NOKIA - A Finnish Default



There is always an advantage attached to whoever enters the market first. Even if the beginning is great the rules do not end there, because the game does not end there. The main rule of the game always falls back upon who defends and play it well. Cases where in the market is mature and innovation is the basic perquisite but it becomes even more difficult to consolidate position when you know you can be outwitted any time. Mobile phone manufacturing today has become one of the most horrendous markets today. There is cutthroat competition with smaller brands entering day to day challenging propriety. Each brand has a charisma of its own. There is some new added addendums and stereotypical features and benefit in every set at much cheaper rates. Forget about brand differentiation, the mobility of the mobile industry has become more of a process and application based warfare. You got something new? The one who offers more gets more. In short what is important to the mobile market today is to innovate and stay up to dated with technology.

If it is only twitter it would not work. People want to tweet and facebooking side by side but they would love if you could YouTube along with. If we go by the tales Nokia is assumed to be the world power in the mobile manufacturing business. It was one of the companies that controlled the world by taking on the wireless network. What fun. The mere beauty of the mobile handsets is its sleek body that has been so dynamic since 1990s since it was first launched. The mobiles were first introduced by NOKIA which turned out to be one for the biggest global companies in 1990. With revenues increasing multifold in multiples of five in the first decade itself NOKIA was a promise to the future. With its 1100 it revolutionised of how people talk and look at communication. There were no lines no connection but people at opposite side of the world could actually talk. NOKIA did it all. In 2005 when it sold its 1 millionth customer a 1100 handset it proved itself to enjoy a Sun that would never set.

However time has reaped some added difficulties in NOKIA. This Finland based company is still number one in sales and manufacturing but the problem inherently lies in its inability to contain competition. By far entering a market is a lesson best learned from NOKIA but considering its current situation problems that have arose recently NOKIA seems to be in some trouble. It announced on its September 10th report its appointment of first non Finnish CEO that tells a lot about how desperately the company wants to get back on track.

NOKIA still has the tune of nearly one third global sales but today Korea based Samsung, Research In Motion made Blackberry and many other big and small brands in their area of operation are building huge performance concerns to NOKIA. Problem with NOKIA owe to the fact that, it has resumed nearing nil innovation in its initial decade of operation. This has incentivised many other manufacturers to enter. Consider the Apple’s iphone itself brought down the sales of NOKIA by nearly 49% in Western markets. NOKIA never tried to look after what was happening with headsets. From mere telephonic devices these phones were developing into computing and social networking devices. They were not merely devices that were used to communicate; they started becoming part of the human lives and this innovation NOKIA lacked. Its criteria to provide a telephonic base limited its growth and paved the way for intelligent competitor to question such a big giant.

How the situation intensified was even more interesting. With NOKIA fully aware of how computing and technology was merging through online operation on cell phones through camera, video, twitter facebook and YouTube NOKIA never tried to question its own beliefs. The problems of this disaster were evident with Sweden based Ericsson making big moves earlier in the sector but NOKIA too confident made no move to correct it. They were too sure of their own capability as a handset provider.

Furthermore another major drawback associated with NOKIA is cited to be its positioning. For banking if we go to Wall Street or Switzerland and for manufacturing France or Landon but we would never go to Finland for cell phones. Finland was definitely an odd choice for a cell phone manufacturer who wanted to make a global impact. When the market demands technology you need to make yourself in accordance with them push yourself to locations that might suit your users. It was in propriety of NOKIA to settle offshore as late as 2000. No innovation and wrong placement in its second decade eventually curtailed its growth. Even though it has brought in new features recently but its initial mistakes has let others enter the market which otherwise would not have been possible.

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