case study of nokia company

The Strategic Decisions That Caused Nokia’s Failure

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In less than a decade, Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It rapidly grew to have one of the most recognisable and valuable brands in the world. At its height Nokia commanded a global market share in mobile phones of over 40 percent. While its journey to the top was swift, its decline was equally so, culminating in the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2013.

It is tempting to lay the blame for Nokia’s demise at the doors of Apple, Google and Samsung. But as I argue in my latest book, “ Ringtone: Exploring the Rise and Fall of Nokia in Mobile Phones ” , this ignores one very important fact: Nokia had begun to collapse from within well before any of these companies entered the mobile communications market. In these times of technological advancement, rapid market change and growing complexity, analysing the story of Nokia provides salutary lessons for any company wanting to either forge or maintain a leading position in their industry.

Early success

With a young, united and energetic leadership team at the helm, Nokia’s early success was primarily the result of visionary and courageous management choices that leveraged the firm’s innovative technologies as digitalisation and deregulation of telecom networks quickly spread across Europe. But in the mid-1990s, the near collapse of its supply chain meant Nokia was on the precipice of being a victim of its success. In response, disciplined systems and processes were put in place, which enabled Nokia to become extremely efficient and further scale up production and sales much faster than its competitors.

Between 1996 and 2000, the headcount at Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) increased 150 percent to 27,353, while revenues over the period were up 503 percent. This rapid growth came at a cost. And that cost was that managers at Nokia’s main development centres found themselves under ever increasing short-term performance pressure and were unable to dedicate time and resources to innovation.

While the core business focused on incremental improvements, Nokia’s relatively small data group took up the innovation mantle. In 1996, it launched the world’s first smartphone, the Communicator, and was also responsible for Nokia’s first camera phone in 2001 and its second-generation smartphone, the innovative 7650.

The search for an elusive third leg

Nokia’s leaders were aware of the importance of finding what they called a “third leg” – a new growth area to complement the hugely successful mobile phone and network businesses. Their efforts began in 1995 with the New Venture Board but this failed to gain traction as the core businesses ran their own venturing activities and executives were too absorbed with managing growth in existing areas to focus on finding new growth.

A renewed effort to find the third leg was launched with the Nokia Ventures Organisation (NVO) under the leadership of one of Nokia’s top management team. This visionary programme absorbed all existing ventures and sought out new technologies. It was successful in the sense that it nurtured a number of critical projects which were transferred to the core businesses. In fact, many opportunities NVO identified were too far ahead of their time; for instance, NVO correctly identified “the internet of things” and found opportunities in multimedia health management – a current growth area. But it ultimately failed due to an inherent contradiction between the long-term nature of its activities and the short-term performance requirements imposed on it.

Reorganising for agility

Although Nokia’s results were strong, the share price high and customers around the world satisfied and loyal, Nokia’s CEO Jorma Ollila was increasingly concerned that rapid growth had brought about a loss of agility and entrepreneurialism. Between 2001 and 2005, a number of decisions were made to attempt to rekindle Nokia’s earlier drive and energy but, far from reinvigorating Nokia, they actually set up the beginning of the decline.

Key amongst these decisions was the reallocation of important leadership roles and the poorly implemented 2004 reorganisation into a matrix structure. This led to the departure of vital members of the executive team, which led to the deterioration of strategic thinking.

Tensions within matrix organisations are common as different groups with different priorities and performance criteria are required to work collaboratively. At Nokia,which had been acccustomed to decentralised initiatives, this new way of working proved an anathema. Mid-level executives had neither the experience nor training in the subtle integrative negotiations fundamental in a successful matrix.

As I explain in my book, process trumps structure in reorganisations . And so reorganisations will be ineffective without paying attention to resource allocation processes, product policy and product management, sales priorities and providing the right incentives for well-prepared managers to support these processes. Unfortunately, this did not happen at Nokia.

NMP became locked into an increasingly conflicted product development matrix between product line executives with P&L responsibility and common “horizontal resource platforms” whose managers were struggling to allocate scarce resources. They had to meet the various and growing demands of increasingly numerous and disparate product development programmes without sufficient software architecture development and software project management skills. This conflictual way of working slowed decision-making and seriously dented morale, while the wear and tear of extraordinary growth combined with an abrasive CEO personality also began to take their toll. Many managers left.

Beyond 2004, top management was no longer sufficiently technologically savvy or strategically integrative to set priorities and resolve conflicts arising in the new matrix. Increased cost reduction pressures rendered Nokia’s strategy of product differentiation through market segmentation ineffective and resulted in a proliferation of poorer quality products.

The swift decline

The following years marked a period of infighting and strategic stasis that successive reorganisations did nothing to alleviate. By this stage, Nokia was trapped by a reliance on its unwieldy operating system called Symbian. While Symbian had given Nokia an early advantage, it was a device-centric system in what was becoming a platform- and application-centric world. To make matters worse, Symbian exacerbated delays in new phone launches as whole new sets of code had to be developed and tested for each phone model. By 2009, Nokia was using 57 different and incompatible versions of its operating system.

While Nokia posted some of its best financial results in the late 2000s, the management team was struggling to find a response to a changing environment: Software was taking precedence over hardware as the critical competitive feature in the industry. At the same time, the importance of application ecosystems was becoming apparent, but as dominant industry leader Nokia lacked the skills, and inclination to engage with this new way of working.

By 2010, the limitations of Symbian had become painfully obvious and it was clear Nokia had missed the shift toward apps pioneered by Apple. Not only did Nokia’s strategic options seem limited, but none were particularly attractive. In the mobile phone market, Nokia had become a sitting duck to growing competitive forces and accelerating market changes. The game was lost, and it was left to a new CEO Stephen Elop and new Chairman Risto Siilasmaa to draw from the lessons and successfully disengage Nokia from mobile phones to refocus the company on its other core business, network infrastructure equipment.

What can we learn from Nokia

Nokia’s decline in mobile phones cannot be explained by a single, simple answer: Management decisions, dysfunctional organisational structures, growing bureaucracy and deep internal rivalries all played a part in preventing Nokia from recognising the shift from product-based competition to one based on platforms.

Nokia’s mobile phone story exemplifies a common trait we see in mature, successful companies: Success breeds conservatism and hubris which, over time, results in a decline of the strategy processes leading to poor strategic decisions. Where once companies embraced new ideas and experimentation to spur growth, with success they become risk averse and less innovative. Such considerations will be crucial for companies that want to grow and avoid one of the biggest disruptive threats to their future – their own success.

About the author(s)

Yves L. Doz

is an Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management and the Solvay Chaired Professor of Technological Innovation, Emeritus at INSEAD.

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Rahul Tripathi

30/03/2024, 03.42 pm

I found this article on the strategic decisions behind Nokia's failure incredibly insightful! 📉 As someone interested in business strategy and management, understanding the factors that led to Nokia's downfall provides valuable lessons for avoiding similar pitfalls in the future. 💡 The analysis of Nokia's missteps, from failing to adapt to changing market trends to underestimating the competition, highlights the importance of agility and innovation in today's dynamic business landscape. 🔄💡

Moreover, the article offers actionable insights that can be applied to various industries, making it a must-read for anyone involved in strategic decision-making processes. 🌟 Thank you for sharing such informative content! I'll definitely keep these lessons in mind as I navigate my own business endeavors. 👍📚

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Anonymous User

16/03/2022, 10.44 am

Nokia is the one of the oldest phone and also it is existed until now

17/09/2021, 07.41 pm

Why does Nokia fail

26/06/2021, 09.54 pm

Someone really should dig into the tale of Nokia Music, that of OD2, a successful independent company bought by Nokia in 2007. In less than four years through marketing bodges, strategic failures, interference from gormless management in the USA, and even more nepotistic and mostly incompetent management in the UK, a profitable company with numerous high profile corporate customers was brought to its knees by talent free people who should never have been promoted into the positions they were in. Well worth digging into, just don't interview the management or you will never get to the truth.

03/06/2021, 01.56 am

As I read through many of these comments, the word "dillusional" kept coming to mind. For starters, Windows OS was as good as either Android or iOS. The main thing lacking were just a few more core apps. That was really it.

Sure, they could easily have run Andoid, and as soon as that idea was floated, Microft instantly shuttered their offices.

The fact that Nadella had his trojan horse Elop do the deal on Friday and hand everyone their walking papers on Monday is proof positive that Microsoft never had any good intentions for Nokia.

MS could have easily thrown one of their legions of Devs onto the task of writing apps. which would have solved the app. store issue in a hurry.

Instead, Nadella destroyed Microfts own eco-system by loosing that lucrative and Crucial market sector. A permanent wound that still haunts them to this day, and showcased Nadella as being far Inferior to Ballmer as well as Gates.

While my first inclination is to assume some nefarious reason for this, I do have to acknowledge however the old addage: "Don't attribute to maclice, what can easily be explained by stupidity"

30/10/2020, 04.23 pm

Why only Nokia there are a number of business world wide which have failed because of its own Founders/CEO/COO lapses some of the reasons which I contribute are as follows.... 1. Lack of vision future 2. Innovation in new age computing revolution 3. High Salary package 4. Founders cannot be pushed out or replaced easily. 5. Management Decisions 6. Dysfunctional Hierarchy 7. Growing Bureaucracy 8. Internal rivalry

21/01/2018, 12.17 am

Captain of the ship knows how to sink the boat. Stephen (the first non Finnish CEO in history of Nokia) joined in 2010 from Microsoft and made a deal to use Windows only despite the fact that Android was growing and already captured huge market share. There was a lot of pressure from Nokia employees to move to Android but he ignored all. He fired a lot of people. It was famous in Nokia Espo office (H/Q) that he is a Trojan Horse. He later sold Nokia mobile business to Microsoft and earned millions of dollars in the deal. Later, he joined Microsoft again. Looks like the plan was to promote Windows Mobile at the cost of Nokia (that failed badly)

Sheila Yovita

13/01/2018, 04.20 am

If the company is at crises, what should the managers do? Could it be one of the option go for advices from top management consulting firms or any other third parties that can help to formulate better strategies to save the company? Assuming they went for consulting firms, then the firms were failed to help Nokia as well?

