Sunil Lalvani to take over reins of BlackBerry India

Sunil Lalvani, who used to head enterprise sales for the BlackBerry in India, will be its new managing director for the country, the company announced on Thursday. Lalvani, who has been with the BlackBerry since 2009, will be responsible for overseeing and driving the overall business strategy and growth for the company in India, said a release.

Following the sudden exit of Sunil Dutt, days after the launch of their flagship phone the Z10 in India this March, BlackBerry had announced that Rick Costanzo, Executive Vice President for Global Sales, had taken charge of the team in India.

Commenting on his appointment, the release quoted Lalvani as saying: "BlackBerry is driving the adoption of its next generation of mobile computing platform with BlackBerry 10, and India is a key market for growth of the powerful platform.  As I take up this new role, our focus will be to drive differentiated solutions for consumers and enterprise customers in India, providing a unique mobility experience that harnesses the full range of the BlackBerry offering."

Lalvani has over 20 years of experience in the telecom sales and networking sector. Prior to joining BlackBerry in 2009, Lalvani held various senior level positions with leading IT companies including Cisco, Nokia, SITA-Equant, and Global Telesystems.

Lalvani will be faced with the tough task of wooing new customers for the BlackBerry Z10 platform while holding on to existing customers who now have more smartphone options in the market.