What was the most successful European
company of the 1990s?
Easy. The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer
Nokia Oyj.
And the most disappointing one of the
2000s?
Easy again. Nokia.
Nokia is in the news lately. It is probably up for sale. Samsung has given it the thumbs down and Microsoft
is discreet about it. However, this blog
is a part of a series of articles on what we may learn from Nokia and how they brought
about their downfall.
Nokia did not respond to the Market and the
Customer. This is a violation of everything
we learnt in Marketing 101.
Nokia was so focused on sameness that it
assumed that a Nokia user either calls people or sends a text message. There is not much variation between the Nokia
6600 (2003-2004) and Nokia N8 (2010). By
variation, I mean not in terms of how the camera graduated or the processor
evolved. Look at the basic layout of the
Symbian Operating System in both the cases.
There is nothing exciting about it.
Nokia cell phones did not have the ability
to block a call or a text message. One
had to resort to expensive apps. How
could Nokia not have figured this out?
Well only one way – “The Customer be
damned. We are Nokia”.
Nokia had this huge range of cell phones
that essentially did the same thing.
This is a con, on the consumer, who is now under the illusion that there
is a wide range of the Nokia cell phones available as a choice. Have we not heard before that “Less is More”. Look how Apple is handling its range. It is focused and concise. Samsung is doing what Nokia did – throwing out
this huge mindless range of cell phones where there is not much of a difference
in what the cell phone does.
Nokia cell phones were expensive. People paid top dollar for it. Should the company not have focused on
delivering value to the customer?
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