22/12/2017, 02.34 am

I would love to also see something similar about Blackberry. They were the prime brand for many early adopters and business users of cellular phones here in the USA. Similar to Nokia they also had/have secure network platform. I wonder if their demise was also due to strategic mistakes, and if similar to Nokia they also got bogged down with tactical activities and lost sight of overall strategy.

21/12/2017, 05.00 am

I agree with everyone, broadly. Nonetheless we should NEVER FORGET that Nokia would be far far better (as a Smartphone maker), than it is today.

Another illustration of a North American Corporation that did so well from its foundational years in the 19th Century and well into its first centenary is NORTEL Networks... I read a book about the rise, growth and maturity of NORTEL and it became one great role model for me... Unfortunately, NORTEL failed to go the length any longer than the beginning of the 21st Century; NORTEL collapsed for reasons that are too embarrassing to speak openly abbout - or even in privacy!

I'm working on to establish a Corporate and Product Branding Consultancy in town (Accra, Ghana), and this article on Nokia, like others, is what I've been looking out for, to help learn and know how to start and grow an enterprise and keep it growing and succeeding decade after decade, century after century!

I'm learning!

17/12/2017, 07.59 pm

"While Symbian had given Nokia an early advantage, it was a device-centric system in what was becoming a platform- and application-centric world." Well, actually Nokia pioneered the app-centric world. Go check. Only it's User Interface didn't keep up with the emerging competition.

07/12/2017, 05.51 am

Nokia is still alive... and much more than a mobile phone manufacturer. Nokia is the biggest network equipment maker in the world, employees +100k people and ~25 billion € in revenue in 2016...

30/11/2017, 05.40 pm

Good article. Thanks.

Interesting side note: While working in Japan around 2002, I heard "on the street" that Nokia ran a research center in Japan. Intended to tap the vast and growing Japanese mobile market. They saw everything that was coming in the Western world. Good cameras. Apps. Cost effective mobile internet & services. Mobile email messaging on a mass scale. Multi media devices. Long before the iPhone was invented. Nokia deemed the Japanese market too challenging and closed their research center. Turned a blind eye. The competition was already too far ahead.

28/11/2017, 03.21 am

Another consideration is that Nokia stayed committed to hardware-based human-computer factors as differentiation far longer than it should have: optical strip for scrolling, buttons for menus, buttons for navigation, etc. What the iPhone showed is that software-based UX was the more flexible and powerful approach.

26/11/2017, 04.40 pm

Just imagine, if Nokia had seen the future and adopted Android operating systems before 2009-10, perhaps the horizons of the mobile Eco system would have been very different today. Similarly, Blackberry also failed to see the shift in the mobile market from a communicating device to a multi Media device. Phones transcended the mere communication and functional level to take control of our social lives and presence. The social sites and e commerce growth were trends and changes that both these behemoths failed to see or gauge. They still remain extremely hardware centred, building very physically robust devices but perhaps falling short on the imagination part. I think this is entirely a matter of leadership vision and imagination.

25/11/2017, 12.00 am

Unless I am misremembering, I am sure I had a Samsung phone in the early 2000s. It was nothing like the Samsung mobiles of today. It was not user friendly, the operating system was a mess and I soon went back to Nokia but it's not true to say that Samsung hadn't entered the mobile communications market, they just hadn't entered the smart phone market. (Not that I don't agree with the thrust of the article - Nokia's downfall was very much of its own making).

24/11/2017, 11.53 pm

I think a similar story can be told about Microsoft under Ballmer. What Symbian was for Nokia, Windows was for Microsoft at one time. Nadella came in just at the right time to lift the company out of that slumber and made it take a leap of faith in the Cloud world. The results are evident. Microsoft is sailing at its lifetime best share prices. On the contrary, when we look at Apple, they seem to be following the footsteps of Nokia. Slowly but surely they are becoming a victim of their own success.

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia

• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 26

About The Authors

Juan Alcacer

Tarun Khanna

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• Faculty Research
• November 2020

The Rise and Fall of Nokia (Abridged)

• The Rise and Fall of Nokia  By: Juan Alcácer
• The Rise and Fall of Nokia  By: Juan Alcacer, Tarun Khanna and Christine Snively
• The Rise and Fall of Nokia (Abridged)  By: Juan Alcácer and Tarun Khanna

Nokia: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of a Technology Giant

The case examines the downward spiral of Nokia, the mobile technology giant that once conquered the world, seen from the perspective of ‘insiders’ – based on interviews with Nokia executives at top and middle management level. They describe the emotional undercurrents of the innovation process that caused temporal myopia – an excessive focus on short-term innovation at the expense of longer-term more beneficial activities. Nokia’s once-stellar performance was undermined by misaligned collective fear: top managers were afraid of competition from rival products, while middle managers were afraid of their bosses and even their peers. It was their reluctance to share negative information with top managers – who thus remained overly optimistic about the organisation’s capabilities – that generated inaccurate feedback and poorly adapted organizational responses that led to the company’s downfall. The case covers the period from the early 2000s to 2010, with a focus on 2007 (the introduction of the iPhone) to 2010, when the CEO left. Read a related Knowledge article "Who Killed Nokia? Nokia Did" by Quy Huy.

After reading and analysing the case, students will understand (i) how emotional dynamics influence hard technological and strategic decisions in organizations as they translate into challenges for innovation, (ii) how emotional dynamics can undermine innovation and performance.

• Top and middle management
• Mobile phone
• Radical change
• Strategic agility
• Temporal myopia

Quy Huy

Timo o. vuori.

Lisa Simone Duke

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia

By julian birkinshaw , lisa duke.

The case describes Nokia’s spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company’s handset business being sold to Microsoft in 2010.During the successful period of growth (roughly 1990 through to 2006), Nokia’s focus on design and functionality gained it a worldwide reputation. It was acknowledged as the first smartphone manufacturer. Through the early-mid 2000s it was the undisputed leader in the global mobile phone business. The case traces the first signs of trouble and the company’s subsequent decline over the period 2005 to 2010. Pressure in the early 2000s from low-end competitors led to early signs of problems. Then of course the game changed in 2007 with Apple’s iPhone and a year later with phones powered by Google’s Android operating system from HTC, Samsung and others. Nokia was initially dismissive of these new offerings but its proprietary OS, Symbian, was ageing badly and its App store (Ovi) was no match for Apple’s. In September 2010 it was announced that American Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft, would become CEO. Not long afterwards a partnership with Microsoft was signed which subsequently led to Nokia’s handset business being sold to Microsoft.

Learning objectives

• Understand why good companies go bad; in other words, see how the assets that enable companies to succeed can also be liabilities when the market turns against them.
• Provide insight into the nature of disruption in an established industry and why incumbent firms struggle to adapt.
• Examine the different paths companies should take to respond to disruptive forces.
• Understand the leadership challenge for executives when their performance starts to decline2. To understand the dynamics of change in a fast-changing industry.
• Identify strategies companies can use to adapt quickly to disruptive changes.

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The Rise and Fall of Nokia

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The case describes Nokia's spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company's handset business being sold to…

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• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2011
• Discipline: Strategy
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The case describes Nokia's spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company's handset business being sold to Microsoft in 2010. During the successful period of growth (roughly 1990 through to 2006), Nokia's focus on design and functionality gained it a worldwide reputation. It was acknowledged as the first smartphone manufacturer. Through the early-mid 2000s it was the undisputed leader in the global mobile phone business. The case traces the first signs of trouble and the company's subsequent decline over the period 2005 to 2010. Pressure in the early 2000s from low-end competitors led to early signs of problems. Then of course the game changed in 2007 with Apple's iPhone and a year later with phones powered by Google's Android operating system from HTC, Samsung and others. Nokia was initially dismissive of these new offerings but its proprietary OS, Symbian, was ageing badly and its App store (Ovi) was no match for Apple's. In September 2010 it was announced that American Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft, would become CEO. Not long afterwards a partnership with Microsoft was signed which subsequently led to Nokia's handset business being sold to Microsoft.

Learning Objectives

Understand why good companies go bad: in other words, to see how the assets that enable companies to succeed can also be liabilities when the market turns against them.

Provide insight into the nature of disruption in an established industry, and why incumbent firms struggle to adapt.

Examine the different paths companies should take to respond to disruptive forces.

To understand the leadership challenge for executives when their performance starts to decline.

To understand the dynamics of change in a fast-changing industry.

To identify strategies companies can use to adapt quickly to disruptive changes

Sep 1, 2011

Discipline:

Industries:

London Business School

LBS152-PDF-ENG

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The Real Cause of Nokia’s Crisis

• Michael Schrage

Nokia’s technology isn’t a root cause of its current crisis. Don’t blame its engineers and designers either. The company still knows how to innovate. There’s a simpler and more strategic explanation for why this once-perennial market leader became second-rate. Nokia ignored America. The company simply refused to compete energetically, ingeniously and respectfully in the U.S. […]

Nokia’s technology isn’t a root cause of its current crisis. Don’t blame its engineers and designers either. The company still knows how to innovate . There’s a simpler and more strategic explanation for why this once-perennial market leader became second-rate.

• MS Michael Schrage , a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, is the author of the books Serious Play (HBR Press), Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? (HBR Press) and The Innovator’s Hypothesis (MIT Press).

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The Nokia Case: fall and rise

Multinationals are not always a guarantee of permanent success, even though they are considered indestructible over time and avant-garde in terms of technological innovations.

<<< Good strategies: What do winning brands have in common? >>>

This is the case of what happened a few years ago with the Finnish telecommunications company Nokia, which by not adapting to the most ambitious change in mobile telephony (the smartphone) lost its followers and their phones resoundingly, which could do nothing against the competition and were forgotten.

Although over time, Nokia managed to recover from that fall by finally adapting to the demand of the market and of demanding users by incorporating the Android operating system, it took several years behind the shadows to be able to achieve it, until just two or three years ago its incipient rise was noted with the launch of the first smartphones that still retain the distinctive mark of strength and durability that catapulted the brand.

