After three years marked by wave after wave of aggressive cutbacks, employees at BlackBerry Ltd. can finally catch a breather, according to an internal memo from CEO John Chen that fell into the hands of the press on Tuesday. The news hold broad reaching implications for the struggling phone maker that extend far beyond just the immediate job security of its remaining workers.

The email, which was originally sent out last Friday, signals quite clearly that BlackBerry has reached a position from which management is more or less comfortable moving forward on its growth plans. The company shed approximately 60 percent of its workforce since 2011, unloading all non-essential assets and outsourcing much of its manufacturing operations in a bid to drive down overhead. At 7,000 employees, the new BlackBerry is slimmer and more focused than ever, yet Chen still has an incredibly tough task ahead of him.

Repeating history

But it’s not as if he hasn’t been in this kind of situation before. The executive had made a name for himself in the industry after pulling Sybase Inc. back from the brink of bankruptcy and selling it to business intelligence powerhouse SAP S.E. for $5.8 billion in 2010, more than six times its value when he took over as CEO in 1998. Chen is now betting his reputation that he’ll be able to repeat history with BlackBerry, and he’s leaving as little as possible to chance.

Immediately after assuming position of chief executive at BlackBerry last November, Chen started replacing the company’s old leadership with members of his old Sybase team. The latest addition to the roster is Marty Beard, who led the database and mobile management vendor’s cloud unit and later headed LiveOps Inc., a provider of cloud-based contact center services that lists Salesforce.com, eBay, Coca Cola  among its more than 300 customers.

At BlackBerry, Beard holds the title of chief operating officer, which positions him as Chen’s right-hand man. That is an indication of just how important cloud computing is to the CEO’s vision for BlackBerry, who made clear in his new email to employees that he intends to double down on key growth areas  now that the first phase of the restructuring process has been completed.

Chen wrote that, should the company not encounter any unexpected bumps in the immediate future, it will not only avoid more major layoffs but actively  begin bolstering core product development, sales and customer service teams. He also highlighted that strategic acquisitions are now on the table for BlackBerry, confirming that the recent purchase of German anti-eavesdropping startup Secusmart GmbH wasn’t a one-off. Security as it least as big of a priority for Chen as cloud computing since it’s one of the few markets where the firm still  maintains a firm footprint, which the deal will no doubt help cement amid the growing concern in Europe and elsewhere over government snooping.

photo credit: sam_churchill via photopin cc