The stakeholder problem

Thorsten Heins, CEO of RIM:

We are undertaking a comprehensive review of strategic opportunities including partnerships and joint ventures, licensing, and other ways to leverage RIM’s assets and maximize value for our stakeholders.

There is a lot packed into that sentence, most of it defensive. Partnerships, joint ventures, licensing, assets, stakeholder value. It reads like a company trying to rearrange the business before asking why people stopped caring about the product.

‘Stakeholders’ is one of those useful corporate words that makes everyone sound included while saying almost nothing specific. In RIM’s case, the missing word is more revealing.

Customers.