In this article, we tell you all the details of the fall and rise of Nokia , the company that was once the market leader and today retains a discreet place alongside leading companies such as Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei.

Story of a fall and rise.

It all started when in 2007, even when Nokia was still leading the world cell phone market, the first iPhone smartphone was launched, led by the prestigious Apple, which was here not only to stay but to unseat the Finnish giant that was beginning to sense its decline.

Faced with the stark prospect of an increasingly demanding market that fed unattainable competitors, the company decided to join forces with Microsoft to be able to deal with the operating systems that were already prevalent at that time.

But unfortunately, it became aware of this reality late because, like many companies with a long history, it resisted change. However, it attempted.

In 2011, Nokia launched the Nokia N9, running the MeeGo operating system. Then it also presented the first terminals of the Asha series, but clearly, the Finnish giant was looking to bet stronger as soon as it realized that they were losing to other competitors who had already launched more advanced phones than the N and the Asha.

Examples of this unequal competition were the Android devices that Samsung and Sony Ericsson were already launching to capture the desire of users with a growing market share.

It was then, in that same year, Nokia established a strategic alliance with Microsoft so that all the company's smartphones would incorporate the Windows Phone operating system, leaving aside MeeGo and Symbian, except in the most basic models. Two years later, in 2013, Microsoft announced the purchase of mobile devices and the licensing of Nokia patents in a global agreement.

From this strategic alliance, the Nokia Lumia series of smartphones was born, which had the Windows Phone operating system. But despite all the efforts between the two multinationals, the Nokia Lumia failed to charm consumers because the competition led by IOS and Android left them no room for maneuver.

So, finally, in 2014, Microsoft decided to stop the production of Windows Phones Lumia, once it understood that there was no point in fighting against operating systems that were easier to use, faster, and more efficient for users. Consequently, he announced the latest public version of Windows Phone 8.1.

The bet on Android.

Due to Nokia's extensive history in the mobile phone market, it was not easy to overcome old preconceptions concerning preserving a certain distinctive brand of producing resistant phones made of hard materials and with classic keys.

That is why they fell behind and did not see the flood of Android and IOS coming, which was installed among people to erase from their memory any remnants of experience with that obsolete technology for the new digital age.

10 years have passed since the checkmate that iPhone and Android did to the proud Nokia. Ten years of bad decisions, of which the alliance with Microsoft was the worst of all. However, there was still a glimmer of hope in this path of darkness into which the Finnish giant had plunged. There was still the part that Microsoft had not bought, and that was its salvation.

Satya Nadella, the new CEO of Nokia at that time (2015), did something very practical to give the Finnish company back the prestige it once had: he demolished everything that Microsoft had built since it bought it, leaving almost not a single vestige of that failed alliance. He had understood that if he wanted to re-emerge as a brand and recover lost market share, he had to do something different, not dig through the rubble.

In this way, he made the best decision he could to win back the public that had abandoned him: surrender to Android. And far from seeming like a risky act, it was the best decision because he played it safe. Android then became the answer that the company needed to resurface and be competitive again, and in 2017 the firm, together with HMD, launched the Nokia 6, the first mid-range smartphone that incorporates Android as an operating system.

Although at first it was only launched in the Chinese market, it meant the company's most anticipated return to the cell phone market. And it was not bad at all because the terminal was renewed in increasingly advanced devices.

Nokia forever.

This story teaches us that no multinational company is guaranteed success if the right decisions are not made to stay updated, which was precisely what Anssi Vanjoki, the company's CEO during the early days of Android, did not do, expecting to be successful without betting on change.

Then the desperation not to go bankrupt drives the company to ally with Microsoft - the worst of decisions - and launch very interesting phones but not what consumers wanted after flirting with Android and Apple, which shows that they made a failed market study for uselessly believing that their buyer persona would continue to buy small phones with keys or poor imitations of smartphones without WhatsApp or an application store to download for free and unlimitedly.

But as failures teach us to reinvent ourselves and improve, fortunately, Nokia reinvented itself when it decided to maintain its design and resistant materials to take advantage of Android to create very powerful phones that are gradually climbing positions in the market. And it's still Nokia, its quality phone essence was not diluted by Microsoft's handling.

<<< How digital strategies are redefining brands >>>

In final words, this was the story of the fall and rise of Nokia, a multinational that had everything to be the best indefinitely, but bad decisions precipitated its failure just when the competition adopted Android to sink it further. But thinking about customers was what saved it because customers wanted Nokia with Android, and now they finally have it.

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McKinsey 7S model of Nokia – where the company went wrong

From a cell phone pioneer to being acquired by microsoft in 2013, nokia is a case study of organizational failure. let’s analyze where the company went wrong by applying mckinsey 7s model., mckinsey 7s model is a business framework which can be used to analyze organizational effectiveness. according to the mckinsey model, the organization is a complex ecosystem consisting of seven interconnected factors: structure , strategy , skills , staff , systems , style and shared values . .

The model is also a blueprint for organizational change. 

To show you how you can use the McKinsey model 7S for the benefit of your organization, I will analyze mobile pioneer Nokia at the time of its demise, namely 2011-2013.

Here’s a brief background story:

In October 1998, Nokia became the best-selling mobile phone brand in the world with an operating profit of almost $4 billion. The best-selling mobile phone of all time, the Nokia 1100, was created in 2003. Five years later, Apple introduced the iPhone. By the end of 2007, half of all smartphones sold in the world were Nokias, while Apple’s iPhone had a mere 5% share of the global market. 

In 2010, attempting to drive Apple out of the market, Nokia launched the “iPhone killer”. The model failed to achieve its goal and was the beginning of the end for Nokia. From that moment on, Nokia embarked on a downward spiral of low-quality phones. In just six years, the market value of Nokia declined by about 90%. The organization was acquired by Microsoft in 2013.

Now that you’re familiar with Nokia’s failure story, let’s analyze the organization before Microsoft made its move to acquire it by applying the McKinsey 7S model.

In my opinion, here are the factors that required immediate change: Structure, Style, Skills, Staff and Strategy.

McKinsey 7S model of Nokia

Mckinsey 7s model of nokia – structure  .

Nokia of the era was a top-down line structure organization.

In public speeches given by the organization’s top executives, agility and being nimble were mentioned as key competitive advantages.

But it was all talk. The organization’s top management was living in a bubble, disconnected from the company’s technology development departments. Communication was one-way and teams were not empowered to contribute to the organization’s strategy. 

To adapt to the new technological environment and compete with Apple , a powerful tech company, Nokia should have taken steps to change its structure from top-down hierarchical to decentralized and agile .

Instead of organizing employees in silos, with no communication and collaboration between them, the company should have placed its employees in teams, with every team working to achieve a common goal.

Team members should have been empowered to speak up, come up with solutions and work independently. 

McKinsey 7S Model of Nokia – Style

In McKinsey’s model style refers to culture. What was Nokia’s culture at that time?

As per the 2015 paper Distributed Attention and Shared Emotions in the Innovation Process: How Nokia Lost the Smartphone Battle , Nokia suffered from organizational fear, status ( We are no 1 ), in-house politics and temporal myopia.

Top managers had business backgrounds and lacked technological competence. Employee morale was low. 

As the saying goes, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Top management should have adopted a transformational leadership style where the leader’s goal is to transform the organization so that it’s constantly improving. 

Transformational leaders create a vision of the future that they share with their teams so that everyone can work together toward a shared goal and vision. Technology is ever-changing. Technology companies must embrace change in order to stand the test of time.

Transformational leadership would have been the best fit for Nokia because it fosters creativity and innovation through collaboration. This type of culture builds and maintains employee motivation and satisfaction and is effective in facilitating organizational change.

McKinsey 7S Model of Nokia – Skills

Nokia didn’t lack talent and didn’t have a skills gap in the company. There were no gaps in know-how or competence.

At its peak, Nokia had one of the top highly-skilled tech workforces in the world.

The company’s hardware and software engineers had designed one of the most successful and iconic cell phones in the world, there’s no doubt about it.

The problem was the top management. Between 2007 and 2010, the position of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) disappeared from the top management team. Technical managers had left the company and new hires had no technical skills making it difficult for them to understand the technological challenges and the direction in which the company should be heading.

Conversely, top management members at Apple were all engineers. Nokia should have focused on increasing tech skills among C-level executives.

McKinsey 7S Model of Nokia – Staff

At Nokia, people were talking business instead of technology which is quite surprising for a software company.

The organization should have found ways to motivate and nurture its employees appropriately. 

McKinsey 7S Model of Nokia – Strategy

Struggling to compete with Apple and adapt to the technological developments that were disrupting the business environment at that time, Nokia top management had to choose between three strategies: optimizing costs and volume, maximizing performance, or maximizing security.

They decided to go with cost optimization which made it impossible to achieve performance in software. 

With Apple going for technological innovations and excellency, needless to say, they made the wrong decision. 

At its peak, Nokia manufactured 40% of the world’s mobiles. The company had the human resources ( skills and staff factors ) required to keep innovating and increasing its market share.

Unfortunately, the company’s leadership ( style factor ) lacked core competences and vision necessary to drive change within the company.

They didn’t allow the tech talent in the company to contribute with valuable insights to important decisions. The company chose the wrong strategy which ultimately lead to its demise.

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9 Reasons Why Nokia Failed After Enjoying Unrivaled Dominance

Devashish Shrivastava , Akshat Hawelia

In the annals of mobile phone history, Nokia once reigned supreme with its robust devices and iconic brand. However, as the smartphone revolution took hold, Nokia's fortunes took a sharp turn, leading to a notable decline in its market share and influence. The fall of such a prominent industry leader begs the question: What were the reasons behind Nokia's failure?

This post focuses on the reasons why Nokia failed after enjoying unrivaled dominance in the mobile segment for several years. The ferocious and mighty telecom giant Nokia was well known for its products' hardware and battery life. By understanding the lessons from Nokia's journey, we can gain valuable insights into the rapidly evolving landscape of the technology industry and the critical importance of adaptation and innovation.

