Nokia in the early 2000s had its best financial results, however, it struggled to keep up with the new evolving market environment of technology. As Nokia had relied on its hardware rather than its software capability’s as the market was evolving into the more advanced software-based market, for example in 2007 Steve Jobs released Apples first iPhone which was a revolutionary device which is the mark of the start of the “smart touchscreen phone” era which showcased new revolutionary software. This shift from its competitors caused Nokia’s demise as they were too entrenched in their old operating systems and hardware.
It would be easy for me to blame Apple, Google and Samsung. However, the cause of the fall of this mobile phone giant was that Nokia had begun to collapse from within well before any of these companies entered the mobile communications market. In the times of technological advancements and rapid market changes. After analysing the story of Nokia, I thought that this story provides beneficial lessons for any company wanting to retain a prominent position in their given industry.
Nokia between 1996 and 2000 their profits went up 503% and had an increase of 150% in employees working for Nokia. This sudden increase in size came at a cost. Nokia’s main development teams found themselves under increasing short-term pressure with products and production issues and were then unable to dedicate any valuable time and resources to innovate their products. This lack of innovation was a big element to their demise. Therefore, when new rival companies came out with new innovative products with new platforms this caused the Nokia’s operating systems to be obsolete. In my opinion, it was both factors which caused Nokia’s demise as their lack of concentration on innovation and the slow responsiveness from Nokia to adapt to new products that were being introduced to the market.
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