its image via a change in corporate governance.
But an image overhaul may not be enough for RIM, as its reputation may be damaged beyond repair.
At this point, Royal Bank of Canada executive Barbara Stymiest seems to be a shoo-in to replace co-chairs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as chair of RIM’s board.
After the year that the BlackBerry-maker had in 2011, this is the type of shakeup that would prompt some form of investor optimism for the future.
Shareholders are certainly fed up with the disappointing performances and public relations blunders that RIM endured in 2011 – dominating the business pages for all the wrong reasons.
A quick year in review: the failure of the PlayBook, service outages and Lazaridis’ peculiar behaviour ranging from walking out of a BBC interview to recording a public address from what looks like a bunker.
This is in addition to a declining market share, company layoffs and a share price that dropped by more than 75 per cent.
And it’s not even as if the future is necessarily that bright.
There is little excitement surrounding the new PlayBook 2.0 set to be released in February and there are no new BlackBerry devices coming out until midway through 2012.
On the surface, replacing Balsillie and Lazaridis with Stymiest – a former CEO of the TSX as well as current board member for a slew of prominent Canadian organizations – seems like a no-brainer.
The problem is that this is a move that should have taken shape months ago.
Sure, it is an understatement to say that RIM had a lot on its plate in the past year, none of it good. However, the two stubborn co-CEOs should have addressed the issue – at least assure shareholders they were aware of the problem – before the wheels came off.
What makes matters worse for RIM is that it continues to lose pace in the rapidly changing technology industry, where one slip-up seems like an all-out tumble.It never helps when a company has to compete against a favourite such as Apple.
Based on her credentials and current position as one of RIM’s directors since 2007, Stymiest appears to be a worthy candidate. However, in RIM’s case, a re-organization in governance might not be enough to bring it back to prominence.
Even if Stymiest does a fantastic job of gaining investor trust, the gap between the company and its investors seems insurmountable.
As with any new year’s resolution, you have to start somewhere.
But in RIM’s case, it has done too little far too late.