BlackBerry appoints Narendra Nayak as India MD

BlackBerry today said it has appointed Narendra Nayak as the Managing Director of its India operations to steer the Canadian handset maker's restructuring efforts.

He replaces Sunil Lalvani, who had quit the organisation in June.

Based in New Delhi, Nayak will be responsible for driving BlackBerry's software and services business through all channels in India direct enterprise customers, network operators, distribution partners, the company said in a statement.

Nayak will also be responsible for BlackBerry's growing ecosystem of indirect channels in India that includes Value-Added Reseller (VAR), systems integrator and reseller partners, it added.

Nayak joins BlackBerry from venture-funded software company Linguanext Technologies, where he was responsible for growing the business in India and across South East Asia, Middle East and Africa.

Prior to Linguanext, he has held executive roles at CSC, IBM, Motorola and Digital Equipment India.

"Narendra joins us at a pivotal time, as we continue to transform our business from one fueled by the sale of smartphones, into the leading enterprise software provider focused on cross-platform mobile security and productivity," BlackBerry President Global Sales Carl Wiese said.

These are exciting times for BlackBerry in India and the company looks forward to Nayak motivating the team and driving business in the market forward, he added.

"I look forward to building our business here in India by ensuring we are helping enterprise and government organisations select and implement an end-to-end mobile security strategy whatever the device or devices they are using," Nayak said.

Once an iconic business phone maker, BlackBerry has been struggling against competitors like Apple and Samsung in the global smartphone market.

In May 2015, BlackBerry had said it will lay off an unspecified number of workers around the world, impacting those working on software, hardware and applications side of the business. This is part of the company s efforts to make its device business profitable.

According to research firm IDC, BlackBerry's market share has declined from 8.1 per cent in October-December 2011 to 0.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2014.