Nokia Corporation - Essay Example

Nokia Corporation The aspect of mobility possessed the power to provide active as well as full support towards the growth of the economies and development of the societies. This particular aspect of mobility has changed the entire business world and imposed significant impact upon the nations whether developed or underdeveloped. In terms of mobility, Nokia Corporation is considered to be the role model especially towards the innovation of long term plans in national as well as worldwide mobile industry or in the telecommunication sector (Nokia, 2012). The introduction of Nokia as a potential business organisation is viewed as possessing the biggest mobile exposure in the world of information technology. The business organisation has emerged with the name of inventions as well as realities associated with the telecommunication business segment. It is in this context that Nokia has been established possessing different superior quality as well as excellent brand presence in several local business markets (Nokia, 2012). The operations of Nokia expanded significantly in all the spheres in order to satisfy the various desires as well as the requirements of the customers along with the growth particularly in the telecommunication industry. Subsequently, the overall expansion of the business of Nokia ultimately supported the organisation to attain huge success along with attaining competitive position by a significant level (Nokia, 2012). The Story of Nokia Corporation The journey of Nokia began since the year 1865 when Fredrik Idestam, a mining engineer, founded a timber pulp mill or factory in South-Western Finland. Gradually, the other mill was established in the year 1871 which inspired the name of his company to be changed as Nokia Ab. The effectual business operations of Nokia since its inception ultimately made the organisation to be a principal multinational business organisation relating with the telecommunication business sector (Nokia, 2012). Nokia became quite successful to operate its business functions influentially by employing approximately 139,000 employees throughout the world. The main products of Nokia include mobile electronic devices, mobile telephones that include smartphones with tough screens and phones with typing pads along with other communication devices. The products such as Lumia 800, E6-00 and N8-00 are few of the attractive mobile products that belong to Nokia (Nokia, 2012). The mission of Nokia is to enhance the connectivity amid the social framework of international regions. The chief goal of the organisation is to build superior quality of mobile products and serve its worldwide customers and to attain a significant market share. In order to achieve its expected business goals, Nokia has formed a tactical business partnership with its related industries such as Microsoft that is expected to support the organisation to attain maximum profits in the smartphone business market. In this context, the strategy of Nokia aims to leverage its strengths as well as innovations in developed business markets in order to connect a huge mass of people (Nokia, 2012). The organisation intends to invest heavily in its future endeavours in order to develop its different assets that include technical features, software application programs and hardware components relating with the different phones belonging to the organisation. The other important business tactic of Nokia is greatly focussing upon the aspect of new market as well as new product development strategy. The business organisation also tends to execute other noteworthy strategies with the intention of attaining its expected business objectives (Nokia, 2012). Telecommunication Industry The effective combination of several telecommunication deregulations, enhanced enlargement of various internet related applications and the attractiveness of the mobile services ultimately accelerated the pace of growth in the telecommunication industry. Due to rapid expansion as well as growth in the telecommunication sector, numerous telecommunication equipment manufacturers along with different business organisations associated with the industry were able to attain huge revenue as well as business reputation (Cheng & et. al., 2003). The telecommunication industry is viewed as an important infrastructure segment in different nations. It has further been pragmatic that the worldwide telecommunication industry has been growing considerably due to broad execution of different communication services that include broadband and internet access, mobile and fixed-line telephony among others. It has been estimated that the worldwide telecommunication industry or the telecom business market would reach US$1.8 trillion by the year 2015. In this context, there lies quite broader prospect or scope of the telecommunication organisations such as Nokia in terms of its future growth prospects (Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC. 2012). In the year 2011, the telecommunication industry ultimately managed to cope up with certain difficult business situations or worldwide crucial shocks that threatened the industry considerably. The major shocks included the economic downturn globally that unfavourably affected the financial performance of the market participants relating to the sector throughout the world. As a result, the growth of the organisations was slowed down due to the commencement of worldwide financial crisis and decreased operational efficiencies of the organisations by a certain extent. Consequently, the other important shock was regarding the disturbance that was primarily caused by the factor of mass digitisation. It is owing to the current trend that in recent times the consumers as well as the businesses are continuously becoming quite demanding and forcing the market participants to introduce innovative or latest technologies that include cloud computing and mobile imbursement platforms among others. With the rising demand of the customers as well as the businesses, the telecommunication industry is constantly becoming quite competitive as the new business market participants are looking forward to take advantage of complying with the expectations of the customers along with technological openness (Booz & Company Inc., 2012). The telecom business organisations or the related industries have reached into a probable solution in order to mitigate the above discussed major disruptions as well as to prosper in the telecommunication industry in the future. The crucial solutions are based upon certain business models that include global Multi Marketer business enabler, network guarantor and experience creator that might largely contribute towards developing as well as prospering especially in the telecommunication industry in the long run. The model of network guarantor represents offering the network infrastructure along with related services to the consumers by performing certain key capabilities. The capabilities generally