For years, it was the talk of the town. User satisfaction with Nokia’s mobiles was globally recognized. The company launched the first internet-enabled phone in 1996, and by the start of the millennium, Nokia had also released a touch-screen mobile prototype.

This was the start of a revolution in the mobile phone industry. The Finnish giant was the largest cell phone maker in 1998. Nokia overtook Motorola, a move that was hard to predict. So, what led to the downfall of Nokia? It wasn’t a single factor but a myriad of reasons, most of which resulted from Nokia's resistance to change. We present to you the six main reasons behind Nokia's failure.

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Reasons for Nokia Failure: Case Study

The resistance to smartphone evolution, the deal with microsoft, nokia's failed marketing strategies, moving too slow with the industry, overestimation of strength, lack of innovation in products, organizational restructuring at nokia, the symbian vs. meego os dilemma at nokia, failure to adapt and reposition.

In the fast-paced world of technology, companies that fail to adapt to changing trends and consumer demands can quickly find themselves left behind. Nokia, once synonymous with mobile phone supremacy, experienced a significant downfall due to its resistance to smartphone evolution. As competitors embraced the shift towards smartphones, Nokia's reluctance to fully embrace this revolution became one of the key reasons for its failure.

Nokia failed to take advantage of the Android bandwagon. When mobile phone manufacturers were busy improving and working on their smartphones, Nokia remained stubborn. Samsung soon launched its Android-based range of phones that were cost-effective and user-friendly.

Nokia's management was under the impression that people wouldn’t accept touchscreen phones and would continue with the QWERTY keypad layout. This misapprehension was the start of its downfall. Nokia never considered Android as an advancement and neither wanted to adopt the Android operating system.

After realizing the market trends, Nokia introduced its Symbian operating system, which was used in its smartphones. It faced usability issues and lacked the app support and developer ecosystem that rival platforms like iOS and Android offered. The clunky user experience and limited app selection hampered Nokia's ability to compete effectively. Also, it was too late by then, with Apple and Samsung having cemented their positions. It was difficult for the Symbian operating system to make any inroads. This is the biggest reason behind Nokia's downfall.

Nokia was slow to recognize the potential of smartphones and the shift from feature phones to touchscreen devices. They failed to anticipate the demand for devices with advanced capabilities, such as app ecosystems and touch interfaces. This led to a loss of market share to competitors like Apple's iPhone and Android-based smartphones.

Another reason for Nokia's failure was the ill-timed deal with the tech giant Microsoft . The company sold itself to Microsoft at a time when the software behemoth was fraught with losses.

Nokia's sales screamed the mobile phone maker's inability to survive on its own. At the same time, Apple and Samsung were making significant strides in innovation and technological developments.

It was too late for Nokia to adapt to the dynamic and rigorous changes in the market. Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia is considered to be one of the biggest blunders and wasn't fruitful for either side.

The partnership limited Nokia's ability to differentiate itself and left it dependent on Microsoft's success in the mobile industry . The Windows Phone platform struggled to gain traction, further impacting Nokia's market position. This case study provides valuable lessons for businesses considering similar alliances and emphasizes the importance of aligning visions, complementary strengths, and adaptable strategies.

Marketing plays a crucial role in shaping a brand's success and perception. In the case of Nokia, its decline can be attributed, in part, to failed marketing strategies that hindered its ability to compete effectively in the mobile phone market.

One notable misstep in Nokia's marketing approach was its unsuccessful implementation of umbrella branding . Companies like Apple and Samsung successfully adopted the umbrella branding model, with flagship products like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy series acting as the focal point for expanding their product lines. However, Nokia failed to follow suit and capitalize on the umbrella branding strategy, missing out on the opportunity to create a cohesive and recognizable brand identity.

Additionally, Nokia's marketing efforts struggled to maintain the user trust that the company had built over the years. Inefficient selling and distribution methods further eroded consumer confidence and made it difficult for Nokia to reach its target audience effectively.

While Nokia attempted to regain momentum by introducing hardware and software innovations, these offerings were often late to the market and lacked the uniqueness that would have set them apart from competitors. Rivals had already released similar features and devices, diminishing Nokia's ability to capture consumers' attention and regain market share.

The failure of Nokia's marketing and distribution strategies played a significant role in its ultimate decline and exit from the mobile industry market. Without a strong brand identity, effective distribution channels, and timely innovations, Nokia struggled to compete with rivals who had successfully aligned their marketing strategies with evolving consumer preferences and market dynamics.

Nokia's failure to keep pace with changing technology and trends played a significant role in its decline. While the company had earned a reputation for its hardware, it didn't prioritize its software lineup, which proved to be a crucial oversight.

Initially, Nokia was cautious about embracing technical advancements in order to mitigate the risks associated with introducing innovative features to its phones. However, this approach hindered the company's ability to adapt to the rapidly evolving market.

The business needed diversification, but it was too late by the time Nokia realized this. Instead of being amongst the early initiators, Nokia transitioned when almost every major brand had already started producing awesome phones.

This case study shows Nokia's failure to keep up with changing technology and its delayed response to industry trends significantly contributed to its downfall.

Nokia overestimated its brand value. The company believed that even after the late launch of its smartphones, people would still flock to stores and purchase Nokia-manufactured phones. This turned out to be a misconception, as consumer preferences had shifted towards other brands.

People still make predictions that Nokia will retain the market leadership if it uses better software at its core. However, this is far from the truth, as seen today.

The company got stuck with its software system, which is known to have several bugs and clunks. Nokia felt its previous glory would help alleviate any sort of trouble. Unfortunately, things didn’t play out that way.

Unfortunately, the market dynamics had changed, and consumers were no longer willing to overlook the shortcomings of Nokia's software. Competitors had surpassed Nokia in terms of user experience and software innovation, leaving Nokia struggling to regain its position.

Nokia's lack of innovation in its products significantly contributed to its failure case study. While brands like Samsung and Apple came up with advanced phones every year, Nokia simply launched the Windows phone with basic features, failing to keep up with the industry's rapid progress..

The Nokia Lumia series was a jump-start measure, but even that collapsed due to a lack of innovation. The unattractive and dull features didn’t help. In the era of 4G, Nokia didn’t even have 3G-enabled phones. Nokia also came up with the Asha series, but it was game over by then.

Wrong decisions and risk aversion brought about the decline of the mobile giant. Nokia refrained from adopting the latest tech. Nokia's failure became a powerful case study that made organizations realize the importance of continuous evolution and enhancements. The journey of what was once the world’s best mobile phone company to losing it all by 2013 is quite tragic. Nokia's failure was not solely due to its lack of innovation but also its shortcomings in leadership and guidance. These factors, combined with its inability to adapt to market demands and technological advancements, sealed the company's fate.

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Nokia underwent a sudden and significant organizational shift by adopting a matrix structure driven by enhancing agility within the company. However, this abrupt change resulted in dissatisfaction among stakeholders, particularly as key individuals in top management departed from the organization. These individuals, who had played instrumental roles in establishing Nokia as a leading company, were no longer part of the decision-making process .

The shift to a matrix structure also brought about internal challenges, as stability in top management, a crucial element for organizational coherence, was disrupted. Over just five years, Nokia experienced two CEO replacements , preventing employees from fully adapting to new leadership goals and visions. The frequent changes in leadership created instability and hindered consistent strategic direction. The lack of continuity in leadership contributed to employee dissatisfaction and impacted the overall cohesiveness of the organization. Employees and other stakeholders found it challenging to align with successive CEOs, leading to a breakdown in communication and a sense of disconnect within the company.

Nokia Changes their Logo After 60 Years

Nokia's problem arose when its R&D division underwent a split, with one faction dedicated to enhancing the Symbian operating system and the other focused on developing MeeGo. The competing claims of superiority between the two teams led to internal friction, causing delays in the release of new phones. The company grappled with the challenge of harmonizing divergent technological directions, impacting its ability to bring innovative products to market in a timely manner. This internal competition within the R&D division created a complex dynamic, hindering Nokia's efficiency and potentially affecting its competitive edge in the rapidly evolving smartphone market.

Nokia's downfall can be attributed to its failure to analyze market trends and adjust its strategy accordingly. The company neglected the burgeoning smartphone market, ultimately missing a significant opportunity for growth. Rather than capitalizing on this evolving landscape, Nokia could have revitalized its position by enhancing its existing software, such as Symbian. Unfortunately, the lack of strategic foresight and adaptability led to a missed chance to stay competitive in the dynamic tech industry.

Moreover, the oversight in market analysis and strategic planning eroded Nokia's market share and diminished its relevance in the rapidly changing consumer electronics landscape. The company's reluctance to pivot and innovate in response to market dynamics ultimately contributed to its decline in the face of evolving consumer preferences and technological advancements.

The fall of Nokia can be attributed to a combination of factors that hindered its ability to adapt, innovate, and stay competitive in the mobile phone market. The resistance to smartphone evolution, missed opportunities, ineffective marketing strategies, and the deal with Microsoft all contributed to its downfall. Ultimately, Nokia's decline serves as a reminder of the importance of staying agile, embracing change, and continuously evolving to meet consumer demands.

Why did Nokia fail?

Not switching to Android, lack of innovation, not upgrading the software, and overestimating the brand value were some of the reasons that led to Nokia's failure.

What is Nokia?

Nokia is a consumer electronics company popular for its mobile phones. It is one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world.

Is the Nokia company closed?

No, the company is still running, but it has shut down some of its plants.

What happened to Nokia?

Once a dominant force, Nokia clung to outdated software, allowing Android and iOS to surge ahead, leaving the brand lagging. Despite its focus on new technologies, Nokia's legacy now lives on in the realm of Android.

Why did Nokia fail to compete with Samsung and Apple?

Nokia didn't adopt Android and focused on its hardware more than its software, which is why it failed to compete against Samsung and Apple.

Are there any new Nokia smartphones coming in the near future?

Though Nokia might seem dominant on the phone front, the company occasionally comes up with some new phones/smartphone devices. Here are some of the Nokia smartphones that are likely to be launched in 2022:

• Nokia 2760 Flip 4G
• Nokia C21 Plus
• Nokia Suzume
• Nokia C2 2nd Edition

Who took over Nokia?

