Case Analysis of Alarm Ringing: Nokia in 2010

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Nokia’s presence and brand recognition in the US market which is fastest growing market in smartphones, was very low so they have to maintain long term relationship with major wireless carriers in the US to capture the US market. And also give the more priority for the new and innovative idea to develop the new smartphones. Management team of Nokia should be more innovative and communicate channel for each other department should be improve so every department can communicate with each other for developing the phones and maintain relation with other department. Communication also helps them to share the innovative idea to other.

Nokia also have to appoint new CEO who have good experience in software and market sector but he don’t have any kind of experience in mobile device so they should appoint a CEO who have knowledge in smartphones and mobile devices.

The Challenges Faced by Elop

Elop, first non-Finn CEO of Nokia had early been president of MBD, worked in Microsoft also had served as CEO of Juniper Network and also worked as CEO of graphic software development at Macromedia later became president of worldwide field operations at Adobe System. He also worked as a CIO at Boston Chicken. Elop have very broad software experience and deep knowledge of North American market.

When Elop entered in Nokia, Nokia already started to lose its market share so Elop’s main responsibility to increase the market share of Nokia and make the positive image and brand in the market. And also one of the most important task for Elop was develop a challenger to iPhone as the smartphone maker and steer Nokia in a new and innovative direction and build up the brand image of the company. The mobile phone market was already capture by iPhone and Android but he did not make research to know the market taste rather he make strategy for the company and build an efficient OS and invest huge amount of money of R&D but new version of Symbian also did not work in the smartphone market.

Elop have deep knowledge of North American market so he has another challenge to establishing Nokia’s presence in North American market but he failed to design and develop an interface that suited in US market as the typefaces, screen layouts, and hardware designs of Nokia phones.

As a first non-Finnish CEO of the company, adjusting to Nokia’s culture would also be a challenge for Elop. The long process of Nokia’s product creation right from concept to design was very Finnish, usually characterized by long approval processes. But Elop made strategy suitable for him but it is very hard for him to implement his strategy Nokia because of cultural differences and lack of leadership in every department of Nokia. He also suffered froi cultural bias from chairman and long standing management team.

Strategy that Elop could adopt in these difficult times

Nokia loses the market share because it cannot adopt latest smart technology i.e. operating system and touch screen. Also it fails to release its mobile device on promised time. As a CEO of Nokia, Elop have many challenges to increase the market share of Nokia.

Nokia already spend huge amount of money in R&D but it had meet with failure to design and develop the new device and also interest of the consumer on Symbian phones manufactured by Nokia was decreases so Elop had to made acquire strategy to use Android system developed by Google rather to invest money to develop new operating system.

Nokia only focused on low level market by developing low cost mobile and also decreasing the price of the product, but the consumer are upgraded to more expensive model so Elop have to make product differentiation by focuses on expensive mobile phones with latest technology like touchscreen. He could make the strategy to build long term partnerships with major wireless carriers in the US by making contract or deal with them to capture the US market to make presence and brand recognition of Nokia.

Elop could maintain the relationship with the management team and departments and make communication channel stronger. He should have to understand the culture of Nokia and make a short chain for decision making process.

Elop should make also marketing strategy to capture the new market and gives market presence.

Recommendations and suggestions

The firm’s top priority should be to focus on pushing manufacturing and sales of its smartphones in emerging markets because low-cost Android phones have eaten into the company’s basic phone sales, it should look to sell lower-cost versions of its Lumia range there, he adds. Nokia needs to build the best phone on the market. They need to build a phone with specs at least on par with the leaders today (Samsung and iPhone), then make it thinner, make it lighter, give it a good quality camera (12 - 15 megapixels at best, not 41), maybe some other bells and whistles like wireless charging, and sell it at a reasonable price.