include maintaining cost-efficiency in the operational functions of the infrastructure, smoothly integrating information technology platforms as well as applications and delivering utmost reliability in terms of network along with the availability of the technology. The other model i.e. business enabler generally look forward towards monetising the assets of the business operators or organisations relating with the telecommunication industry by opening up the potential infrastructures in order to deliver the services directly to the customers more effectively. The performing capabilities of this particular model generally include managing well organised as well as systematic interrelation with different business partners offering enhanced services. The other capabilities of this model also embrace requirement of flexibility in order to meet with the necessity of the different partners and a capacity for cumulating different services or platforms into attractive packages for every individual business partners. The model i.e. experience creator, fundamentally generates the idea of offering the customers or a specific business segment, the best probable arrangement of enhanced applications as well as contents as compared with the competitors (Booz & Company Inc., 2012). The role as well as the importance of this particular model is quite important for the telecom business operators or organisations due to the fact that it would assist them to possess deeper insight regarding the various requirements or preferences of the customers. The different capabilities that are included in this model include the ability to build up latest or innovative applications or services, delivering admirable customer service as well as managing and generating superior potential experience of the customers. The conception of the model of global Multi Marketer fundamentally signifies that the largest telecom business organisations or operators such as Nokia possess the real business opportunity in order to enlarge their businesses into different multiple business markets as well as segments. The various capabilities of this particular model include proficiency in organising, marketing as well as operating in diverse geographical locations and the capacity to advance different business models. Furthermore, another capability of this model includes accompanying different business operational abilities that can be replicated in diverse business markets without raising overall complexity to be faced by the organisation (Booz & Company Inc., 2012). The following two graphs depicts that there lies much broader scope as well as prospect for the telecommunication operators or the related business organisations such as Nokia in future on the basis of increased information and communication technology developments along with the enlargement of internet users (International Telecommunication Union, 2012). Source: (International Telecommunication Union, 2012) Source: (International Telecommunication Union, 2012) Market Competition In relation to the telecommunication industry, the execution of mobile phones or handsets is increasingly becoming more stylish as well as attractive due to the introduction of enhanced technology features. Due to increased demand of the handsets or mobile phones along with constantly mounting innovative technical features, a fierce business market competition can be identified to persist in the mobile phone industry. The various major market participants belonging to telecommunication industry other than Nokia include Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola among others. Each of these market participants or business organisations actively contributes in this competitive world of financial market due to certain significant reasons. The crucial reasons include attaining considerable market share, keeping constant growth of the business, sustaining the productivity as well as the profitability of the organisation and finally to attain momentous competitive position in the long run (Anderson & Jonsson, 2005). The mobile handset business market in relation to telecommunication sector is quite competitive due to the fact that the different business organisations such as Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson also deliver similar products or services to their worldwide customers but with diverse physical attributes intended towards specific customer preferences. The different business organisations principally intend to deliver their best products or services in order to attract the buyers by lowering the costs along with improving the various products. This particular fact ultimately contributes towards making the mobile handset business market much more competitive. The chief factors of competitive rivalry particularly in the mobile handset business market include the cost of the mobile phones, innovative features offered in a single phone, inclusion of new technologies and better customer services by the brand. On the basis of the above discussed aspects, the mobile phone industry is likely to witness fiercely increasing competition in its near future (Chan & et. al., 2006). The market analysis of the leading mobile handset business organisations is provided here under. Source: (International Data Corporation, 2012) Marketing Strategy In order to fulfil the different expected business objectives that include attaining considerable market share as well as competitive position, sustaining in the competitive business market and maintaining the productivity along with profitability, Nokia normally intends to execute a few well defined competitive marketing strategies. In this context, one of the major tactics is regarding new product development based strategy. The conception of new product development tactic refers to the overture of new products in the established business markets (Boone & Kurtz, 2011). Nokia broadly executes this particular strategy of new product development in order to attract its worldwide customers along with attaining its desired business objectives. In relation to new product development tactic, it has been recognised that Nokia has been following a sort of monotonous design template for its superior as well as high quality product ranges. The overall size of the handsets belonging to Nokia is observed to be rather modest and thus widely accepted by its worldwide customers. In terms of visual display screen, the business organisation i.e. Nokia delivers improved as well as superior screen quality around that mainly differentiates its products from the business market competitors. From the perspective of functional controls and keyboard, Nokia remarkably executes dedicated media buttons for its valuable products. In terms of connectivity, Nokia facilitates the availability of Wi-Fi in its broad assortment of valuable products that assist the users to organize network connections in a semi-automatic mode (Scribd Inc, 2012). Nokia also introduced certain enhanced operational