Nokia phones were robust and dependable companions of the pre-smartphone era. However, Nokia's Java and Windows phones failed to stand out in the market dominated by Apple and Android phones. The Android phone manufacturing companies like Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, Motorola, and other Chinese smartphone developers like MI, Realme, Oppo, Vivo, and the Apple IOS devices took over Nokia in the mobile sector.

What lessons can other businesses learn from Nokia's failure?

Nokia's failure highlights the importance of embracing change, anticipating market trends, and continuously innovating to meet customer expectations. It underscores the need for effective marketing strategies, strategic partnerships, and an unwavering commitment to adaptation and innovation in today's rapidly evolving business landscape.

Was Nokia's lack of innovation a significant factor in its decline?

Yes, Nokia's lack of innovation in its product lineup played a significant role in its downfall. The company failed to keep pace with rivals who consistently introduced advanced devices and embraced evolving market demands, which resulted in Nokia losing its competitive edge.

Why did Nokia go out of business?

Nokia lost its phone industry dominance by sticking to outdated software, missing the smartphone revolution, and experiencing a significant sell-off. Despite not going out of business, Nokia's cautionary tale highlights the vital role of innovation in a rapidly evolving tech landscape, with the company still present in network tech and patents.

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Nokia Change Management Case Study

Nokia is a company that has undergone significant change over the years, transforming itself from a mobile phone manufacturer to a leading player in the telecommunications infrastructure market.

This transformation was driven by a range of factors, including changes in market conditions, advancements in technology, and shifting customer needs and preferences.

However, perhaps the most important factor in Nokia’s successful transformation was its approach to change management.

In this blog post of Nokia’s change management case study, we’ll examine key strategies and tactics that the company employed to drive its successful transformation.

By examining the lessons learned from Nokia’s experience, we can gain valuable insights into effective change management and the critical factors that are required for a successful organizational transformation.

Let’s start reading.

Brief History of Nokia Journey of Change 

Nokia was a Finnish company that produced a wide range of products, including paper, rubber, and cables. It was not until the 1980s that Nokia started focusing on telecommunications equipment, but even then, it was still a relatively small player in the industry.

In the late 1990s, Nokia made a strategic decision to focus solely on mobile phones, which at the time were rapidly growing in popularity. Nokia recognized the potential of the mobile phone market early on and invested heavily in research and development to create innovative and user-friendly devices.

Nokia’s decision to focus on mobile phones paid off, and by the early 2000s, the company had become the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, with a dominant market share. Nokia’s success was due to its ability to offer a wide range of phones at different price points and to develop cutting-edge technology such as the first mobile phones with built-in cameras and internet connectivity.

However, Nokia’s dominance in the mobile phone market was short-lived. The company struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of technological innovation and the rise of new competitors, such as Apple and Samsung. As a result, Nokia’s market share declined sharply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and the company eventually sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2014.

Nokia refocused on telecommunications infrastructure and services. It was a again a success story. In 2015 Nokia acquires French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel-Lucent.

What are those external and internal factors that caused change?

There were several external and internal factors that led to Nokia’s change management and transformation from a mobile phone producer to a telecommunication infrastructure service provider. Here are some of the key factors:

External factors:

• Increased competition: The rise of new competitors such as Apple and Samsung in the mobile phone market put pressure on Nokia’s mobile phone business, leading to declining market share and profits.
• Rapid technological change: The rapid pace of technological innovation in the mobile phone industry made it difficult for Nokia to keep up and remain competitive.
• Shift towards smartphones: The shift towards smartphones and the decline of feature phones also contributed to Nokia’s decline in the mobile phone market.
• Opportunities in telecommunication infrastructure: The growing demand for 5G networks and other telecommunications infrastructure services presented an opportunity for Nokia to diversify and expand its business.

Internal factors:

• Strategic decision-making : Nokia’s leadership recognized the need to adapt to changing market conditions and made the strategic decision to shift its focus towards telecommunications infrastructure services.
• Strengths in telecommunications: Nokia had a strong history and expertise in the telecommunications industry, which gave it a foundation to build on in expanding its business.
• Investment in research and development: Nokia continued to invest in research and development, allowing it to develop new products and services in the telecommunications infrastructure market.
• Acquisitions and partnerships: Nokia made strategic acquisitions and partnerships to expand its capabilities in telecommunications infrastructure services, such as the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent and the partnership with Xiaomi.

07 Key Drivers of successful change management of Nokia 

The successful change management of Nokia from a mobile phone manufacturer to a telecommunications infrastructure provider was driven by several key factors. Here are some of the most important drivers:

1. Clear Strategic Direction

Nokia’s clear strategic direction helped guide decision-making at all levels of the organization, ensuring that all stakeholders were aligned towards common goals and objectives. This helped Nokia to allocate resources more effectively, ensuring that investments were directed towards initiatives that supported the company’s long-term goals.

The leadership and employees focused its efforts on key priorities, such as developing new products and services in the telecommunications infrastructure market, and helped to minimize distractions from other activities that were not aligned with the company’s strategic objectives.

2. Agility and Adaptability

Agility and adaptability are important characteristics for organizations looking to succeed in a rapidly changing market environment. Nokia’s ability to demonstrate both agility and adaptability was key to its successful transformation from a mobile phone manufacturer to a telecommunications infrastructure provider. Nokia was able to quickly recognize and respond to changing market conditions and pivot its business towards new opportunities, such as the growing demand for telecommunications infrastructure services. 

3. Research and Development 

Nokia’s continued investment in R&D played a critical role in its successful transformation from a mobile phone manufacturer to a telecommunications infrastructure provider. By investing in R&D, Nokia was able to develop new products and services in the telecommunications infrastructure market and stay ahead of its competitors. This allowed the company to offer innovative and cutting-edge solutions that met the evolving needs of its customers. Additionally, Nokia’s investment in R&D helped the company to build a strong intellectual property portfolio, which further strengthened its competitive advantage in the market.

4. Operational Excellence 

Nokia’s focus on operational efficiency and continuous improvement was a critical factor in its successful transformation from a mobile phone manufacturer to a telecommunications infrastructure provider. By streamlining its operations and reducing costs, Nokia was able to improve its competitiveness and profitability in the highly competitive telecommunications infrastructure market. This focus on operational excellence helped the company to optimize its production processes, reduce waste, and improve product quality, which in turn helped it to deliver products and services to its customers more efficiently and at a lower cost.

5. Strong Leadership 

Nokia’s success in transforming itself from a mobile phone manufacturer to a telecommunications infrastructure provider was due in part to the strong and experienced leadership of CEO Rajeev Suri, who played a key role in leading the company through the transformation process. Suri’s leadership was critical in rallying employees around the new strategic direction and ensuring that all stakeholders were aligned towards common goals and objectives. Suri also provided clear direction and guidance to the organization, helping to steer the company through the challenges and uncertainties of the transformation process.

6. Cultural Change 

Nokia’s success in transformation is also due to cultural change. Nokia encouraged employees to be more innovative and agile in their work, fostering a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement. The company also emphasized the importance of collaboration and teamwork, encouraging employees to work together to solve complex problems and achieve common goals. Nokia invested in employee development and training, helping to foster a culture of continuous learning and development. This cultural shift helped to create a more flexible, innovative, and agile organization that was better able to adapt to changing market conditions and drive the company’s successful transformation.

7. Acquisition and Partnerships

Acquisitions and partnerships are critical tools that Nokia used to expand its capabilities and build a competitive advantage. By acquiring companies with complementary products and services, Nokia was able to expand its capabilities in telecommunications infrastructure services, giving the company a competitive advantage and helping it to build a comprehensive portfolio of products and services. Additionally, by partnering with other companies in the industry, Nokia was able to leverage the strengths of its partners to deliver innovative solutions that met the evolving needs of its customers.

Final Words 

Nokia’s successful transformation from a mobile phone manufacturer to a leading player in the telecommunications infrastructure market is a powerful case study in effective change management. By adopting a clear strategic direction, investing in research and development, focusing on operational excellence, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration, and pursuing strategic acquisitions and partnerships, Nokia was able to adapt to changing market conditions and pivot its business towards new opportunities. Ultimately, Nokia’s transformation serves as a powerful example of how organizations can successfully adapt and evolve in response to changing market conditions, leveraging their strengths and capabilities to drive growth and success in new markets and industries.

About The Author

Tahir Abbas

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Nokia Company Case Study Report

Advancement in technology has facilitated the growth of mobile and telecommunication industry. The sector is dominated by leading world producers who depend on their operational management decision to remain afloat in the competitive industry; some of international companies in the industry include Samsung, Nokia, Sony-Ericson, Apples, and Google Android-powered phones.

Nokia has been a leader in the industry in innovation, sales, and market share, however the increased competition has triggered for strategic decisions to be made by the company.

Decisions are the driving force in any organization. The quality of decision that managers make give their organization direction and focus. The growth and competitiveness of an organization is influenced by the quality as well as acceptability of decisions made by managers at all levels (Zi-Lin, Kwanghui and Pho-Kam, 2006). This paper analysis the strategic direction taken by Nokia Phone Company, will also undertake a strength and weakness analysis of the company.

Brief history of the company

Nokia is an international phone company, with its headquarters in Finland; according to the company’s website, the company currently enjoys a market share of about 37% and aims at increasing the market share to over 40% by the end of 2011. It has a strong brand all over the world, the companies positioning statement is “technology connecting people”. The company’s headquarters are located in Keilaniemi, Espoo.

Currently it has a total number of employees over 123,000 distributed in various countries. It has it presence as a selling point of full branch in over 120 countries. In the year 2009, the company was able to make a profit of €1.2 billion this was over 10% than what it had recorded the previous year. The idea of the company was started in 1865 however; it became a telecommunication company in 1960’s (Nokia Official website, 2010).