functions associated with the factor of connectivity that include the availability of network filtering through which the customers can easily detect their networks, magnificent security standards and support of mass storage mode among others. Furthermore, Nokia while developing its new product greatly emphasises upon its battery system regarding it to be one of the crucial functional equipments for the quality life of its products. It has been observed that few of the products belonging to Nokia are equipped with a relatively organised functioning battery through which the customers can communicate with the people without any disruptions. Along with the improved facility of battery, the business organisation also introduces large capacity of memory while developing its new product that is readily available to the customers. From the perspective of offering superior facility of multimedia related operations towards the customers, Nokia delivers quite standard multimedia associated facets like executing the option of music player through improved navigation buttons that facilitate the customers to conveniently use the feature of media player in the mobile phones (Scribd Inc, 2012). The above discussed facets and the business strategy of new product development would ultimately assist Nokia to attain its expected business objectives by a significant level. In relation to its marketing strategy of new product development, Nokia tends to execute specific policies to attain better competitive advantages. The conception of new market development strategy is fundamentally described as persuade the new customers towards existing products. In other words, the aspect of new market development strategy generally involves the performance of sales of the existing products along with services particularly in the new business market. The notion of new market development strategy is widely executed when the existing business markets are observed to be undeveloped in terms of growth and much difficult to attain considerable market share. This particular fact is due to the increased level of market competition along with the presence of huge market participants or competitors (Lamb & et. al., 2011). In relation to new market development strategy, Nokia intended to be majorly focussed upon more attractive business market opportunities by introducing 4G technology through which the business organisation can attain significant competitive position along with generating profitable income growth. In general, Nokia emphasised upon the idea of differentiation strategy in which the business of the organisation concentrated upon attaining superior business performance by generating greater level of customer satisfaction. In lieu of the differentiation strategy, Nokia distinguished its valuable products through leadership by introducing as well as developing user friendly phones that are provided in most of the mobile business market. Furthermore, in relation to new market development strategy, along with focussing upon differentiation strategy, Nokia also emphasised upon ‘focus business strategy’ in which the organisation deeply concentrated upon understanding the requirement of the customers and meeting them accordingly. In this context, it has been observed that Nokia is among the earliest organisations that produced the handsets possessing user interface in 16 different languages. On the basis of the above discussed grounds, Nokia greatly concentrated upon differentiation as well as focus business strategy in order to persuade the customers as well as to penetrate into the new business markets with existing products (Scribd Inc, 2012). The aspect of diversification strategy usually plays an imperative part in supporting as well as aiding the business organisations with the intention of flourishing considerably in future. The term ‘diversification’ is characteristically associated with a definite transformation particularly in the facets in relation to product line or business market of a particular business organisation. The crucial purpose of introducing the business strategy of diversification is due to aim of generating new product in the business market along with attaining momentous market share (Ansoff, n.d.). In regard towards implementing the diversification business strategy, Nokia introduced certain innovative products in untapped business markets that include the models of the smart phones including N97 and N900 among others in order to compete with one of its major market competitors i.e. Apple. In this context, Nokia intended to enlarge its business operations throughout the world by introducing certain innovative facets in its product line such as the updated online services of the organisation, messaging and execution of 3G technology and other related business operations. Additionally, in lieu towards the successful execution of diversification business tactic, Nokia emphasised upon joining the forces with Microsoft Office Mobile in order to deliver Microsoft software on various valuable phones belonging to Nokia. On the basis of the diversification strategy of Nokia, it can be stated that the organisation remains fully committed towards bringing innovation in the business market along with initiating more deliberate efforts as compared with its market competitors in order to introduce new technology in the business market (Scribd Inc., 2012). It can be suggested in this context that apart from the execution of different marketing tactics such as the new market or product development strategy and diversification strategy, Nokia could also opt for another significant marketing strategy i.e. confrontation strategy in order to sustain with a leadership position in the industry. The effective utilisation of the confrontation strategy would ultimately lead the company towards winning the preferences of the customers who might get attracted with the offerings of its major market competitors by a significant level. This particular strategy of confrontation would also assist the organisation to efficiently overcome the fierce competition presented by business markets in the international stature attaining a sustainable competitive position in its future performances (Scribd Inc, 2012). Questions 1. Briefly analyse the market situation of worldwide telecommunication industry in terms of profitability and market share with relevant pictorial representations such as graphs or charts. 2. Identify the different business marketing strategies that Nokia Corporation implemented during its execution of business operations. Suggest and justify any one alternative strategy for Nokia Corporation. References Anderson, J. L. & Jonsson, M. E., 2005. Recent Trends in Mobile – The Value Chain Unbundles. The Mobile Handset Industry in Transition. [Online] Available at: http://www.jamieandersononline.com/uploads/The_Mobile_Handset_Industry_in_Transition.pdf [Accessed May 22, 2012]. Ansoff, H. I., No Date. 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