Nokia Vision, Mission, Purpose and value of its marketing materials

Nokia is one international company that has a simple and straightforward mission statement as “Connecting People”. Its vision statement is “Our strategic intent is to build great mobile products” (Nokia Official website, 2010), this vision statement has more focus on the phone section of the company as the main business segment that the company has. The main purpose of the company is “Our job is to enable billions of people everywhere to get more of life’s opportunities through mobile” (Nokia Official website, 2010).

To ensure that the company fulfils its vision, mission and purpose, it operates under marketing values and principles; they include innovation, products development, respect for the people and respect for research and development projects (Nokia Official website, 2010).

The current electronic market is fiancé and competitive, there are number of players in the industry that calls for Nokia to keep changing its operating policies and strategies. It has to keep changing its approach to ensure that it remains competitive. The main competitors of the company include Samsung, Apple, and Sony-Ericson.

To fight the competition, Nokia has engaged in a number of collaborations with other likeminded companies to ensure that it remains competitive. One of the recent strategic alliances that the company has made is strategic partnership with Microsoft to offer the company with the right software to compete effectively. The drive to remain competitive and offer high returns to the company has made the management to develop new strategies that will see it succeed (Reid, Plank and Richard, 2004).

Review marketing performance

Nokia has been a leader in the electronic industry however current innovations and venture of other international companies have hindered the companies continued leadership; the companies strength and innovativeness has made it world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones.

In the first three quarter of 2010, the company enjoyed a market share of approximately 31% on average; however, the market share reduced to 30% in the last quarter of the year. The drop of the market share can be attributed to aggressive marketing and selling approaches adopted by its competitors mostly Apple Inc and Google Android-powered phones.

The company is also diversifying rapidly in laptops, IPods and I phone to enable it share a large market in the electronic industry. The results of 2010, were lower to those recorded in 2009 of 35% in the fourth quarter; so far, the marketing approach that the company has adopted is doing well in the markets however, the trend is alarming and calling for something extra to be done if the company has to remain in the forefront of the market.

Nokia has a positioning statement as “connecting people”, the statement is deeply rooted in the people who’s the company aims at serving through its products. The positioning statement with a single grasp describes what the company is up to and what it aims at offering.

One of the major weaknesses that the companies marketing campaigns have had is that they have been only inclined to advertising and selling of phones; however, the company has more products that it can use to increase its market, revenue as well as sales.

Another problem that can be seen with its structure is the presence of its research and development plants; the last quarter of 2010 say the company have research and development outlets in only 16 countries from its present countries of about 120. The representation of the research and development team is thus not a representative of the company’s total presence (John and Mowen, 2004).

Nokia strength is ventured in its strong brand name that is internationally recognized. There is a wide recognition of these products in all parts of the world. The strength of the company is undoubtedly be engineered by its internal managerial mechanisms. In order to have a competitive edge in selling its product and services, it will be advisable for the company to take advantage of its ability to compete favorably with equal players in the market.

The company’s products are fitted with different features and yet they are sold at an affordable cost (Sadler, 2003). One weakness that Nokia is having is having a slow rate of products development; in the near past, the company has been producing products after other companies have invented them. It has become a company of copying technology instead of being a leader in developing the technologies (Ketels, 2006).

With globalization, the company has the chance of targeting international markets, it can expand its market share in other countries and improve its products to attain customer loyalty and retain it as well. The major threat facing the company is competition from other companies in the industry who seem to be more aggressive and are having consumer-targeted products. This has made the company shed some markets to these competitors (Peter, 2006).

Scope marketing opportunities

Opportunities are positives that a company can utilize for its benefits, one of the most outstanding opportunities that the company has is growth in globalization. Opportunities for the company are dependent on both the internal and external assessment criteria of the company’s profile of operation (Kotler & Armstrong, 2001). Some of the underlying opportunities for this company about the macro environment are the diversification of its activities.

When operating in more than one country, the company should ensure it well understands the marketing approach that it should implement for its success. Different countries call for different marketing approach depending with the people living in the area. There are some green markets or some markets that have not been fully utilized that the company should think of diversifying to, some of these are in developing countries who may be in need of basic phones (Hooley and Saunders, 1993).

With changes in markets and economic situation, different people are having different tastes; the company should aim at establishing niche markets with the available markets. For instance, the growth of the youthful population can have a niche to have highly integrated phones that can perform different tasks; this should be in the areas that the company should be going. It should not shy off to take challenge from its competitors like Apple and Androids who are driving the market through innovations (Michael 1997).

When the above opportunities have been seen and well ventured, the company is likely to have a growing profit gain as sales are likely to grow; on the other hand, when the company develops new products with times and aim at fulfilling consumer needs, it will likely win consumer confidence that grows loyalty with the company’s products. The viability of a new venture is dependent on how well the opportunity has been seen, tapped, and structures to venture in it have been developed (Earl, 1996).

Other products that Nokia should consider

Although the market is saturated with customer-focused products, Nokia still can come up with other innovative products to grow its portfolio. An area that seems green and still not ventured in is solar charged laptops: many people today are using laptops in their day-to-day activities, however they are limited by the life of their batteries. Laptops are electronic gadget, which must depend with a reliable source of electricity to be recharged. The company should think of coming up with policies and develop the products.

The innovation of solar-based laptops should target countries with high potential in laptop markets and they experience large spells of solar energy. They should be fitted with photoelectric cells that allow self-charging when exposed to solar energy. When such products are developed, the company is likely to remain competitive in the electronic gadgets industry.

Caribbean and African countries have not been fully utilized, the company can still venture in the markets and dominate them; in most of these countries, the company should look into low income earners thus it should provide phones and other electronic gadgets that fit these markets.

Diversification to solar laptops and venturing more aggressively in Caribbean and African countries is in line with the company’s mission, vision, purpose, objective as well as positioning statement. It will lead to an increased sales, increased profits , as well as customer base; the net result is dominance in the electronic industry.

Earl, P. 1996. Management, Marketing and the Competitive Process. Williston: American International Distribution Corporation.

Hooley J., Saunders, J. 1993. Competitive Strategy: the Key to Marketing Strategy. New York: Prentice Hall.

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Ketels, C., 2006. Michael Porter’s Competitiveness Framework: Recent Learnings and New Research Priorities. Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade. 6(2),pp. 115-136.

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Zi-Lin, L. , Kwanghui and Pho-Kam, W., 2006. Entry and Competitive Dynamics in the Mobile Telecommunications Market. Research Policy. 35(8), pp. 1147-1165.

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• 1. NOKIA CASE STUDY KEERTHANA B S SOWMYA C L AKSHAY M R GAWLI SOPAN BALIRAM SHARAN G VARUN B SAMBIT MISHRA SUBMITTED BY :
• 2. Nokia History  Long history of successful change and innovation Adaptable to shifts in markets and technologies.  Humble beginning One Paper Mill Cables Paper Products Industrial Electronics Telecommunication
• 3. Timeline 1960 • Nokia first entered the telecommunications equipment market • Electronics department was established at Finnish Cable. 1967 • Nokia took its current form as Nokia Corporation • rubber, cable, forestry, electronics and power generation. 1982 • Nokia introduced the first fully-digital local telephone exchange in Europe.
• 4. 1990 • Nokia made a strategic decision to make telecommunications as a core business. • Goal of establishing leadership in every major global market. 1991 • The first GSM call was made with a Nokia phone over the Nokia-built network of a Finnish operator called Radiolinja. 1998 • Nokia was the world leader in mobile phones, a position it enjoyed for more than a decade 2011 • Nokia joined forces with Microsoft to strengthen its position in the highly competitive Smartphone market.
• 5. Nokia’s Entry in India • Nokia entered India in 1995. • Nokia’s arrival came a year after India’s telecom sector opened up to private companies and the first cellular services licenses were given out.
• 6. Nokia Success story • First Indian ringtone “Saare Jahan Se Accha”– on a Nokia 5110 handset. • The ring tone was popular at that time. 1998 • Introduced its first phone with a user menu in Hindi, in Nokia 3210 handset. 2000 • Introduced its first camera phone – Nokia 7650.2002 • Introduced its Nokia 1100 – the company’s first made-for-India phone. 2003
• 7. • Nokia introduced text messaging in Hindi. • Introduced the first Wi-Fi enabled phone – Nokia Communicator N9500 2004 • User interfaces in other Indian languages. • First firm to set up a manufacturing unit for mobile phones at Sriperumbudur, Chennai. 2006 • Launched its first regional news portal in India • In May 2007, Nokia chose India for the global launch of its handset – Asha 501. 2007 • It launched Nokia Life – information tools on mobile phone handsets – for the first time in India. • Nokia had 500 million mobile subscribers in India. 2009
• 8. Strengths 1. Experience 2. Largest network of selling & distribution 3. Strong customer relation 4. The biggest strength of the company is their brand name. 5. Wide range of products for all class 6. High Resale value compared to other competitors 7. Durability 8. Long battery life
• 9. Weakness 1. Low voice quality. 2. Less stylish in low priced products. 3. Heavy sets. 4. Unlike I phone apple, Nokia N97 is complex, tough and not user friendly. 5. Took a long time to enter the highly productive and booming Smartphone market. 6. Some of Nokia’s products are not affordable for middle and lower class consumers.
• 10. Opportunities 1. New growth markets. 2. Well designed and styled sets. 3. Increase their presence in 3G & edge market 4. Mini notebooks 5. The Microsoft-Nokia deal is a win-win situation for both companies. The deal possesses great opportunity if both utilize resources in a proper way. 6. Opportunities to expand the range of products and their prices. Also bring in new features and applications on to Windows OS.
• 11. Threats 1. China mobiles – It has made exact copy of Nokia N96 and they provide more features in less cost. 2. Sales may decline due to global economic downturn 3. Strong competition from other Smartphone companies will make it hard for Nokia to maintain and expand their market share.
• 12. SWOT Analysis of Nokia Models
• 13. Failures Of Nokia  Failure of Symbian OS : - lack of applications and UI (User Interface).  Wrong Deal with Windows : - Windows which was new in the field to regain its status was the biggest mistake the company made.  NOKIA Became Laggard in Smartphone Market : - Stiff competition from Samsung and Apple, and lack on focus on innovation was the big reason of collapse.
• 14. Contd…  Failure to Implement the Right Umbrella Branding Strategy: Apple was the first phone to use the strategy of umbrella branding using iPhone as an umbrella brand and then building subsequent models each year. Samsung was quick in identifying this concept and they started building their high end phones with Galaxy S series.  Nokia on the other hand used an umbrella brand in the N series and recently the Lumia series, but they failed to create buzz among customers
• 15. Make In India A major new national program. Designed to facilitate investment. Foster innovation. Enhance skill development. Protect intellectual property. And build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure. There's never been A better time to make in india.
• 16. Wow ! Made In India 1. Giant assembly plant of VIs and component suppliers, by hand with cheap labour 2. 8,000 full time jobs out of a figure of 30,000 ; mostly women 3. Effective transportations cost, flown via cargo jumbo jets 4. Jijits and widgets from Shenzhen and Dongguan in China 5. India production share ; cardboard packets i.e. less than 5% of unit cost 6. Even components as simple as keyboard and charger and other low tech items are not in fortune of Sriperumbudur plant.
• 17. Sriperumbudur Plant Assets Freeze
• 18. Timeline Of Chennai Issue 8-Jan-13 • India’s Income Tax department inspects the Chennai factory 21-Mar-13 • The Income Tax Department issues Rs 2,080 crore tax demand (later rectified to Rs 2,649 crore) on Nokia India. 17-Apr-13 • The Delhi High court asks the Income Tax Department to re- examine its claim against Nokia and not to take any further coercive action.
• 19. 8-May-13 • At Nokia India’s request, Finland invokes the Mutual Agreement Procedure (‘MAP’) under the DTAA, asking the competent authorities in India to seek an agreement on the application of the DTAA 31-May-13 • The Commission er of Income Tax (Appeals) dismisses Nokia India’s appeal 3-Sep-13 • Nokia announces that it intends to sell its Devices & Services division to Microsoft 25-Sep-13 • India’s Income Tax Department freezes all assets of Nokia India
• 20. 12-Dec-13 • The Delhi High Court agrees to unfreeze Nokia India’s assets in return for the deposit of Rs 2,250 crore into an escrow account 12-Feb-14 • Nokia India announces it will appeal the decision of the Delhi High Court to the Indian Supreme Court 14-Mar-14 • India’s Supreme Court dismisses Nokia India’s asset freeze appeal, allowing the Delhi High Court order to stay in force.
• 21. 21-Apr-14 • Nokia confirms that the Chennai factory will be excluded from the Microsoft deal, due to the asset freeze imposed by the Income Tax Department 25-Apr-14 • Nokia globally completes the sale of substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft. 6-Oct-14 • After Microsoft ends its transitional services agreement (TSA) , Nokia announces from November 1 operations will be suspended 31-Oct-14 • The last working day of the Chennai factory.
• 22. Conclusion  Nokia has been an industry leader for many years however the market has changed quickly and Nokia must right itself.  There is a significant risk for Microsoft it should deliver a world class OS or otherwise the customers will turn to Apple and android.  The main reason for why Nokia Can’t MAKE IN INDIA is the Chennai Scam.
• 23. Thank you 

Case Study 4: The Collapse of Nokia’s Mobile Phone Business

• First Online: 30 July 2018

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This chapter provides a wisdom-oriented reading of one of the most spectacular business failures of recent times: the collapse of Nokia mobile phones between 2007 and 2015. Using executive biographies and other published accounts of Nokia’s organisational patterns, the chapter attempts to offer a more balanced explanation of the processes behind Nokia’s inability to respond to the changing industry circumstances. The following analysis pays attention to the shaping of Nokia’s organisational culture. Company and its new leadership adopted a professional, no-nonsense approach in the aftermath of the problems of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The new generation of managers believed in a rational mindset supported by a bureaucratic organisational form. Leaning on a superior technological competence within the mobile phone sector, Nokia was capable of ultimately becoming the market leader. However, in 2007, with two major players, Apple and Google, joining the business, the established rules of competitive dynamics were irrevocably changed. Focus shifted to software and applications. Nokia’s risk-aversive and closed organisational culture could not respond in a situation where an open search for new innovations and a cooperative internal working mode were needed. An analysis of the development of Nokia’s organisational psyche following the emergence of a new generation of managers and executives highlights the role of local beliefs in using philosophical wisdom in critical circumstances. Nokia and its leadership were not able to abandon the outmoded habits and structures, as these had become integrated with the very identity of the company.

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Peltonen, T. (2019). Case Study 4: The Collapse of Nokia’s Mobile Phone Business. In: Towards Wise Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91719-1_6

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A Top International Negotiation Case Study in Business: The Microsoft-Nokia Deal

International negotiation topics in business: merging two distinct corporate cultures with as little conflict as possible.

By PON Staff — on January 25th, 2024 / International Negotiation

We sometimes require counterparts to meet certain conditions before agreeing to enter into talks. Negotiating conditions to your participation in dealmaking can be a powerful move, but it also carries some risks that need to be carefully considered. And international negotiation brings on more challenges than most. 

Let’s look at the international negotiation case study of Microsoft’s decision to purchase Finnish mobile phone company Nokia’s mobile device business for $9.5 billion. The deal, which closed in 2014, quickly proved disastrous: Microsoft wrote off nearly all of the deal’s value and laid off thousands of workers in July 2015. Although there were many reasons the deal was a bad bet for Microsoft, a negotiating condition that Nokia set before agreeing to take part in serious negotiations may have offered one warning sign. 

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International Negotiation Behind the Microsoft and Nokia Deal: Nokia Builds Its BATNA

Microsoft and Nokia had been partners since 2011, when the Finnish firm began installing Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system (OS) on its smartphones. But Nokia lagged far behind smartphone competitors in innovation and market share, and the Windows Phone OS, used primarily on Nokia handsets, was failing to meet expectations.

In January 2013, Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer called Risto Siilasmaa, the chairman of Nokia’s board of directors, to raise the possibility of Microsoft buying divisions of Nokia. Soon after, the two men discussed the idea at a conference in Spain. They agreed inefficiencies existed in their agreement and brainstormed solutions, from minor tweaks to business mergers, reports Ina Fried on the technology news website AllThingsD.com . 

Nokia considered letting its deal with Microsoft lapse and trying to revive its handset business by adapting its smartphones to Google’s Android system. By cultivating this strong BATNA , or best alternative to a negotiated agreement, Nokia gained the power to walk away from a subpar offer from Microsoft.

Indeed, after hearing Microsoft’s first formal pitch for an acquisition in New York, Siilasmaa informed Ballmer that they were too far apart on price and other issues, such as which company would own Here, Nokia’s mapping service. Nokia executives believed they needed to hold on to their ability to sell Here to other companies. Meanwhile, Microsoft felt it couldn’t keep pace with competitors without controlling the mapping technology it was using in its phones, tablets, and PCs, and on the web, according to AllThingsD.com. Subsequent meetings between the parties in London and Finland went nowhere .  

A Deal Takes Shape

A breakthrough came when Nokia informed Microsoft that it would proceed with formal talks only if Microsoft agreed to abide by certain negotiating conditions , most notably a commitment to set up a financing source for Nokia and the caveat that Here was off the table. 

Microsoft agreed. At a meeting in New York, the parties happened upon a solution to the question of who would control the mapping service. Why not share the code, with Nokia retaining intellectual-property rights to Here? Nokia realized it could grant Microsoft a license to access and customize Here’s source code and own any improvements it made. Nokia would retain ownership of Here and the power to license the service to other companies. Ballmer and Siilasmaa shook hands on the outlines of an agreement, which was filled out over the next two months. 

The Risks of Setting Negotiating Conditions

A negotiating condition is an “if” statement—such as, “If you agree to take this issue off the table, I’ll negotiate”—that qualifies your entry into a negotiation or acceptance of a deal. Setting negotiating conditions can be a particularly useful tool when it comes to improving the appeal of another party’s onerous request or demand, notes Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School professor Guhan Subramanian

But insisting that the other party agree to certain terms as a precondition to negotiation can be risky. In their 2012 labor dispute, for example, the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra said for many months that they would negotiate with the orchestra’s management only after a lockout ended. But management was loath to accept this negotiating condition , aware that the players would have little motivation to accept significant salary cuts if they were performing and being paid. 

Before stipulating a negotiating condition , remember that your counterpart will weigh the costs and benefits of accepting your negotiating conditions against their alternatives away from the table. If you have a strong BATNA , as Nokia appeared to, then it may make sense to take this risk. But note that even in this case, Microsoft made inroads on the mapping service issue that Nokia had claimed was nonnegotiable. Microsoft may have salvaged the deal by refusing to assume that Nokia’s negotiating conditions were nonnegotiable—a move Microsoft’s leaders likely later came to regret.

Two key lessons on negotiating terms and conditions emerge from these failed negotiation examples . First, you should demand only those conditions that are truly deal breakers for you. Second, try to craft negotiating conditions in ways that provide benefits or concessions to your counterpart. Even when you have the power to get what you want, your efforts to help your counterparts get what they want will pay off in the form of stronger relationships and longer-lasting deals.

Have you had experience negotiating conditions to a deal within an international negotiation? If so, how did the process work out?

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No Responses to “A Top International Negotiation Case Study in Business: The Microsoft-Nokia Deal”

3 responses to “a top international negotiation case study in business: the microsoft-nokia deal”.

There are no more phones with ‘Nokia Lumia’. They are all ‘Microsoft Lumia’. Microsoft completely scraped the company and rebranded the devices. Nokia got a bad future

There has been a completely mixed response to whether the deal was good or was a decision taken in a hurry. Nokia surely can use this incoming cash flow on some great products, but the issue now is that Nokia was recognized by its Mobile Devices and there will be almost zero difference between a new product category (coz no more mobile phones)coming under the NOKIA brand name or a completely new Brand name because they will both have zero popularity in that field.

It would probably be good for Nokia to come up with a new brand name and leave the Nokia legacy behind in its Nokia Research Department and nowhere else. As you could feel, this deal saddens me 🙁

It’s 2015 now buddy and Nokia’s all of microsoft now. You should be a lot sad now 😛

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Preparing for negotiation.

Understanding how to arrange the meeting space is a key aspect of preparing for negotiation. In this video, Professor Guhan Subramanian discusses a real world example of how seating arrangements can influence a negotiator’s success. This discussion was held at the 3 day executive education workshop for senior executives at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Guhan Subramanian is the Professor of Law and Business at the Harvard Law School and Professor of Business Law at the Harvard Business School.

Articles & Insights

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• Power and Negotiation: Advice on First Offers
• Sales Negotiation Techniques
• M&A Negotiation Strategy: Missed Opportunities in Musk’s Twitter Deal
• How to Negotiate in Good Faith
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• Dear Negotiation Coach: Coping with a Change-of-Control Provision
• Value Conflict: What It Is and How to Resolve It
• Advanced Negotiation Strategies and Concepts: Hostage Negotiation Tips for Business Negotiators
• Negotiating the Good Friday Agreement
• Communication and Conflict Management: Responding to Tough Questions
• How to Maintain Your Power While Engaging in Conflict Resolution
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• Negotiating Change During the Covid-19 Pandemic
• AI Negotiation in the News
• Crisis Communication Examples: What’s So Funny?
• Crisis Negotiation Skills: The Hostage Negotiator’s Drill
• Bargaining in Bad Faith: Dealing with “False Negotiators”
• Managing Difficult Employees, and Those Who Just Seem Difficult
• How to Deal with Difficult Customers
• Negotiating with Difficult Personalities and “Dark” Personality Traits
• Consensus-Building Techniques
• 7 Tips for Closing the Deal in Negotiations
• Writing the Negotiated Agreement
• The Winner’s Curse: Avoid This Common Trap in Auctions
• Understanding Exclusive Negotiation Periods in Business Negotiations
• Perspective Taking and Empathy in Business Negotiations
• Negotiation Case Studies: Google’s Approach to Dispute Resolution
• What is Alternative Dispute Resolution?
• Alternative Dispute Resolution Examples: Restorative Justice
• Choose the Right Dispute Resolution Process
• Union Strikes and Dispute Resolution Strategies
• How an Authoritarian Leadership Style Blocks Effective Negotiation
• Paternalistic Leadership: Beyond Authoritarianism
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Leadership Styles: Uncovering Bias and Generating Mutual Gains
• The Contingency Theory of Leadership: A Focus on Fit
• Servant Leadership and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge
• Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Training: Mediation Curriculum
• What Makes a Good Mediator?
• Why is Negotiation Important: Mediation in Transactional Negotiations
• The Mediation Process and Dispute Resolution
• Negotiations and Logrolling: Discover Opportunities to Generate Mutual Gains
• What Is Distributive Negotiation?
• Negotiation Team Strategy
• Negotiation Techniques To Get New Business Partnerships Off on the Right Foot
• Daniel Kahneman Showed Negotiators a More Rational Path
• Why Negotiations Fail
• Negotiation Journal celebrates 40th anniversary, new publisher, and diamond open access in 2024
• Ethics and Negotiation: 5 Principles of Negotiation to Boost Your Bargaining Skills in Business Situations
• 10 Negotiation Training Skills Every Organization Needs
• Trust in Negotiation: Does Gender Matter?
• Use a Negotiation Preparation Worksheet for Continuous Improvement
• How to Negotiate Pay in an Interview
• How to Negotiate a Higher Salary
• Renegotiate Salary to Your Advantage
• How to Counter a Job Offer: Avoid Common Mistakes
• Salary Negotiation: How to Ask for a Higher Salary
• New Great Negotiator Case and Video: Christiana Figueres, former UNFCCC Executive Secretary
• New Simulation: International Business Acquisition Negotiated Online
• Teach Your Students to Take Their Mediation Skills to the Next Level
• Check Out Videos from the PON 40th Anniversary Symposium
• Check Out the All-In-One Curriculum Packages!
• How to Negotiate Mutually Beneficial Noncompete Agreements
• What is a Win-Win Negotiation?
• How to Win at Win-Win Negotiation
• Labor Negotiation Strategies
• How to Create Win-Win Situations

PON Publications

• Negotiation Data Repository (NDR)
• New Frontiers, New Roleplays: Next Generation Teaching and Training
• Negotiating Transboundary Water Agreements
• Learning from Practice to Teach for Practice—Reflections From a Novel Training Series for International Climate Negotiators
• Insights From PON’s Great Negotiators and the American Secretaries of State Program
• Gender and Privilege in Negotiation

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At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.

As a B2B technology innovation leader, we are pioneering networks that sense, think, and act by leveraging our work across mobile, fixed, and cloud networks. In addition, we create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs. 

Service providers, enterprises and partners worldwide trust Nokia to deliver secure, reliable and sustainable networks today – and work with us to create the digital services and applications of the future.

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Our presence in India

We have been an integral part of India’s remarkable progress in technology and connectivity over the last 27 years. Our journey has witnessed several remarkable milestones, including first ever GSM call in India in 1995 on a Nokia phone over a Nokia supplied network, bringing 3G services in 2011, pioneering 4G/LTE technology in 2012, and introducing 5G to India in 2022.

We are a strong supplier and service provider to the leading public and private operators, large enterprises, and utility companies.

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• Every call in India touches Nokia element somewhere in the call flow
• 1/3 of overall mobile subscribers in served by Nokia
• 95% of Volte calls on Nokia IMS Core every day
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• 65% of Fiber-to-Home high bandwidth customers being served by Nokia equipment

Making 5G mainstream

5G services in India were launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 1st October 2022, at the 6th edition of India Mobile Congress (IMC). Nokia is partnering with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel for implementing one of the world’s biggest and fastest 5G roll out in the country.

Nokia is already manufacturing 5G NR and 5G Massive MIMO equipment at its Chennai factory to address the domestic market and as well as the global markets. Our Global Delivery Centres in Chennai and Noida are supporting the Indian CSPs with their 5G roll out and infrastructure built up while our R&D centre in Bangalore is playing a key role in developing 5G use-cases and local ecosystem.   

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• Overall investment of INR 3800+ crores
• Invested INR 1000+ crores in manufacturing
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Engaged with Vodafone Idea over 5G rollout, says Nokia India head Sanjay Malik

First 5G private networks to go live within two quarters in India: Nokia executive

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Nokia report reveals three-fold increase in mobile data usage in India over the last five years

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R&D centers: Nokia's commitment to India is deeply engraved in the way we harness the potential of local talent for research and development. One of the 4 main global R&D sites for the company, the Bangalore R&D centre is undertaking research in various advanced global telecommunication technologies like telco cloud, big data analytics, software applications, next-generation core, IP, Optical, 5G and 6G.

Our Chennai R&D centre, the largest R&D facility for Fixed Networks, focuses on access broadband technologies Including Copper, Fiber, Software Defined Access Networks, Management Solutions, Broadband Devices and Services. The centre has a best-in-class lab fostering innovation, defining the access market and promoting fiber for everything.

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The factory was the first to start production of 5G radio equipment in India . It was also the first in India to deploy ‘real-world’ application of Industry 4.0 including AR/VR, automation and analytics, to enhance operational efficiency and productivity. It fulfils 63% of its energy requirement with green energy and is aiming to use 100% green energy by 2025.

Global Delivery Centers : Nokia was a pioneer in setting up its largest Global Delivery Centers in Chennai and Noida. These centers today employ over 2300 highly skilled employees in India who provide life cycle support to networks across over 100 countries.

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Broadband TV News

Independent. Since 2003

Nokia and Vodafone conduct world’s first trial of L4S technology over end-to-end PON network

April 11, 2024 12.16 Europe/London By Broadband TV News Correspondent

If successful, the technology could improve the experience of residential customers that use the internet for video conferencing and gaming.

Nokia’s research arm Nokia Bell Labs and Vodafone’s Fixed Access Center of Excellence recently performed the world’s first demonstration of L4S running over PON in Vodafone’s lab in Newbury.

The demonstration was performed on an end-to-end fixed access network built with Nokia technology. It consisted of a broadband network gateway (BNG), a PON optical line terminal (OLT), multiple PON optical network terminals (ONTs) and WiFi access points. The tests showed extremely low and consistent end-to-end latencies when travelling across every element of the network.

Pioneered by Nokia Bell Labs, L4S stands for Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable throughput. It is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard technology that tackles a significant source of peak latency on the Internet: queuing delays. Queuing delay happens when packets wait idly in buffers across the network, for instance in routers and modems, before being forwarded.

L4S networking technology consistently achieves near-zero packet queuing delay, no matter how much load the network experiences. By eliminating queuing delays, L4S removes big variations in latency without compromising network speeds. In the lab tests, Vodafone and Nokia Bell Labs measured consistent1 latencies of 1.05ms at local Ethernet ports running over a fully congested access network (BNG to ONT), and just 12.1ms when including a fully congested WiFi link as the final connection.

While the Vodafone and Nokia Bell Labs tests were conducted using PON networks, L4S can be implemented over any access technology, wireless or wireline, and applied to any latency-dependent application.

Azimeh Sefidcon, Head of Network Systems and Security Research, Bell Labs at Nokia, said: “These highly encouraging results show L4S will unshackle any real-time application that would normally be constrained by high latency. Videoconferencing, cloud-gaming, augmented reality and even the remote operations of drones would run flawlessly across the internet, without experiencing any significant queuing delays.”

Gavin Young, Head of Fixed Access Centre of Excellence at Vodafone, said: “As a leading broadband provider, Vodafone aims to give customers a faster, more responsive, and reliable service unhindered by lag even during peak hours. L4S is an exciting technology with huge potential to achieve this goal, as well as deliver a more interactive and tactile internet experience for our customers.”

In November, Nokia Bell Labs and Hololight, a leading innovator in enterprise XR solutions, created a proof of concept demonstrating how L4S could support multiple simultaneous XR users over the same wireless connection without sacrificing performance.

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